Toktok 33 / Winter 2016

PMC convenes two Asia-Pacific streams for world conference

Pacific media educators and trainers from around the Asia-Pacific region took advantage of the recent 4th World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) to get up to speed on global trends and to strategise for the future.

Organised and hosted by the Pacific Media Centre at AUT University, the Asia-Pacific stream of 12 people – funded with $23,000 from donors – spanned both the Australian and Pacific pre-conferences and the main WJEC conference.

“I must give credit to a wonderful group of educators from what we always claim – not just in media but by our governments as well — to be our Pacific region,” says Misa Vicky Lepou, president of the recently formed association of Pacific journalism educators, the Media Educators Pacific (MeP).

Presentations included 11 papers and three live-streamed panels on corruption and the media in the Pacific, Post-COP21, climate change and the challenge facing journalism educators in the Asia-Pacific, and Pacific journalism education with a focus on recent unrest at PNG universities.

Also, Kalafi Moala, Tongan publisher and broadcaster and deputy chair of the Pasifika Media Association, gave an inspiring closing address.

In this edition of TOKTOK, the full story and two pages of photos from WJEC16.