Pacific Journalism Review (Pacific Media Centre, School of Communication Studies, Auckland University of Technology)
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REVIEW: The politics of a meddler's news empire
No full textAustralian journalists have a sad history of going off to Washington to be ruined. They leave home the hope of the side but after a visit to the boiler room and a peek into the furnace they return enthralled by American ambitions and dream of becoming players in its games of power. Rupert Murdoch was one of these. Visiting Washington in 1972, the young tycoon fell under the spell of Richard Nixon and was never the same again.The flip-flops ended
REVIEW: Story telling as the hub of investigative reporting
No full textReview of: Story-based Inquiry: A manual for investigative journalists, by Mark Lee Hunter, Nils Hanson, Rana Sabbagh, Luuk Sengers, Drew Sullivan, Flemming Tait Svith and Pia Thordsen. Paris: UNESCO. 2011, 87 pp. ISBN 9789231041891 (pbk).In this book, Story-based inquiry: A manual for investigative journalists, authors Mark Lee Hunter, Nils Hanson, Rana Sabbagh, Luuk Sengers, Drew Sullivan, Flemming Tait Svith and Pia Thordsen present detailed, systematic and practical processes and procedures through which journalists can engage in investigative reporting. The authors acknowledge that, like all human activities, investigation consumes time, money and energy, but at the end it is worth the effort. This manual, published by the UNESCO head office in Paris, represents a major contribution to the literature on investigative journalism
REVIEW: Noted: Bold educational portrait
No full textReview of Tongan Ark, directed by Paul Janman. Public Films, 2012. tonganark,netTongan Ark tells a remarkable story, about a remarkable man, Futa Helu, and his one-of-a-kind, bold, unconventional university called 'Atenisi', the Tongan world for Athens. Ancient philosophy, opera and Tongan culture come together in this intimate portrait of a teacher, his school and his people as they navigate a sea of repression and doubt in a small but troubled Pacific Island kingdom.
‘Dirty little secret’: Journalism, privacy and the case of Sharleen Spiteri
Get PDFIn both the Australian and British debates about media ethics and accountability, a key question about the News of the World phone-hacking scandal was whether or not the law should provide stronger protection for individuals from invasion of their privacy by news organisations. There is no explicit reference to privacy in the terms of reference of either Britain’s Leveson or Australia’s Finkelstein inquiries. It can safely be said, however, that invasions of personal privacy by NOTW journalists were an important element in the political atmospherics which lead to their establishment. This article also asks where that dividing line should be drawn. However, it approaches the issue of privacy from a rather different perspective, drawing on a case study from relatively recent history involving Sharleen Spiteri, an HIV+ sex worker who caused a national scandal when she appeared on television in Australia in 1989 and revealed that she sometimes had unprotected sex with her clients
The moment of Leveson: Beyond ‘First Amendment fundamentalism’ in news regulatory policies
Get PDFAustralian discussion of the Leveson Inquiry has started and finished at asking whether ‘we’ suffer from precisely the same ethical malaise that led to phone-hacking in the United Kingdom. Yet as Leveson has unfolded it has become clear that its report will have international significance as a watershed moment in content regulation in a multi-platform future. A 30-year-old neoliberal orthodoxy has promulgated the view that digital convergence would mean the expansion of newspaper models of self-regulation to all future platforms. Broadcast models of structural and content regulation would disappear along with spectrum scarcity and other ‘old media’ trappings. All that is now at serious risk. Instead, for the UK at least, the public service obligations placed on commercial broadcasters now appear a more evident success story in maintaining journalistic integrity. Convergence might mean instead that public service obligations should be applied to newspaper publishers. However, making sense of all this from Australia is rendered difficult by the failure of our regulatory regimes to set such standards for commercial broadcast journalism at even levels achieved in the US at its broadcast regulatory high watermark. This article thus weighs up recommendations of the Finklestein and Boreham reviews in this context
‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’—Australian media industry attitudes to regulation and accountability reforms
Get PDFWhen the Australian Independent Media Inquiry (IMI) published its report most mainstream media reporting focused on the suggested statutory-based News Media Council and largely ignored any discussion of the underlying issues—public trust in journalism and news media and accountability for its practices. The aim of this study was to capture the attitudes held by the media industry toward these issues. Based on a content analysis of 33 submissions to the IMI and the Convergence Review it can be concluded that only 15 percent of the submissions addressed trust or media accountability issues. Furthermore, the submissions illustrate a disconnect between the attitudes held by some media proprietors and the trust deficit reality displayed in multiple studies of the public’s attitudes to journalism and news media
Who can you trust? Medical news, the public and what reporters think about public relations sources
Get PDFResearch on the effects of medical news stories on the public has demonstrated that consumers make decisions about personal health care options and choices sometimes exclusively based on stories published by the media. Given the news media’s ability to set the agenda for what the lay public, government policymakers and even health professionals consider topical and important, medical news reporting has an added sense of responsibility to be timely, reliable and accurate. Public relations practitioners involved in medical promotion can be the behind-the-scenes providers of information and access to important sources in medical news production. This relationship has been an emerging area of research focus in the US but has received scant attention in Australia. Just as in other areas of reporting, the relational dynamics between reporter and PR source are often conflicting and contradictory. This article will explore the views of 25 Australian medical reporters in a mixed method study on their relationship with public relations practitioners through the construct of trust. The findings indicate that most medical reporters, although acknowledging the increasing influence of public relations on medical news production, generally do not trust public relations sources, especially those in the corporate sector. However, if ongoing PR sources are considered reliable and trustworthy, then the relationship can become one of trust and interdependence
REVIEW: Noted: Journalism as a diverse and dynamic practice
No full textReview of: Journalism across cultures: An introduction, by Levi Obijiofor and Folker Hanusch. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 2011, 236 pp., ISBN 978023023609 (pbk). Journalism across cultures offers an excellent introduction for students and instructors seeking to broaden their view of international journalism practices and issues. As the authors suggest, the increasing interdependence and interconnection of our world demands a global perspective when assessing the changing dynamics of news journalism. Nonetheless, as this volume makes clear, notwithstanding the emergence of global media forms and practices, comparative journalism studies draws our attention to the ongoing contingencies of culture politics and history that continue to shape journalism around the globe
REVIEW: Arab eyes on disliked 'ugly Americans'
No full textReview of: The ‘Ugly American’ in the Arab Mind: Why do Arabs resent America? by Mohamed El-Bendary. Dulles: Potomac Books, 2011. 211 pp. ISBN 9781597976732It is not the place of this review to make judgement on the rights and wrongs of what is going on in the Middle East. But it seems axiomatic that Western journalistic coverage of the region’s conflicts can be little more than blinkered without a measured attempt to first make an effort to understand the depth and source of Arab feelings about the place of Israel and its perceived champion, the United States
REVIEW: Noted: Proactive on climate change
No full textReview of: Convenient action: Gujarat's response to challenges of climate change, by Narendra Modi. New Delhi: Macmillan Publishers India Ltd. 2011, 234 pp. ISBN (10) 0230-331920The picture and perception that the Western world and its media have painted of Indian politicians is uneducated and excessively corrupt individuals who manipulate the system to hang on to power. Narendra Modi's Convenient Action removes this myth and reveals a politician in a different light.