Pacific Journalism Review (Pacific Media Centre, School of Communication Studies, Auckland University of Technology)
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REVIEW: Celebrated French Rainbow Warrior investigation echoes Watergate
No full textReview of: La Troisième Équipe—Souvenirs de l’Affaire Greenpeace, by Edwy Plenel. Paris: France. Editions Don Quichotte, 2015, 140 pp. ISBN 978-235-949-462-4If you visit the headquarters of the newspaper Le Monde in Paris, on the wall facing you in the main hall after you’ve passed security you’ll find, side-by-side, the large reproductions of two covers of the daily newspaper which has been for decades the hallmark of the French intelligentsia. Testimonies of passed times, nearly three decades separate the one on the right side of the wall, ‘Marshal Stalin has died’ (March, 1953) from the one on the left, ‘The Rainbow Warrior would have been sunk by a third team of French military’ (September, 1985). Why did someone choose to juxtapose two stories that bear no relation? Maybe it is because both events marked a new point of departure in the psyche of the Parisian Left: Stalin’s death opened the key to the Soviet Pandora's box, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior 30 years ago by a French secret service squad in Auckland harbour to prevent Greenpeace from protesting against nuclear weapons testing in French Polynesia is now seen as the most grotesque illustration of François Mitterrand’s presidency (1982-1995) renunciation of his Socialist Party’s stated values
POLITICAL JOURNALISM: Censorship in Australia: Intrusions into media freedom flying beneath the international free expression radar
No full textAustralia has ranked among the top 30 nations in recent world press freedom surveys published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Freedom House and is broadly regarded as a substantially free Western liberal democracy. This article considers how the methodologies of those organisations assess the impact upon media freedom of a range of recent decisions and actions by Australian politicians, judges and government agencies. There is considerable evidence of a shift towards official secrecy and suppression of information flow. However, according to this analysis such developments are unlikely to impact significantly on Australia’s international ranking in media freedom indices. This article uses the methodologies of RSF and Freedom House to explore whether the international free expression organisations’ criteria are justifiably weighted towards violence against journalists, their imprisonment and formal anti-press laws and might allow for a nuanced comparison of other evidence of constraints on the news media in developed democracies
POLITICAL JOURNALISM: Shield laws in Australia: Legal and ethical implications for journalists and their confidential sources
No full textThis article examines whether Australia’s current shield law regime meets journalists’ expectations and whistleblower needs in an era of unprecedented official surveillance capabilities. According to the peak journalists’ organisation, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), two recent Australian court cases ‘despite their welcome outcome for our members, clearly demonstrate Australia’s patchy and disparate journalist shields fail to do their job’ (MEAA, 2014a). Journalists’ recent court experiences exposed particular shield law inadequacies, including curious omissions or ambiguities in legislative drafting (Fernandez, 2014c, p. 131); the ‘unusual difficulty’ that a case may present (Hancock Prospecting No 2, 2014, para 7); the absence of definitive statutory protection in three jurisdictions—Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory (Fernandez, 2014b, p. 26); and the absence of uniform shield laws where such law is available (Fernandez, 2014b, pp. 26-28). This article examines the following key findings of a national survey of practising journalists: (a) participants’ general profile; (b) familiarity with shield laws; (c) perceptions of shield law effectiveness and coverage; (d) perceptions of story outcomes when relying on confidential sources; and (e) concerns about official surveillance and enforcement. The conclusion briefly considers the significance and limitations of this research; future research directions; some reform and training directions; and notes that the considerable efforts to secure shield laws in Australia might be jeopardised without better training of journalists about the laws themselves and how surveillance technologies and powers might compromise source confidentiality
FIJI: The evolution of media laws in Fiji and impacts on journalism and society
No full textThis article examines the cultural, political, ethnic and economic forces that have shaped the evolution of media legislation in Fiji and the evident impacts on journalism and society. The article argues that despite Fiji’s British colonial heritage and its smooth transition to democracy after Independence in 1970, the spectre of stricter legislation has been a constant threat. This threat finally materialised in the post-2006 coup period, when media-related laws underwent a major overhaul, including the promulgation of the punitive Media Industry Development Decree 2010, which was later ‘preserved’ under the 2013 Constitution despite being labelled ‘undemocratic’. The 2006 coup leader Voreqe Bainimarama, who was decisively voted back into power as Prime Minister in the 2014 General Election, justified the media reforms in the name of social stability and progress. This research uses document review to examine the genesis, nature and efficacy of Fiji’s media-related laws, from the colonial to postcolonial periods, and beyond
FIJI: Honest Iago? A media and academic freedom case study
No full textThis case study involves issues of academic freedom and media freedom at the regional University of the South Pacific (USP) in a dispute between the senior administration of the university and two journalism lecturers over the impact of media releases and media comments made between May and July 2014, about the military-backed government and the right to freedom of expression. In May 2014, just four months before Fiji’s post-coup general election, a student at USP, suddenly and unexpectedly, had his scholarship cancelled. As a result, USP student journalists wrote a radio news story, which was broadcast on the USP radio station Radio Pasifik. A few days later, the scholarship was reinstated. Shortly afterwards, the USP journalism lecturers issued a joint media release criticising the military government on two issues: (1) their support of torture; and (2) the refusal of accreditation for two senior Fiji journalists to attend an international conference being held in Nadi. This action brought the two lecturers into an acrimonious dialogue with the USP administration. The article reviews the media coverage and examines the issue from the perspective of the head of the journalism programme
Why the where matters: A sense of place imperative for teaching better Indigenous affairs reporting
Get PDFMuch Indigenous affairs journalism in the Western Australian state capital of Perth reproduces colonial discourse and perpetuates racist stereotypes of Aboriginal people. Against this background the traditional custodians of Perth, the Noongar people, have struggled to find a media voice. Meanwhile, observers in several countries have critiqued a shift from journalism about specific places toward journalism concerned with no place in particular. Spurred by globalisation, this shift has de-emphasised the ‘where?’ question in the ‘what, where, who, why, how and when?’ template of journalistic investigation. Reporting from a project in which journalism students collaborated with Noongar community organisations, we argue that an understanding of Indigenous Australians’ profound connection to place can inform journalists about the underlying character of places about which they report. We suggest that working with Indigenous people can transform the way journalists conceptualise their careers, and help secure a sense of place for Indigenous people in the media. Finally, collaborating with Indigenous people can teach journalists to view their professional practices through a sense of place lens, re-emphasising the ‘where?’ question in its application to both geographic place and the realm of a journalist’s imagination
REVIEW: Noted: Disengagement and idiocy
No full textBook review of: American Democracy, by Andrew Perrin. Cambridge: Polity Press. 2014, 228pp. ISBN 978-0-7456622-32-9. Perrin's study of American democracy begins by stating what has become a commonplace of fear in many democracies, that people have become cynical and distrusting of the democractic system and that apathy and political disengagement are widespread. Only multi-millionaries backed by capitalist corporations with the deepest pockets can afford to run for office in the United States and nobody in power seems to be in any hurry to do anything about it
ENVIRONMENT: Atolls in the ocean—canaries in the mine? Australian journalism contesting climate change impacts in the Pacific
Get PDFThis article has two complementary aspects, empirical and theoretical. Empirically, it examines the reportage of the two most prolific Australian journalists on the threat posed by climate change to low-lying Pacific island states, reporting over the two-year period leading up to and following the high-profile COP15 summit in Copenhagen in 2009. It was at that summit that the concerns of the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) were given extensive media coverage and managed to dominate the agenda for several days, to the consternation of some other summit participants. COP15 affords a good case study because the media coverage of this issue was variegated and heavily contested, contrary to earlier scholarly claims about an allegedly mono-dimensional quality to the journalism about climate change in the Pacific Ocean (Nash & Bacon, 2013)
FRONTLINE: ‘Cloud forest’, court battles and competing narratives: A Pacific research journalism case study
Get PDFThis Frontline article documents and analyses the process of creating a piece of journalism about an Indigenous-run legal bid in the Solomon Islands to challenge potentially corrupt government logging approvals. It also documents the responses of 12 editors to whom the piece was presented to, including the reasons, in terms of standard newsworthiness criterion, that some of them gave for not running the article. This process illustrates how the criteria exclude coverage of some international issues. According to lawyers working on it, this case could set important legal precedents that change the way companies deal with both the government and traditional land owners in the Solomon Islands. Spreading its relevance to other places, the story, when told at length, differs from and therefore challenges stereotypical narratives about PacificIslanders. In doing so, it contributes to a process called ‘social bridging’ described by Ward (2010) as being an aim of ethical journalistic practice. The writing and publication process are analysed with reference to Foucault’s (1972) model of discourse and enunciative modalities.Pictured: Figure 1: ‘Cloud forest’: Mt Rano from the crater rim near Mt Veve on Kolombangara Island. Image: Andrew Cox/Pacific Scoo
Frontline Interview: Whistleblowers inside the Australian building racket
Get PDFMultiple Walkley Award winners Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker from Fairfax’s Melbourne newspaper, The Age, have rocked venerable Australian institutions to their foundations with their investigative reporting. Previous investigations have exposed drug smuggling within Australian Customs, bribery on behalf of the Reserve Bank and organised criminals’ manipulation of horse racing. The duo started this year with an investigation deemed worthy of a Royal Commission. Their reports across the Fairfax network and on the ABC’s 7.30 programme featured interviews with whistleblowers risking their lives to go on the record to publicise the relationship between Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) and organised crime. The stories also exposed registered businesses owned by major organised crime figures winning lucrative construction contracts from the Victorian state government, and dealings within the New South Wales government’s Barangaroo development. Freelance reporter and University of Technology, Sydney, Journalism Masters student Lawrence Bull spoke with Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker about their latest project in two careers full of influential investigations, ‘Inside the Building Racket’.Frontline editor: Professor Wendy Baco