Pacific Journalism Review (Pacific Media Centre, School of Communication Studies, Auckland University of Technology)
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REVIEW: The struggle for media freedom amid jihadists, gaggers and ‘democratators’
No full textRobie, D. (2015). The struggle for media freedom amid jihadists, gaggers and ‘democratators’. Pacific Journalism Review, 21(2): 197-199. Review of The New Censorship: Inside the global battle for press freedom, by Joel Simon. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. 236 pp. ISBN978-0-231-16064-3.One of the ironies of the digital revolution is that there is an illusion of growing freedom of expression and information in the world, when in fact the reverse is true. These are bleak times with growing numbers of journalists being murdered with impunity, from the Philippines to Somalia and Syria. The world’s worst mass killing of journalists was the so-called Maguindanao, or Ampatuan (named after the town whose dynastic family ordered the killings), massacre when 32 journalists were brutally murdered in the Philippines in November 2009
REVIEW: Searching for the truth of book-length journalism
No full textMason, Bonita. (2015). Searching for the truth of book-length journalism. Pacific Journalism Review, 21(2): 200-203. Review of Telling True Stories: Navigating the challenges of writing narrative non-fiction, by Matthew Ricketson. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2014. 282pp. ISBN 978-1-742379-35-7Australian journalism academic and practitioner Matthew Ricketson’s new book opens with two quotes: one from South African writer Nadine Gordimer on the enduring presence of ‘beauty’ in the quest for truth; the other from US comparative literature professor Peter Brooks on the impossibility of separating our own humanity and imaginations from what we write. Gordimer has also written elsewhere of the writer’s responsibility, as a social being, to take part in their world through their writing—to become ‘more than a writer’ (1985, p. 141). The kind of writing Ricketson seeks to define, and describes, analyses and advocates in this book (much of which is also investigative), comes closest to meeting these roles and responsibilities for the non-fiction writer
REVIEW: Noted: Awakening from the slumber before too late
No full textReview of: Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism, by David Harvey. London: Profile Books. 2015, 338pp. ISBN 978-1-78125-16-4Now available in paperback for the first time, American-based scholar of Marxism David Harvey’s analysis of the current crisis in capitalism provides an intriguing and thought provoking read. Harvey’s familiarity with Marx is demonstrated throughout the book. He makes it clear, that while thoroughly grounded in the Marxist tradition, his analysis is not meant to be orthodox. The book is accessible to those not entirely familiar with Marx beyond the usual slogans, but he demands attention from his readers as he takes them through a variety of economic concepts
POLITICAL JOURNALISM: Fiji media regulation: Emerging from ‘worst of times’ to ‘best of times’?
No full textA tragic result of the repressive media environment in Fiji has been a huge brain drain within the industry. Many of the best and experienced media workers have left or been forced out. In fact, Australia and New Zealand have benefitted by the migration of some of Fiji’s senior media workers from as far back as 1987, the year of the first two military coups by Lieutenant-Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka, and more so in the past eight years since the Voreqe Bainimarama coup in December 2006. Those who have remained have either been moved to non-controversial roles or mellowed to the point of silence
FILM REVIEW: The other side of the Tūhoe raids
No full textReview of: The Price of Peace [documentary], directed by Kim Webby. English and Te Reo Māori. 2015, 87min. www.nziff.co.nz/2015/auckland/the-price-of-peace/Most New Zealanders will remember when Tūhoe activist Wairere Tame Iti shot the national flag, during a powhiri ceremony, at a Waitangi Tribunal Hearing in 2005. New Zealanders will also remember when Iti, along with three others, was tried and found guilty of firearms charges as part of what the media coined, the ‘Urewera Four’ (Gay, 2012) trial. The man with a full facial Tā moko is regarded throughout the mainstream media as somewhat of a rebel, and by the state as a ‘dangerous proto-terrorist intent on infecting New Zealand’ (Hill, 2012)
PUBLISHING: Pacific Journalism Review: Twenty years on the front line of regional identity and freedom
Get PDFPacific Journalism Review has consistently, at a good standard, honoured its 1994 founding goal: to be a credible peer-reviewed journal in the Asia-Pacific region, probing developments in journalism and media, and supporting journalism education. Global, it considers new media and social movements; ‘regional’, it promotes vernacular media, human freedoms and sustainable development. Asking how it developed, the method for this article was to research the archive, noting authors, subject matter, themes. The article concludes that one answer is the journal’s collegiate approach; hundreds of academics, journalists and others, have been invited to contribute. Second has been the dedication of its one principal editor, Professor David Robie, always somehow providing resources—at Port Moresby, Suva, and now Auckland—with a consistent editorial stance. Eclectic, not partisan, it has nevertheless been vigilant over rights, such as monitoring the Fiji coups d’etat. Watching through a media lens, it follows a ‘Pacific way’, handling hard information through understanding and consensus. It has 237 subscriptions indexed to seven databases. Open source, it receives more than 1000 site visits weekly. With ‘clientele’ mostly in Australia, New Zealand and ‘Oceania’, it extends much further afield. From 1994 to 2014, 701 articles and reviews were published, now more than 24 scholarly articles each year
PAKISTAN: Media, politics and the threats to journalists in Pakistan
Get PDFThis article examines how the fundamental right of freedom of expression for news media in Pakistan continues to be threatened both by the government and conflicting parties, an issue that is compounded by the threat to the journalists’ safety and survival. Giving examples of three Pakistani journalists who lost their lives after their investigations during the America’s so called ‘War on Terror’, the article gives an account of the nature of the dangers and threats that are faced by the journalists in Pakistan who report on armed political conflicts. Drawing on the experiences of five other journalists, who were interviewed during research visits to Pakistan in 2012 and 2014, the author also reflects on the role of journalists in the light of the social responsibility theory and explores some of the factors that contribute towards making conflict reporting a dangerous business in Pakistan.Pictured: Figure 1: The Press in Stress report in 2012. Shown in the cover image is a curbside radio-seller in Quetta. FM radio is hugely popular in Balochistan. Image: Aurangzazib Kha
Cap Bocage: Tracing the militant voice of environmental protest in New Caledonia
Get PDFThis article is an attempt to document some of the filmmaking processes and highlight some of the specific factors that determined the final form of the film Cap Bocage. I see this as an opportunity to outline more personal reflections on process. This article will firstly give context to some of the filmmaking challenges by discussing the idea of the voice of a documentary (Nichols, 2010, p. 256) as it relates to subject matter. Here I will emphasise the idea of a personal approach to story that sometimes runs adjacent to the traditional techniques one may find in more expositional work or in a purely journalistic rendering of the narrative. This article also explores two other works that concern themselves with militant struggle in New Caledonia. One is the feature length drama Rebellion (Kassowitz, 2011) and the other a documentary: Tjibaou le pardon (Dagneau, 2006). While the approach to the history of militancy in the films is different, both works are good examples of the challenges filmmakers face while tracing stories involving conflict or societal trauma.Image: Florent Eurisouké in a still from Jim Marbrook’s 2014 documentary Cap Bocage
FIJI: ‘Stifled aspirations’: The 2014 General Election under restrictive laws
No full textOn 17 September 2014, eight years after the 5 December 2006 coup, Fiji held a General Election under repressive laws curtailing freedom of expression and the media, government accountability and the judiciary. A notable number of 248 candidates aspired for the 50 parliamentary seats under the 2013 Constitution and an Electoral Decree released a few months prior to elections. In an atmosphere of lavish campaign advertisements on billboards, public transport vehicles and the print and television news media by the post-coup Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama’s political party FijiFirst, recently activated political parties struggled to have their voices heard. Two daily media companies—the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation and the Fiji Sun—displayed bias towards the FijiFirst party by providing them with excessive and preferential coverage and portraying other parties in a negative light; other media organisations attempted to give fairer coverage. The debate heated up amid crackdowns by police on ‘trouble-makers’ vandalising FijiFirst posters. The country headed for the polls as celebrations marked the release of 45 Fijian soldiers held hostage by Al-Nusra in the Golan Heights. Amid complaints by five political parties, the election was declared ‘free and fair’ by the Electoral Commission. This article, through analysis of media materials, campaigning, polling and results calculations, contends that the elections only satisfied part of the international criteria for ‘free and fair elections’
PHILIPPINES: Courageous women in media: Marcos and censorship in the Philippines
Get PDFWhen Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law in 1972, press freedom became the first casualty in the country that once boasted of being the ‘freest in Asia’. Printing presses, newspaper offices, television and radio stations were raided and padlocked. Marcos was especially fearful of the press and ordered the arrest of journalists whom he charged with conspiring with the ‘Left’. Pressured into lifting martial law after nearly 10 years, Marcos continued to censor the media, often demanding publishers to sack journalists whose writing he disapproved of. Ironically, he used the same ‘subversive writings’ as proof to Western observers that freedom of the press was alive and well under his dictatorship. This article looks at the writings of three female journalists from the Bulletin Today. The author examines the work of Arlene Babst, Ninez Cacho-Olivares, and Melinda de Jesus and how they traversed the dictator’s fickle, sometimes volatile, reception of their writing. Interviewed is Ninez Cacho-Olivare, who used humour and fairy tales in her popular column to criticise Marcos, his wife, Imelda, and even the military that would occasionally ‘invite’ her for questioning. She explains an unwritten code of conduct between Marcos and female journalists that served to shield them from total political repression