Protesters in their thousands have been taking to the streets in Aotearoa New Zealand demonstrating in solidarity with Palestine and against genocide for the past 97 weeks.

Yet rarely have the protests across the motu made headlines — or even the news for that matter — unlike the larger demonstrations in many countries around the world.

At times the New Zealand news media themselves have been the target over what is often claimed to be “biased reportage lacking context”. Yet even protests against media, especially public broadcasters, on their doorstep have been ignored.

Reporters have not even engaged, let alone reported the protests.

Last weekend, this abruptly changed with two television crews on hand in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland days after six Palestinian journalists — four Al Jazeera correspondents and cameramen, including the celebrated Anas al-Sharif, plus two other reporters were assassinated by the Israeli military in targeted killings.

With the Gaza Media Office confirming a death toll of almost 270 journalists since October 2023 — more than the combined killings of journalists in both World Wars, and the Korean, Vietnam, and Afghan wars — a growing awareness of the war was hitting home.

After silence about the killing of journalists for the past 22 months, New Zealand this week signed a joint statement by 27 nations for the Media Freedom Coalition belatedly calling on Israel to open up access to foreign media and to offer protection for journalists in Gaza “in light of the unfolding catastrophe”.

Sydney Harbour Bridge factor
Another factor in renewed media interest has probably been the massive March for Humanity on Sydney Harbour Bridge with about 300,000 people taking part on August 3.

Most New Zealand media has had slanted coverage privileging the Tel Aviv narrative in spite of the fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to answer charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the country is on trial for “plausible genocide” in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Both UN courts are in The Hague.

One independent New Zealand journalist who has been based in the West Bank for two periods during the Israeli war on Gaza – last year for two months and again this year – is unimpressed with the reportage.

Why? Video and photojournalist Cole Martin from Ōtautahi Christchurch believes there is a serious lack of understanding in New Zealand media of the context of the structural and institutional violence towards the Palestinians.

“It is a media scene in Aotearoa that repeats very harmful and inaccurate narratives,” Martin says.

“Also, there is this idea to be unbiased and neutral in a conflict, both perspectives must have equal legitimacy.”

As a 26-year-old photojournalist, Martin has packed in a lot of experience in his early career, having worked two years for World Vision, meeting South Sudanese refugees in Uganda who had fled civil war. He shared their stories in Aotearoa.

‘Struggle of the oppressed’
This taught him to put “the struggle of the oppressed and marginalised” at the heart of his storytelling.

Martin studied for a screen and television degree at NZ Broadcasting School, which led to employment with the news team at Whakaata Māori, then a video journalist role with the Otago Daily Times.

He first visited Palestine in early 2019, “seeing the occupation and injustice with my own eyes”. After the struggle re-entered the news cycle in October 2023, he recognised that as a journalist with first-hand contextual knowledge and connections on the ground he was in a unique position to ensure Palestinian voices were heard.

Martin spent two months in the West Bank last year and then gained a grant to study Arabic “which allowed me to return longer-term as New Zealand’s only journalist on the ground”.

“Yes, there are competing narratives,’ he admits, “but the reality on the ground is that if you engage with this in good faith and truth, one of those narratives has a lot more legitimacy than the other.”

Martin says that New Zealand media have failed to recognise this reality through a “mix of ignorance and bias”.

“They haven’t been fair and honest, but they think they have,” he says.

Hesitancy to engage
He argues that the hesitancy to engage with the Palestinian media, Palestinian journalists and Palestinian sources on the ground “springs from the idea that to be Palestinian you are inherently biased”.

“In the same way that being Māori means you are biased,” he says.

“Your world view shapes your experiences. If you are living under a system of occupation and domination, or seeing that first hand, it would be wrong and immoral to talk about it in a way that is misleading, the same way that I cannot water down what I am reporting from here.

“It’s the reality of what I see here, I am not going to water it down with a sort of ‘bothsideism’.”

Martin says the media in New Zealand tend to cover the tragic war which has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians so far — most of them women and children — and with the UN this week declaring an “Israeli-made famine” with thousands more deaths predicted in a simplistic and shallow way.

“This war is treated as a one-off event without putting it in the context of 76 years of occupation and domination by Israel and without actually challenging some of these narratives, without providing the context of why, and centring it on the violations of international law.”

It is a very serious failure and not just in the way things have been reported, but in the way editors source stories given the heavy dependency in New Zealand media on international media that themselves have been persistently and strongly criticised for institutional bias — such as the BBC, CNN, The New York Times and the Associated Press news agency, which all operate from news bureaux inside Israel.

‘No independent journalism’
“I have heard from editors that I have reached out to who have basically said, ‘No, we’re not going to publish any independent or freelance work because we depend on syndicated sources like BBC, CNN and Associated Press’.

“Which means that they are publishing news that doesn’t have a relevant New Zealand connection. Usually this is what local media need, a NZ connection, yet they will publish work from the BBC, CNN and Associated Press that has no relevance to New Zealand, or doesn’t highlight what is relevant to NZ so far as our government in action.

“And I think that is our big failure, our media has not held our government to account by asking the questions that need to be asked, in spite of the fact that those questions are easily accessed.”

Expanding on this, Martin suggests talking to people in the community that are taking part in the large protests weekly, consistently.

“Why are they doing this? Why are they giving so much of their time to protest against what Israel is doing, highlighting these justices? And yet the media has failed to engage with them in good faith,” he says.

“The media has demonised them in many ways and they kind of create gestures like what Stuff have done, like asking them to write in their opinions.

“Maybe it is well intentioned, maybe it isn’t. It opens the space to kind of more ‘equal platforming’ of very unequal narratives.

“Like we give the same airtime to the spokespeople of an army that is carrying out genocide as we are giving to the people who are facing the genocide.”

Robert Fisk on media balance and the Middle East.    Video: Pacific Media Centre

’50/50 journalism’
The late journalist Robert Fisk, the Beirut-based expert on the Middle East writing for The Independent and the prolific author of many books including The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, described this phenomena as “50/50 journalism” and warned how damaging it could be.

Among many examples he gave in a 2008 visit to New Zealand, Fisk said journalists should not give “equal time” to the SS guards at the concentration camp, they should be talking to the survivors. Journalists ought to be objective and unbiased — “on the side of those who suffer”.

“They always publish Israel says, ‘dee-dah-de-dah’. That’s not reporting, reporting is finding out what is actually going on on the ground. That’s what BBC and CNN do. Report what they say, not what’s going on. I think they are very limited in terms of how they report the structural stuff,” says Martin.

“CNN, BBC and Associated Press have their place for getting immediate, urgent news out, but I am quite frustrated as the only New Zealand journalist based in the occupied West Bank or on the ground here.

“How little interest media have shown in pieces from here. Even with a full piece, free of charge, they will still find excuses not to publish, which is hard to push back on as a freelancer because ultimately it is their choice, they are the editors.

“I cannot demand that they publish my work, but it begs the question if I was a New Zealand journalist on the ground reporting from Ukraine, there would be a very different response in their eagerness to publish, or platform, what I am sharing.

“Particularly as a video and photojournalist, it is very frustrating because everything I write about is documented, I am showing it.

‘Showing with photos’
“It’s not stuff that is hearsay. I am showing them with all these photos and yet still they are reluctant to publish my work. And I think that translates into reluctance to publish anything with a Palestinian perspective. They think it is very complex and difficult to get in touch with Palestinians.

“They don’t know whether they can really trust their voices. The reality is, of course they can trust their voices. Palestinian journalists are the only journalists able to get into Gaza [and on the West Bank on the ground here].

“If people have a problem with that, if Israel has a problem with that, then they should let the international press in.”

Pointing the finger at the failure of Middle East coverage isn’t easy, Martin says. But one factor is that the generations who make the editorial decisions have a “biased view”.

“Journalists who have been here have not been independent, they have been taken here, accompanied by soldiers, on a tailored tour. This is instead of going off the tourist trail, off the media trail, seeing the realities that communities are facing here, engaging in good faith with Palestinian communities here, seeing the structural violence, drawing the connections between what is happening in Gaza and what is happening in the West Bank — and not just the Israeli sources,” Martin says.

“And listening to the human rights organisations, the academics and the experts, and the humanitarian organisations who are all saying that this is a genocide, structural violence . . . the media still fails to frame it in that way.

‘Complete failure’
“It still fails to provide adequate context that this is very structural, very institutional — and it’s wrong.

“It’s a complete failure and it is very frustrating to be here as a journalist on the ground trying to do a good job, trying to redeem this failure in journalism.”

“Having the cover on the ground here and yet there is no interest. Editors have come back to me and said, ‘we can’t publish this piece because the subject matter is “too controversial”. It’s unbelievable that we are explicitly ignoring stories that are relevant because it is ‘controversial’. It’s just an utter failure of journalism.

“As the Fourth Estate, they have utterly failed to hold the government to account for inaction. They are not asking the right questions.

“I have had other editors who have said, ‘Oh, we’re relying on syndicated sources’. That’s our position. Or, we don’t have enough money.

That’s true, New Zealand media has a funding shortage, and journalists have been let go.

“But the truth is if they really want the story, they would find the funding.

Reach out to Palestinians
“If they actually cared, they would reach out to the journalists on the ground, reach out to the Palestinians. The reality is that they don’t care enough to be actually doing those things.

“I think that there is a shift, that they are beginning to respond more and more. But they are well behind the game, they have been complicit in anti-Arab narratives, and giving a platform to genocidal narratives from the Israeli government and government leaders without questioning, without challenging and without holding our government to account.

“The New Zealand government has been very pro-Israel, driven to side with America.

“They need to do better urgently, before somebody takes them to the International Criminal Court for complicity.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Taieri MP Ingrid Leary reflected on her years in Fiji as a television journalist and media educator at a Fiji Centre function in Auckland celebrating Fourth Estate values and independence at the weekend.

It was a reunion with former journalism professor David Robie — they had worked together as a team at the University of the South Pacific amid media and political controversy leading up to the George Speight coup in May 2000.

Leary, a former British Council executive director and lawyer, was the guest speaker at a gathering of human rights activists, development advocates, academics and journalists hosted at the Whānau Community Centre and Hub, the umbrella base for the Fiji Centre, Auckland Rotuman Fellowship, Asia Pacific Media Network and other groups.

She said she was delighted to meet “special people in David’s life” and to be speaking to a diverse group sharing “similar values of courage, freedom of expression, truth and tino rangatiratanga”.

“I want to start this talanoa on Friday, 19 May 2000 — 13 years almost to the day of the first recognised military coup in Fiji in 1987 — when failed businessman George Speight tore off his balaclava to reveal his identity.

She pointed out that there had actually been another “coup” 100 years earlier by Ratu Cakobau.

“Speight had seized Parliament holding the elected government at gunpoint, including the politician mother, Lavinia Padarath, of one of my best friends — Anna Padarath.

Hostage-taking report
“Within minutes, the news of the hostage-taking was flashed on Radio Fiji’s 10 am bulletin by a student journalist on secondment there — Tamani Nair. He was a student of David Robie’s.”

Nair had been dispatched to Parliament to find out what was happening and reported from a cassava patch.

“Fiji TV was trashed . . . and transmission pulled for 48 hours.

“The university shut down — including the student radio facilities, and journalism programme website — to avoid a similar fate, but the journalism school was able to keep broadcasting and publishing via a parallel website set up at the University of Technology Sydney.

“The pictures were harrowing, showing street protests turning violent and the barbaric behaviour of Speight’s henchmen towards dissenters.

“Thus began three months of heroic journalism by David’s student team — including through a period of martial law that began 10 days later and saw some of the most restrictive levels of censorship ever experienced in the South Pacific.”

Leary paid tribute to some of the “brave satire” produced by senior Fiji Times reporters filling the newspaper with “non-news” (such as about haircuts, drinking kava) as an act of defiance.

“My friend Anna Padarath returned from doing her masters in law in Australia on a scholarship to be closer to her Mum, whose hostage days within Parliament Grounds stretched into weeks and then months.

Invisible consequences
“Anna would never return to her studies — one of the many invisible consequences of this profoundly destructive era in Fiji’s complex history.

“Happily, she did go on to carve an incredible career as a women’s rights advocate.”

“Meanwhile David’s so-called ‘barefoot student journalists’ — who snuck into Parliament the back way by bushtrack — were having their stories read and broadcast globally.

“And those too shaken to even put their hands to keyboards on Day 1 emerged as journalism leaders who would go on to win prizes for their coverage.”

Speight was sentenced to life in prison, but was pardoned in 2024.

Leary said that was just one chapter in the remarkable career of David Robie who had been an editor, news director, foreign news editor and freelance writer with a number of different agencies and news organisations — including Agence France-Presse, Rand Daily Mail, The Auckland Star, Insight Magazine, and New Outlook Magazine — “a family member to some, friend to many, mentor to most”.

Reflecting on working with Dr Robie at USP, which she joined as television lecturer from Fiji Television, she said:

“At the time, being a younger person, I thought he was a little bit crazy, because he was communicating with people all around the world when digital media was in its infancy in Fiji, always on email, always getting up on online platforms, and I didn’t appreciate the power of online media at the time.

“And it was incredible to watch.”

Ahead of his time
She said he was an innovator and ahead of his time.

Dr Robie viewed journalism as a tool for empowerment, aiming to provide communities with the information they needed to make informed decisions.

“We all know that David has been a champion of social justice and for decolonisation, and for the values of an independent Fourth Estate.”

She said she appreciated the freedom to develop independent media as an educator, adding that one of her highlights was producing the groundbreaking 1999 documentary Maire about Maire Bopp Du Pont, who was a Tahitian student journalist at USP and advocate for the Pacific community living with HIV/AIDs.

She became a nuclear-free Pacific campaigner in Pape’ete and was also founding chief executive of  the Pacific Islands AIDS Foundation (PIAF).

Leary presented Dr Robie with a “speaking stick” carved from an apricot tree branch by the husband of a Labour stalwart based in Cromwell — the event doubled as his 80th birthday.

In response, Dr Robie said the occasion was a “golden opportunity” to thank many people who had encouraged and supported him over many years.

Massive upheaval
“We must have done something right,” he said about USP, “because in 2000, the year of George Speight’s coup, our students covered the massive upheaval which made headlines around the world when Mahendra Chaudhry’s Labour-led coalition government was held at gunpoint for 56 days.

“The students courageously covered the coup with their website Pacific Journalism Online and their newspaper Wansolwara — “One Ocean”.  They won six Ossie Awards – unprecedented for a single university — in Australia that year and a standing ovation.”

He said there was a video on YouTube of their exploits called Frontline Reporters and one of the students, Christine Gounder, wrote an article for a Commonwealth Press Union magazine entitled, “From trainees to professionals. And all it took was a coup”.

Dr Robie said this Fiji experience was still one of the most standout experiences he had had as a journalist and educator.

Along with similar coverage of the 1997 Sandline mercenary crisis by his students at the University of Papua New Guinea.

He made some comments about the 1985 Rainbow Warrior voyage to Rongelap in the Marshall islands and the subsequent bombing by French secret agents in Auckland.

But he added “you can read all about this adventure in my new book” being published in a few weeks.

Biggest 21st century crisis
Dr Robie said the profession of journalism, truth telling and holding power to account, was vitally important to a healthy democracy.

Although media did not succeed in telling people what to think, it did play a vital role in what to think about. However, the media world was undergoing massive change and fragmentation.

“And public trust is declining in the face of fake news and disinformation,” he said

“I think we are at a crossroads in society, both locally and globally. Both journalism and democracy are under an unprecedented threat in my lifetime.

“When more than 230 journalists can be killed in 19 months in Gaza and there is barely a bleep from the global community, there is something savagely wrong.

“The Gazan journalists won the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize collectively last year with the judges saying, “As humanity, we have a huge debt to their courage and commitment to freedom of expression.”

“The carnage and genocide in Gaza is deeply disturbing, especially the failure of the world to act decisively to stop it. The fact that Israel can kill with impunity at least 54,000 people, mostly women and children, destroy hospitals and starve people to death and crush a people’s right to live is deeply shocking.

“This is the biggest crisis of the 21st century. We see this relentless slaughter go on livestreamed day after day and yet our media and politicians behave as if this is just ‘normal’. It is shameful, horrendous. Have we lost our humanity?

“Gaza has been our test. And we have failed.”

Dr Robie praised the support of his wife, social justice activist Del Abcede, and family members.

Other speakers included Whānau Hub co-founder Nik Naidu, one of the anti-coup Coalition for Democracy in Fiji (CDF) stalwarts; the Heritage New Zealand’s Antony Phillips; and Multimedia Investments and Evening Report director Selwyn Manning.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Taieri MP Ingrid Leary reflected on her years in Fiji as a television journalist and media educator at a Fiji Centre function in Auckland celebrating Fourth Estate values and independence at the weekend.

It was a reunion with former journalism professor David Robie — they had worked together as a team at the University of the South Pacific amid media and political controversy leading up to the George Speight coup in May 2000.

Leary was the guest speaker at a gathering of human rights activists, development advocates, academics and journalists hosted at the Whānau Community Centre and Hub, the umbrella base for the Fiji Centre and Asia Pacific Media Network.

She said she was delighted to meet “special people in David’s life” and to be speaking to a diverse group sharing “similar values of courage, freedom of expression, truth and tino rangatiratanga”.

“I want to start this talanoa on Friday, 19 May 2000 — 13 years almost to the day of the first recognised military coup in Fiji in 1987 — when failed businessman George Speight tore off his balaclava to reveal his identity.

She pointed out that there had actually been another “coup” 100 years earlier by Ratu Cakobau.

“Speight had seized Parliament holding the elected government at gunpoint, including the politician mother, Lavinia Padarath, of one of my best friends — Anna Padarath.

Hostage-taking report
“Within minutes, the news of the hostage-taking was flashed on Radio Fiji’s 10 am bulletin by a student journalist on secondment there — Tamani Nair. He was a student of David Robie’s.”

Nair had been dispatched to Parliament to find out what was happening and reported from a cassava patch.

“Fiji TV was trashed . . . and transmission pulled for 48 hours.

“The university shut down — including the student radio facilities, and journalism programme website — to avoid a similar fate, but the journalism school was able to keep broadcasting and publishing via a parallel website set up at the University of Technology Sydney.

“The pictures were harrowing, showing street protests turning violent and the barbaric behaviour of Speight’s henchmen towards dissenters.

“Thus began three months of heroic journalism by David’s student team — including through a period of martial law that began 10 days later and saw some of the most restrictive levels of censorship ever experienced in the South Pacific.”

Leary paid tribute to some some of the “brave satire” produced by senior Fiji Times reporters filling paper with “non-news” (such as haircuts, drinking kava) as act of defiance.

“My friend Anna Padarath returned from doing her masters in law in Australia on a scholarship to be closer to her Mum, whose hostage days within Parliament Grounds stretched into weeks and then months.

Invisible consequences
“Anna would never return to her studies — one of the many invisible consequences of this profoundly destructive era in Fiji’s complex history.

“Happily, she did go on to carve an incredible career as a women’s rights advocate.”

“Meanwhile David’s so-called ‘barefoot student journalists’ — who snuck into Parliament the back way by bushtrack — were having their stories read and broadcast globally.

“And those too shaken to even put their hands to keyboards on Day 1 emerged as journalism leaders who would go on to win prizes for their coverage.”

Speight was sentenced to life in prison, but was pardoned in 2024.

Leary said that was just one chapter in the remarkable career of David Robie who had been an editor, news director, foreign news editor and freelance writer with a number of different agencies and news organisations — including Agence France-Presse, Rand Daily Mail, The Auckland Star, Insight Magazine, and New Outlook Magazine — “a family member to some, friend to many, mentor to most”.

Reflecting on working with Dr Robie at USP, which she joined as television lecturer from Fiji Television, she said:

“At the time, being a younger person, I thought he was a little but crazy, because he was communicating with people all around the world when digital media was in its infancy in Fiji, always on email, always getting up on online platforms, and I didn’t appreciate the power of online media at the time.

“And it was incredible to watch.”

Ahead of his time
She said he was an innovator and ahead of his time.

Dr Robie viewed journalism as a tool for empowerment, aiming to provide communities with the information they needed to make informed decisions.

“We all know that David has been a champion of social justice and for decolonisation, and for the values of an independent Fourth Estate.”

She said she appreciated the freedom to develop independent media as an educator, adding that one of her highlights was producing the groundbreaking documentary Maire about Maire Bopp Du Pont, who was a student journalist at USP and advocate for the Pacific community living with HIV/AIDs community.

She later became a nuclear-free Pacific parliamentarian in Pape’ete.

Leary presented Dr Robie with a “speaking stick” carved from an apricot tree branch by the husband of a Labour stalwart based in Cromwell — the event doubled as his 80th birthday.

In response, Dr Robie said the occasion was a “golden opportunity” to thank many people who had encouraged and supported him over many years.

Massive upheaval
“We must have done something right,” he said about USP, “because in 2000, the year of George Speight’s coup, our students covered the massive upheaval which made headlines around the world when Mahendra Chaudhry’s Labour-led coalition government was held at gunpoint for 56 days.

“The students courageously covered the coup with their website Pacific Journalism Online and their newspaper Wansolwara — “One Ocean”.  They won six Ossie Awards – unprecedented for a single university — in Australia that year and a standing ovation.”

He said there was a video on YouTube of their exploits called Frontline Reporters and one of the students, Christine Gounder, wrote an article for a Commonwealth Press Union magazine entitled, “From trainees to professionals. And all it took was a coup”.

Dr Robie said this Fiji experience was still one of the most standout experiences he had had as a journalist and educator.

Along with similar coverage of the 1997 Sandline mercenary crisis by his students at the University of Papua New Guinea.

He made some comments about the 1985 Rainbow Warrior voyage to Rongelap in the Marshall islands and the subsequent bombing by French secret agents in Auckland.

But he added “you can read all about this adventure in my new book” being published in a few weeks.

Biggest 21st century crisis
Dr Robie said the profession of journalism, truth telling and holding power to account, was vitally important to a healthy democracy.

Although media did not succeed in telling people what to think, it did play a vital role in what to think about. However, the media world was undergoing massive change and fragmentation.

“And public trust is declining in the face of fake news and disinformation,” he said

“I think we are at a crossroads in society, both locally and globally. Both journalism and democracy are under an unprecedented threat in my lifetime.

“When more than 230 journalists can be killed in 19 months in Gaza and there is barely a bleep from the global community, there is something savagely wrong.

“The Gazan journalists won the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize collectively last year with the judges saying, “As humanity, we have a huge debt to their courage and commitment to freedom of expression.”

“The carnage and genocide in Gaza is deeply disturbing, especially the failure of the world to act decisively to stop it. The fact that Israel can kill with impunity at least 54,000 people, mostly women and children, destroy hospitals and starve people to death and crush a people’s right to live is deeply shocking.

“This is the biggest crisis of the 21st century. We see this relentless slaughter go on livestreamed day after day and yet our media and politicians behave as if this is just ‘normal’. It is shameful, horrendous. Have we lost our humanity?

“Gaza has been our test. And we have failed.”

Other speakers included Whānau Hub co-founder Nik Naidu, one of the anti-coup Coalition for Democracy in Fiji (CDF) stalwarts; the Heritage New Zealand’s Antony Phillips; and Multimedia Investments and Evening Report director Selwyn Manning.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

NZME directors ‘have concerns’ about businessman Jim Grenon taking editorial control

NZME’s directors have fired their own shots in the war for control of the media company, saying they have concerns about a takeover bid including the risk of businessman Jim Grenon taking editorial control.

In a statement to the NZX, the board said it was delaying its annual shareholders meeting until June and opening up nominations of other directors.

Grenon, a New Zealand resident since 2012, bought a 9.3 percent stake in NZME for just over $9 million early in March.

NZME is publisher of a number of newspapers, including The New Zealand Herald, as well as operating radio stations and property platform OneRoof.

Within days of taking the stake, Grenon had written to the company’s board proposing that most of its current directors be replaced with new ones, including himself, and said the performance of the company had been disappointing and he was wanted to improve the editorial content.

NZME has now told the stockmarket it had concerns whether Grenon’s proposals were in the best interests of the company and shareholders. — RNZ News

Dear NZME Board,

I was once a columnist for The New Zealand Herald, but I’m too left wing for your stable of acceptable opinions and now just run award-winning political podcasts instead.

Normally as board members of a financialised media company in late stage capitalism with collapsing revenue thanks to social media, you don’t generally have to consider the actual well being of our democracy.

Let me be as clear as I can to you all.

You hold in your hands the fate of Fourth Estate journalism and ultimately the democracy of New Zealand itself.

As the largest Fourth Estate platforms in the country, your obligations go well beyond just shareholder profit.

Alt-right billionaire Jim Grenon has in my view been extremely disingenuous.

The manner in which NZME has been sold as underperforming so that the promise of a quick buck from OneRoof seems the focus point is made more questionable because I suspect Grenon’s true desire here is editorial control of NZME.

His relationship with a far-right culture war hate blog that promotes anti-Māori, anti-trans, anti-vaccine, climate denial editorial copy alongside his support for culture war influencers suggest a radicalised view of the world which he intends to implement if he gains control.

Look.

NZME is right wing enough, your first editorial in The New Zealand Herald was calling for white people to start war with Māori, Mike Hosking is the epitome of right wing commentary and the less said about Heather Du Plessis Allan, the better, but all of you acknowledge that 2 + 2 = 4.

Alt-Right billionaires don’t admit that.

Alt-right billionaires tend to lean into divisive culture war rhetoric and are happy to promote 2 + 2 = whatever I say it is.

You cannot allow alt-right billionaires with radicalised culture war beliefs take over the largest media platforms in the country.

This moment demands more than dollars and cents, it requires a strong defence of independent editorial content, even when that editorial content is right wing.

The NZ Herald, Heather and Mike are without doubt right wingers, but they are right wingers who pitch their argument within the realms of the real and factual.

Alt-right billionaires do not do that.

If NZME is taken over and the editorial direction takes a hard right culture war turn, you will be dooming NZ democracy and planing us on a highway to hell.

You must, you must, you must stand against this attack on editorial independence.

Republished from The Daily Blog with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Australia has announced more than A$68 million over the next five years to strengthen and expand Australian broadcasting and media sector engagement across the Indo-Pacific.

As part of the Indo-Pacific broadcasting strategy, the ABC will receive just over $40m to increase its content for and about the Pacific, expand Radio Australia’s FM transmission footprint across the region and enhance its media and training activities.

And the PacificAus TV programme will receive over $28 million to provide commercial Australian content free of charge to broadcasters in the Pacific.

The strategy provides a framework to help foster a vibrant and independent media sector, counter misinformation, present modern multicultural Australia, and support deeper people-to-people engagement.

It focuses on three key areas, including:

• supporting the creation and distribution of compelling Australian content that engages audiences and demonstrates Australia’s commitment to the region;
• enhancing access in the region to trusted sources of media, including news and current affairs, strengthening regional media capacity and capability; and
• boosting connections between Australian-based and Indo-Pacific media and content creators.

Crucial role
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said media plays a crucial role in elevating the voices and perspectives of the region and strengthening democracy.

Wong said the Australia government was committed to supporting viable, resilient and independent media in the region.

Minister for International Development and the Pacific Pat Conroy said Australia and the Pacific shared close cultural and people-to-people links, and an enduring love of sport.

“These connections will be further enriched by the boost in Australian content, allowing us to watch, read, and listen to shared stories across the region — from rugby to news and music.

Conroy said Australia would continue and expand support for media development, including through the new phase of the Pacific Media Assistance Scheme (PACMAS) and future opportunities through the Australia-Pacific Media and Broadcasting Partnership.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said a healthy Fourth Estate was imperative in the era of digital transformation and misinformation.

“This strategy continues Australia’s longstanding commitment to supporting a robust media sector in our region,” she said.

“By leveraging Australia’s strengths, we can partner with the region to boost media connections, and foster a diverse and sustainable media landscape.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The day the news axe fell: Presenters, insiders fear ‘huge blow for democracy’

The future of New Zealand’s media landscape is becoming clearer by the day, with confirmation that it will no longer feature one of the country’s big two TV news networks.

Warner Bros. Discovery has revealed that all of Newshub’s operations will be shut down, effective July 5. That includes the flagship 6pm bulletin, The AM Show, and the Newshub website.

294 staff are set to lose their jobs.

It’s also been confirmed that TVNZ’s programme Sunday will be cancelled, following yesterday’s announcement that Fair Go, as well as both 1News at Midday and 1News Tonight, are being canned in their current format.

New Zealand’s media industry has been rocked by the bleeding obvious which is that their failed ratings system for legacy media was always more art than science.

The NZ radio ratings system is a diary that you fill in every 15 minutes — which no one ever fills in properly.

The NZ newspaper ratings are opinion polls and the NZ TV ratings system is a magical 180 boxes that limits choice to whoever had the TV remote.

When the sales rep told the advertiser that 300,000 people would read, see, hear their advert, it was based on ratings systems that were flattering but not real.

With the ruthlessness of online audience measurement, advertisers could see exactly how many people were actually seeing their adverts, and the legacy media never adapted to this new reality.

What we see now is hollowed out journalism competing against social media hate algorithms designed to generate emotional responses rather than Fourth Estate accountability.

New Zealand has NEVER had the audience size to make advertising based broadcasting feasible, that’s why it’s always required a state broadcaster — with no Fourth Estate who will hold this hard right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing government to account?

Minister missing in action
Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee has refused to support the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill that Labour’s former minister Willie Jackson put forward that would at least force Google and Facebook to pay for the journalism they take for free.

Lee has been utterly hopeless and missing in action here — if “Democracy dies in darkness”, National are pulling the plug.

This government doesn’t want accountability, does it?

Instagram this year switched on a new filter to smother political debate and we know actual journalism has been smothered by the social media algorithms.

I don’t think that most people who get their information from their social media feeds understand they aren’t seeing the most important journalism but are in fact seeing the most inflammatory rhetoric to keep people outraged and addicted to doom scrolling.

When Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters does his big lie that the entire mainstream media were bribed because of a funding note by NZ on Air in regards to coverage of Māori issues for the Public Interest Journalism fund — which by the way was quickly clarified by NZ on Air as not an editorial demand — he conflates and maliciously spins and NZ’s democracy suffers.

Muddled TVNZ
Television New Zealand has always come across like a muddle. It aspires to be BBC public broadcasting yet has the commercial imperatives of any Crown Owned Enterprise. If Labour had merged TVNZ and RNZ and made TVNZ 1 commercial free so that the advertising revenue could cross over to Newshub, it would have rebuilt the importance of public broadcasting while actually regulating the broken free market.

When will we get a Labour Party that actually gives a damn about public broadcasting rather than pay lip service to it?

Ultimately Newshub’s demise is a story of ruthless transnational interests and geopolitical cultural hegemony.

Corporate Hollywood soft power wants to continue its cultural dominance as the South Pacific friction continues between the United States and China.

New Zealand is an important plank for American hegemony in the South Pacific and as China and American competition heats up, Warners Bros Discovery suddenly buying a large stake in our media was always a geopolitical calculation over a commercial one.

Cultural dominance doesn’t require nor want an active journalism, so they will keep the channel open purely as a means of dominating domestic culture without any of the Fourth Estate obligations.

That bitter angry feeling you have watching Warner Bros Discovery destroy our Fourth Estate is righteous.

Social licence trashed
They bought a media outlet that has had a 35-year history of being a structural part of our media environment and dumping it trashes their social licence in this country.

That feeling of rage you have watching a multibillion transnational vandalise our environment is going to be repeated the millisecond you see the American mining interests lining up to mine conservation land with all their promises to repair anything they break.

Remember — the transnational ain’t your friend regardless of its pronouns.

That person they rolled in with the soft-glazed CEO face to do the sad, sad crying is disingenuous and condescending.

Now Warner Bros has killed Newshub off, we have no option as Kiwis but to boycott whatever is left of TV3 and water down Warner Bros remaining interests altogether.

They’ve burnt their bridges with us in New Zealand by walking away from their social contract, we should have no troubles returning the favour!

The only winners here are rightwing politicians who don’t want their counterproductive and corrupt decisions to be scrutinised.

We are a poorer and weaker democracy after these news cuts.

Why bother having a Minister of Broadcasting if all they do is fiddle while the industry burns?

Welcome to your new media future in Aotearoa New Zealand . . .

Republished with permission from The Daily Blog.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

It is a response to digital era changes in technology, viewing and advertising — but also the consequence of political choices.

“I can see that I’ve chosen a good night to come on,” TVNZ presenter Jack Tame said mournfully on his stint as a Newstalk ZB panelist last Wednesday.

The news that TVNZ news staff had been told to “watch their inboxes” the next morning had just broken.

It was less than a week since Newshub’s owners had announced a plan to close it completely in mid-year and TVNZ had reported bad financial figures for the last half of 2023.

The following day — last Thursday — TVNZ’s Midday News told viewers 9 percent of TVNZ staff — 68 people in total — would go in a plan to balance the books.

“The broadcaster has told staff that its headcount is high and so are costs,” said reporter Kim Baker-Wilson starkly on TVNZ’s Midday.

On chopping block
Twenty-four hours later, it was one of the shows on the chopping block — along with late news show Tonight and TVNZ’s flagship weekly current affairs show Sunday.

“As the last of its kind — is that what we want in our media landscape . . . to have no in-depth current affairs show?” said Sunday presenter Miriama Kamo (also the host of the weekend show Marae).

Consumers investigator Fair Go — with a 47-year track record as one of TVNZ’s most popular local shows — will also be gone by the end of May under this plan.

If Newshub vanishes from rival channel Three by mid year, there will be just one national daily TV news bulletin left — TVNZ’s 1News — and no long form current affairs at all, except TVNZ’s Q+A and others funded from the public purse by NZ on Air and Te Mangai Paho.

Tellingly, weekday TVNZ shows which will carry on — Breakfast and Seven Sharp — are ones which generate income from “partner content” deals and “integrated advertising” — effectively paid-for slots within the programmes.

TVNZ had made it known cuts were coming months ago because costs were outstripping fast-falling revenue as advertisers tightened their belts or spent elsewhere.

TVNZ executives had also made it clear that reinforcing TVNZ’s digital-first strategy would be a key goal as well as just cutting costs.

Other notable cut
So the other notable service to be cut was a surprise — the youth-focused digital-native outlet Re: News.

After its launch in 2017, its young staff revived a mothballed studio and gained a reputation for hard work — and then for the quality of its work.

It won national journalism awards in the past two years and reached younger people who rarely if ever turn on a television set.

Reportedly, the staff of Re: News staff is to be halved and lose some of its leaders.

The main media workers’ union E tū said it will fight to save jobs and extend the short consultation period.

Some staff made it plain that they weren’t giving up just yet either and would present counter-proposals to save shows and jobs.

In a statement, TVNZ said the proposals “in no way relate to the immense contribution of the teams that work on those shows and the significant journalistic value they’ve provided over the years”.

Money-spinners
But some were money-spinners too.

Fair Go and Sunday still pull in big six-figure live primetime TV audiences and more views now on TVNZ+. Its marketers frequently tell the advertisers that.

TVNZ chief executive Jodi O’Donnell knows all about that. She was previously TVNZ’s commercial director.

So why kill off these programmes now?

Mediawatch’s requests to talk to O’Donnell and TVNZ’s executive editor of news Phil O’Sullivan were unsuccessful.

But O’Donnell did talk to Newstalk ZB on Friday night.

“I’ve been quite open with the fact that there are no sacred cows. And we need to find some ways to stop doing some things for us to reduce our costs,” O’Donnell told Newstalk ZB.

“TVNZ’s still investing over $40 million in news and current affairs — so we absolutely believe in the future of news and current affairs. But we have a situation right now that our operating model is more expensive than the revenue that we’re making. And we have to make some really tough, tough decisions,” she said.

“We’ll constantly be looking at things to keep the operating model in line with what our revenue is. Within the TVNZ Act it’s clear that we need to be a commercial broadcaster, We are a commercial business, so that’s the remit that we need to work on.

“Our competitors these days are not (Newstalk ZB) or Sky or Warner Brothers (Discovery) but Google and Meta. These are multi-trillion dollar organisations. Ninety cents of every dollar spent in digital news advertising is going offshore. That’s 10 cents left for the likes of NZME, TVNZ, Stuff and any of the other local broadcasters.”

Jack Tame also pointed the finger at the titans of tech on his Newstalk ZB Saturday show.

Force of digital giants ‘irrepressible’
“Ultimately the force of those digital giants is irrepressible. Trying to save free-to-air commercial TV, with quality news, current affairs and local programming in a country with five million people . . .  is like trying to bail out the Titanic with an empty ice cream container. I’m not aware of any comparable broadcast markets where they’ve managed to pull it off,” he told listeners.

But few countries have a state-owned yet fully-commercial broadcaster trying to do news on TV and online, disconnected from publicly-funded ones also doing news on TV and radio and online.

That makes TVNZ a state-owned broadcaster that serves advertisers as much as New Zealanders.

But if things had panned out differently a year ago, that wouldn’t be the case now either.

What if the public media merger had gone ahead?
A new not-for-profit public media entity incorporating RNZ and TVNZ — Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media (ANZPM)  — was supposed to start one year ago this week.

It would have been the biggest media reform since the early 1990s.

The previous government was prepared to spend more than $400 million over four years to get it going.

Almost $20 million was spent on a programme called Strong Public Media, put in place because New Zealand’s media sector was weak.

“Ailing” was the word that the business case used, noting “increased competition from overseas players slashed the share of revenue from advertising.”

But the Labour government killed the plan before the last election, citing the cost of living crisis.

The new entity would still have needed TVNZ’s commercial revenue, but if it had gone ahead, would that mean TVNZ wouldn’t now be sacrificing news shows and journalists?

“Nobody’s surprised. Surely nobody is surprised that this ecosystem is not sustainable any longer. Something radical had to change,” Tracey Martin — the chair of the board charged with getting ANZPM up and running — told Mediawatch.

“I don’t have any problem believing that (TVNZ) would have had to change what they were delivering. But would it have been cuts to news and current affairs that we would have been seeing? There would have been other decisions made because commerciality . . . was not the major driver (of ANZPM),” Martin said.

“That was where we started from. If Armageddon happens — and all other New Zealand media can no longer exist — you have to be there as the Fourth Estate — to make sure that New Zealanders have a place to go to for truth and trust.”

What were the assumptions about the advertising revenue TVNZ would have been able to pull in?

“[TVNZ] was telling us that it wouldn’t be as bad as we believed it would be. TVNZ modeling was not as dramatic as our modeling. We were happy to accept that [because] our modeling gave us a particular window by which to change the ecosystem in which New Zealand media could survive to try and stabilise,” Martin told Mediawatch.

The business case document tracked TVNZ revenue and expenses from 2012 until 2020 — the start of the planning process for the new entity.

By 2020, a sharp rise in costs already exceeded revenue which was above $300 million.

And as we now know, TVNZ revenue has fallen further and more quickly since then.

“We were predicting linear TV revenue was going to continue to drop substantially and relatively quickly — and they were not going to be able to switch their advertising revenue at the same capacity to digital,” Martin said.

“They had more confidence than we did,” she said.

The ANZPM legislation estimated it as a $400 million a year operation, with roughly half the funding from public sources and half from commercial revenue.

TVNZ’s submission said that was “unambitious”.

“If the commercial arm of the new entity can aid in gaining more revenue to reinvest into local content and to reinvest into public media outcomes, all the better,” the chief executive at the time Simon Power told Mediawatch in 2023.

“It was a very rosy picture they painted. They had a mandate to be a commercial business that had to give confidence to the advertisers and the rest of New Zealand but they were very confident two years ago that this wouldn’t happen,” she said.

In opposition, National Party leader Christopher Luxon described the merger as “ideological and insane” and “a solution looking for a problem”.

He wasn’t alone.

But if that was based on TVNZ’s bullish assessments of its own revenue-raising capacity — or a disregard of a probable downturn ahead, was that a big mistake?

“I won’t comment for today’s government, but statements being made in the last couple of days about people getting their news from somewhere else; truth and trust has dropped off; linear has got to be transferred into the digital environment . . . none of those things are new comments,” Martin told Mediawatch.

“They’re all in the documentation that we placed into the public domain — and I asked the special permission, as the chair of the ANZPM group, to brief spokespersons for broadcasting of the Greens, Act and National to try and make sure that everybody has as much and as much information as we could give them,” she said.

Media and Communications Minister Melissa Lee said this week she was working on proposals to help the media to take to cabinet.

“I don’t give advice to the minister, but I would advise officials to go back and pull out the business case and paperwork for ANZPM — and to look at the submissions and the number of people who supported the concept, but had concerns about particular areas,” Tracey Martin told Mediawatch.

“Don’t let perfection get in the way of action.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

On World Press Freedom Day the world remembers the importance of a free and independent media as the cornerstone of thriving and healthy democracies.

For our developing and developed Pacific nations of the Blue Continent, the 30th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day is also an opportunity to acknowledge the role of journalists whose first rule is to uphold the news creed — to tell the truth without fear or favour, to serve the public interest, to hold power to account.

For our Forum leaders, the primacy and importance of independent reporting and communication of Forum decisions goes back to our beginnings.

One of the key decisions in those early years more than five decades ago was the mandate to communicate, recognising the benefits of sharing information about the leaders meetings and decisions.

I am pleased to note our strong relationship with Pacific media continues to this day.

Across our key regional leader meetings, we actively partner with and brief news journalists to ensure quality reporting of the issues shaping our world. We recognise that editorial independence and quality journalism rely on strong access to facts, information, and certainty.

The watchdog and public interest role of the press as the Fourth Estate complementing the other three — the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary, has never been more important to public accountability, transparency, and good governance.

Together, they ensure engaged, active, and informed Pacific citizens. This level of empowerment sets the basis for a Pacific future that is safe, secure, and peaceful.

From the Biketawa Declaration on Good Governance to the Boe Declaration on Regional Security and the Teieniwa Vision on Anti-Corruption, our leaders are demonstrating their understanding that independent and free media are part of the work we do.

The digital age, amid times of covid and climate crisis, has also brought a new layer of transformative disruption and opportunity.

A free, thriving, and diverse Pacific press is a key partner to our Blue Pacific strategy to 2050. Today we can all celebrate the independence and impact of quality news journalism led by news and media practitioners across the Pacific and globally.

Despite often harsh work conditions, they continue a vocation for a news agenda of truth, transparency, and accountability.

The global rights-based theme of this year’s World Press Freedom Day is a timely recognition that in serving the public interest, the journalist is often the implementing arm of the people’s right to know. Independent truth telling and investigation is not an easy or popular calling.

World Press Freedom Day allows us to reiterate the safety and the rights of journalists, particularly women in journalism.

Without this ability to do their work without fear or favour, we cannot count on the facts that matter, that stand out in a world of fake news, misinformation, and noise.

Today, I join those who pay tribute to all journalists who frame the stories of our times in the values of truth, balance, and our collective right to know. Vinaka vakalevu, thank you.

PIF Secretary-General Henry Puna gave this message for the 30th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day on 3 May 2023. It has been republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In any true democracy, the role of journalists and the media outlets they represent is to inform the people so that they can make educated and well-informed choices.

The role of politicians is to represent those who elected them.

They are to make decisions that best serve the public interest and to ensure that the concerns of citizens are heard, considered, and, where appropriate, acted upon.

In such a political system, the journalist and the politician must both serve the people but in peculiarly differing ways.

Journalists act on behalf of citizens by exploring and covering issues that concern the people and in doing so they include a diversity of voices and political opinions that offer different viewpoints and opinions.

The bottom line of their job is ensuring that politicians do their job transparently, with accountability and through better public service delivery.

In the end, journalism enhances, encourages meaningful dialogue and debate in society.

On the other hand, politicians use the media to reach the masses, make them understand their policies and through this — get acceptance and approval from the public.

Politicians love media spotlight
Politicians naturally love the media spotlight for without reporters nobody knows their policies and their good deeds, no matter how grand they may be.

Politicians love talking to reporters so they can get publicity.

Reporters like politicians too because they provide them with stories — there goes the long story of the symbiotic relationship between the press and powerful members of the legislature.

What a perfect relationship.

Absolutely wrong!

Some say the relationship is one of “love and hate” and always hangs in the balance.

This liaison of sorts is more than meets the eye and the truth is simple.

Like the legislature, the media has a prominent and permanent place in national leadership and governance (known as the Fourth Estate).

Critical components of democracy
Both are critical components of a democracy.

Because of their democratic mandate, the media and politicians cannot be fulltime bedfellows.

And as the saying goes, they will have their moments.

However, in past years The Fiji Times has always been seen as the “enemy of the state”.

This had nothing to do with the media’s work as a watchdog of society or the Fourth Estate, but rather with the way in which the former government muzzled the media and created an environment of fear through draconian media laws that stifled freedom of expression and constricted media freedom.

Simply put, a newspaper and any truly independent media outlet must be fair and in being fair, its content must reflect the rich diversity of views and opinions that exists in the public sphere, as well as the aspirations, fears and concerns of the varied groups that exist in the community.

Experts, academics or anyone outside of government is welcomed to use this forum of information exchange, dissemination and sharing.

Politicians, if they have nothing to hide, can use it too, provided what they have to say is honest, sincere and accurate.

Listening to pluralistic ‘voices’
A responsible government deliberately chooses to listen attentively to pluralistic “voices” in the media although these expressions may put it in an uncomfortable position.

A responsible government also explores avenues in which valid ideas could be propagated to improve its own practices and achieve its intended outcome.

In other words, a newspaper exists to, among other reasons, communicate and amplify issues of concern faced by citizens.

This includes voicing citizens’ complaints over any laxity in government’s service delivery, especially people in rural areas who often do not enjoy the public services that we so often take for granted in towns and cities.

So whenever, people use the mainstream media to raise concerns over poor roads, water, garbage disposal, education and inferior health services, the public does so with the genuine yearning for assistance and intervention from government.

And in providing this platform for exchange, the media achieves its democratic goal of getting authorities to effectively respond to taxpayers’ needs, keep their development promises and deliver according to their election manifestos.

Remember, a responsible newspaper or media does not exist to act as government’s mouthpiece.

Retaining media independence
If media outlets give up their independence and allow themselves to be used by politicians for political parties’ own political agenda and gains, then citizens who rely on the media as an instrument for meaningful dialogue, discussion and discourse will be denied their participatory space and expressive rights.

A responsible and autonomous newspaper like The Fiji Times does not exist to make government feel good.

For if this ever occurs, this newspaper will compromise its ability to provide the necessary oversight on government powers and actions, without which, abuse of power and corruption thrive to the detriment of ordinary citizens.

If media organisations and journalists who work for them operate in the way they should, then for obvious reasons, all politicians in government will “sometimes” find the media “upsetting” and “meddlesome”.

Copping the flak from ministers and those in positions of authority is part and parcel of the media’s work.

It is a healthy sign that democracy works.

This newspaper was instrumental in calling on the SVT (Soqosoqo Vakavulewa ni Taukei) government and its then prime minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, (now Fiji’s Prime Minister again under the People’s Alliance Party-PAP/National Federation Party (NFP) and Sodelpa coalition) to account for the enormous financial loss which caused the collapse of the National Bank of Fiji in the 1990s.

Our pages can prove that.

This newspaper also scrutinised many of the policies of the coalition government under the leadership of Mahendra Chaudhry and Laisenia Qarase, during whose time, this newspaper was the common foe.

Our pages can prove that.

Last government ‘vindictive, authoritarian’
But no government was as vindictive and authoritarian as the last government.

Today, early in the days of the PAP/NFP and Sodelpa coalition government, we are seeing the good old days of media freedom slowly coming back.

We can now doorstop the Prime Minister and call the Attorney-General at 9pm for a comment and get an answer.

The openness with which ministers talk to the press is encouraging.

We hope things stay that way and the government accepts that we will sometimes put out stories that it finds positive and there will be times when we will make its life difficult and uneasy.

At the end of the day, it is the people that we both work hard to serve.

Sometimes we will step on some people’s toes, be blamed for provoking disquiet and seem unpopular among powerful politicians.

That is to be expected and embraced.

Safeguarding press freedom
But we will continue to play a prominent role in safeguarding the freedom of the press so that all Fijians can enjoy their own rights and freedoms.

With the best intentions, our journalists will continue to forge forward with their pursuit of truth and human dignity, regardless of the political party in power.

As we rebuild Fiji and regain what many people think we’ve lost in 16 years, this newspaper will play a pivotal role in allowing government to reach the people so that they make informed choices about their lives.

We must face it — Fiji is heavily in debt, many families are struggling, the health system is in a poor state, thousands are trapped in poverty and the most vulnerable members of society are hanging in the balance, taking one day at a time.

It is in this environment of uncertainty that the media and politicians must operate in for the common good.

And as a responsible newspaper, we will listen to all Fijians and provide a safe space to express their voices.

That is our mandate and our promise.

John Mitchell is a senior Fiji Times feature writer who writes a weekly column, “Behind The News”. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In any true democracy, the role of journalists and the media outlets they represent is to inform the people so that they can make educated and well-informed choices.

The role of politicians is to represent those who elected them.

They are to make decisions that best serve the public interest and to ensure that the concerns of citizens are heard, considered, and, where appropriate, acted upon.

In such a political system, the journalist and the politician must both serve the people but in peculiarly differing ways.

Journalists act on behalf of citizens by exploring and covering issues that concern the people and in doing so they include a diversity of voices and political opinions that offer different viewpoints and opinions.

The bottom line of their job is ensuring that politicians do their job transparently, with accountability and through better public service delivery.

In the end, journalism enhances, encourages meaningful dialogue and debate in society.

On the other hand, politicians use the media to reach the masses, make them understand their policies and through this — get acceptance and approval from the public.

Politicians love media spotlight
Politicians naturally love the media spotlight for without reporters nobody knows their policies and their good deeds, no matter how grand they may be.

Politicians love talking to reporters so they can get publicity.

Reporters like politicians too because they provide them with stories — there goes the long story of the symbiotic relationship between the press and powerful members of the legislature.

What a perfect relationship.

Absolutely wrong!

Some say the relationship is one of “love and hate” and always hangs in the balance.

This liaison of sorts is more than meets the eye and the truth is simple.

Like the legislature, the media has a prominent and permanent place in national leadership and governance (known as the Fourth Estate).

Critical components of democracy
Both are critical components of a democracy.

Because of their democratic mandate, the media and politicians cannot be fulltime bedfellows.

And as the saying goes, they will have their moments.

However, in past years The Fiji Times has always been seen as the “enemy of the state”.

This had nothing to do with the media’s work as a watchdog of society or the Fourth Estate, but rather with the way in which the former government muzzled the media and created an environment of fear through draconian media laws that stifled freedom of expression and constricted media freedom.

Simply put, a newspaper and any truly independent media outlet must be fair and in being fair, its content must reflect the rich diversity of views and opinions that exists in the public sphere, as well as the aspirations, fears and concerns of the varied groups that exist in the community.

Experts, academics or anyone outside of government is welcomed to use this forum of information exchange, dissemination and sharing.

Politicians, if they have nothing to hide, can use it too, provided what they have to say is honest, sincere and accurate.

Listening to pluralistic ‘voices’
A responsible government deliberately chooses to listen attentively to pluralistic “voices” in the media although these expressions may put it in an uncomfortable position.

A responsible government also explores avenues in which valid ideas could be propagated to improve its own practices and achieve its intended outcome.

In other words, a newspaper exists to, among other reasons, communicate and amplify issues of concern faced by citizens.

This includes voicing citizens’ complaints over any laxity in government’s service delivery, especially people in rural areas who often do not enjoy the public services that we so often take for granted in towns and cities.

So whenever, people use the mainstream media to raise concerns over poor roads, water, garbage disposal, education and inferior health services, the public does so with the genuine yearning for assistance and intervention from government.

And in providing this platform for exchange, the media achieves its democratic goal of getting authorities to effectively respond to taxpayers’ needs, keep their development promises and deliver according to their election manifestos.

Remember, a responsible newspaper or media does not exist to act as government’s mouthpiece.

Retaining media independence
If media outlets give up their independence and allow themselves to be used by politicians for political parties’ own political agenda and gains, then citizens who rely on the media as an instrument for meaningful dialogue, discussion and discourse will be denied their participatory space and expressive rights.

A responsible and autonomous newspaper like The Fiji Times does not exist to make government feel good.

For if this ever occurs, this newspaper will compromise its ability to provide the necessary oversight on government powers and actions, without which, abuse of power and corruption thrive to the detriment of ordinary citizens.

If media organisations and journalists who work for them operate in the way they should, then for obvious reasons, all politicians in government will “sometimes” find the media “upsetting” and “meddlesome”.

Copping the flak from ministers and those in positions of authority is part and parcel of the media’s work.

It is a healthy sign that democracy works.

This newspaper was instrumental in calling on the SVT (Soqosoqo Vakavulewa ni Taukei) government and its then prime minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, (now Fiji’s Prime Minister again under the People’s Alliance Party-PAP/National Federation Party (NFP) and Sodelpa coalition) to account for the enormous financial loss which caused the collapse of the National Bank of Fiji in the 1990s.

Our pages can prove that.

This newspaper also scrutinised many of the policies of the coalition government under the leadership of Mahendra Chaudhry and Laisenia Qarase, during whose time, this newspaper was the common foe.

Our pages can prove that.

Last government ‘vindictive, authoritarian’
But no government was as vindictive and authoritarian as the last government.

Today, early in the days of the PAP/NFP and Sodelpa coalition government, we are seeing the good old days of media freedom slowly coming back.

We can now doorstop the Prime Minister and call the Attorney-General at 9pm for a comment and get an answer.

The openness with which ministers talk to the press is encouraging.

We hope things stay that way and the government accepts that we will sometimes put out stories that it finds positive and there will be times when we will make its life difficult and uneasy.

At the end of the day, it is the people that we both work hard to serve.

Sometimes we will step on some people’s toes, be blamed for provoking disquiet and seem unpopular among powerful politicians.

That is to be expected and embraced.

Safeguarding press freedom
But we will continue to play a prominent role in safeguarding the freedom of the press so that all Fijians can enjoy their own rights and freedoms.

With the best intentions, our journalists will continue to forge forward with their pursuit of truth and human dignity, regardless of the political party in power.

As we rebuild Fiji and regain what many people think we’ve lost in 16 years, this newspaper will play a pivotal role in allowing government to reach the people so that they make informed choices about their lives.

We must face it — Fiji is heavily in debt, many families are struggling, the health system is in a poor state, thousands are trapped in poverty and the most vulnerable members of society are hanging in the balance, taking one day at a time.

It is in this environment of uncertainty that the media and politicians must operate in for the common good.

And as a responsible newspaper, we will listen to all Fijians and provide a safe space to express their voices.

That is our mandate and our promise.

John Mitchell is a senior Fiji Times feature writer who writes a weekly column, “Behind The News”. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has warned the news media that the country’s emergency powers enable the government to target “yellow journalism” and the spreading of misinformation, reports the Solomon Islands Herald.

Speaking in Parliament on a motion to extend the covid pandemic State of Public Emergency by a further four months, Sogavare said the rationale for having this provision was to ensure individuals or the news media did not spread rumours or misinformation that cause disturbances may divert much needed resources.

“I respect our freedom to express ourselves but I must say that I am extremely disappointed in how some individuals and mainstream media have continued to disseminate rumours and misinformation to our people,” he said.

The Emergency Powers (COVID-19) (No.2) Regulations 2021 have provisions relating to yellow journalism.

Sogavare cited recent media reports that had been published in the past few days as “pathetic and disappointing”, especially since the publications were “mere rumours, misinformation and just outright lies”.

“The government has been very tolerant of these malicious lies and rumours published in the media. We have demonstrated restraint but I must say our patience and restraint is surely tested with this yellow journalism,” Prime Minister Sogavare said.

The press, though not formally recognised as an established part of the formal political system, played the role of the watchdog over the formally established three estates of the state — judiciary, legislature and executive.

Role of watchdog
Prime Minister Sogavare said the role of the watchdog must be based on the press providing verified and reliable information to the public.

He said the press was accorded the title of “Fourth Estate” because of the confidence and trust that the public had in the press as the watchdog.

Quoting Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Prime Minister said: “Freedom of the press is essential to the preservation of a democracy; but there is a difference between freedom and licence.

“Editorialists who tell downright lies in order to advance their own agendas do more to discredit the press than all the censors in the world.”

Prime Minister Sogavare also quoted Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times from 1935 to 1961, saying: “Perhaps we ought to ask ourselves just what freedom of the press really is. Whose freedom is it?

“Does it merely guarantee the right of the publisher to do and say whatever he wishes, limited only by the laws of libel, public order and decency?

“Is it only a special licence to those who manage the units of the press? The answer, of course, is no.

‘Freedom of the press’
“Freedom of the press — or, to be more precise, the benefit of freedom of the press belongs to everyone — to the citizen as well as the publisher,” he said.

“The publisher is not granted the privilege of independence simply to provide him with a more favoured position in the community than is accorded to other citizens. He enjoys an explicitly defined independence because it is the only condition under which he can fulfil his role, which is to inform fully, fairly and comprehensively.

“The crux is not the publisher’s ‘freedom to print’; it is rather the citizens’ ‘right to know’, Sogavare added.

• “Yellow journalism” is an American expression referring to newspapers that present poorly researched and unverified news while using eye-catching headlines for increased sales. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, sensationalism, rumours or false information. In the Pacific context, the phrase often means any journalism critical of governments.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Since 2001, I’ve worked in both mainstream news and Māori media. I love journalism but it’s a hard slog being a Māori reporter.

In the mainstream news, Māori reporters are a minority, Māori stories and voices aren’t given a similar priority to other stories unless it’s adversarial.

This is problematic because it creates inequity for Māori.

READ MORE: Te Wiki o te Reo Māori – Māori language week

We don’t provide a counter-balance to the adversarial stories because we don’t report enough on other aspects of Māori society. This distorts the narrative about Māori by portraying them negatively and as being outside the perspective of the news media.

The example for Māori can be used for any minority culture in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The news media system, its organisations and personnel are supposed to represent everyone. They don’t and never have historically.

The first papers appeared in the mid-1800s. They were instruments of the Crown and represented settlers’ perspectives on issues related to settlement including land disputes with Māori.

News media set up to favour Western ideologies
Like so many other colonial systems such as education, the news media was set up to support and favour Western European ideologies and practices.

For Māori to be included in any of those structures they have to adopt English and Pākehā cultural norms. If they don’t, then they are excluded.

The public voices and perspectives of Māori were marginalised by the news media then and although it has improved over time, Māori are still not well represented now.

Mainstream newsrooms across the country are mainly filled with Pākehā. This is neither good nor bad, it is a fact. What this means is, if we’re not aware of it, the lens being used to generate the news and influence our communities is monocultural.

As journalists, we are held to account by public opinion, a set of industry principles, defamation laws and newsroom codes of conduct. We are supposed to be independent, without bias or favour.

This is difficult to achieve when the news system and newsrooms aren’t being constantly monitored to ensure it isn’t biased or favours Pākehā perspectives.

Hard for younger minority journalists
In my early reporter years, I dropped aspects of my Māoritanga to fit in. This isn’t the case for me now because I’m a senior reporter but it can be for younger minority journalists.

My independence, important to journalism, is often questioned by other reporters and the public. I’m seen to be biased because I’m Māori and focus on Māori perspectives.

I have a file full of emailed complaints, some of them racist, about the stories I write.

For example, one guy called me a “f….. b…. and said: “The reason there is racism in this country is because you are a racist against New Zealand Europeans opening your racist gob and spreading your racist words.”

It can get a bit lonely being the lone Māori voice in a newsroom. I have a Stuff whānau who supports me. I could stop focusing on Māori but who else will do it?

It is my way of supporting the community even though I’ve been left in tears by Māori questioning how Māori I am and why I’m reporting on them.

When I backed Stuff’s campaign to make Matariki a public holiday, a Māori reader called me a kūare, an insulting term.

A purpose to the query
I like it when colleagues ask me for advice on all things Māori, I don’t mind because there is a purpose to the query. But sometimes, cultural differences can cause conflict in the newsroom.

I recall years ago printing off a report and my workmate said, ‘could you hurry up with printing that Māori s…’. Another colleague around that time asked me to stop pronouncing Māori place names correctly because no one knew where I was talking about.

I nearly got into a physical fight with a reporter who called my cultural practices, politically correct bulls….

Obviously I wouldn’t still be in the industry if I didn’t think there is some good in it, including all the people I’ve worked with over the years, despite our differences. Newsrooms are trying to be more inclusive in everything they do. We’ve come a long way from our news forefathers of yesteryear.

At Stuff, we no longer pluralise Māori words, only an apostrophe ‘s’ on possessive nouns. In 2017, Stuff introduced macrons during te wiki o te reo Māori, the Māori Language week.

This weekend, we kicked off plans to reclaim te reo Māori and culture in support of Māori language week. All of our mastheads will carry reo Māori names supported by local iwi.

Uplifting the voices of Māori
We’ve been purposefully creating projects and stories to uplift the voices of Māori and all cultures of Aotearoa New Zealand such as Nā Niu Tīreni and our new series, Aotearoa in 20.

I believe the news system can be better and more inclusive. Our younger generation of reporters tend to be less monocultural in their views and thinking.

But if we don’t change our representation of all cultures now, they may carry the same marginalisation practices of the past into the future.

The older ones, like myself, know it’s time to do more if we are to truly represent the bicultural foundations of Aotearoa New Zealand and its multicultural society.

Carmen Parahi (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Hine, Rongowhakaata) is national correspondent for Stuff. The Pacific Media Centre/Te Amokura is republishing her articles with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The shock announcement yesterday that the Australian Associated Press newsagency will cease operations after 85 years is a blow to journalism in Australia and the Pacific.

AAP, which is owned by Nine, News Corp Australia, The West Australian and Australian Community Media, provided services to media companies such as newswires, subediting and photography will close with the loss of 500 jobs – 180 of them journalists.

“This is a tragic end to one of the world’s best news agencies, one that has contributed so much to the first draft of history in Australia for 85 years,” says Professor David Robie, director of the Pacific Media Centre.

READ MORE: AAP newswire service closes after 85 years with 500 job losses

“It’s a great tragedy and a huge loss for all those talented journalists – reporters, editors and photographers – who have been on the AAP frontline.

“AAP has also played a crucial role in the Pacific, reporting political crises, disasters and social change through two key news bureaus in Port Moresby and Suva for many years.

“Just as the closure of NZPA in 2011- after 132 years – left a gaping hole in New Zealand international coverage, this will be another disaster for Australian public interest journalism.”

Senior lecturer and co-ordinator of journalism at the University of the South Pacific, Dr Shailendra Singh lamented the loss of AAP at a time when Pacific governments are clamping down on the media.

Demise of AAP ‘damaging’
“The demise of AAP is tragic and damaging. The Pacific has lost another source of independent reporting. The timing couldn’t be worse,” said Dr Singh.

“There is a clear trend across the Pacific of erosion of the Fourth Estate as governments in the region clamp down.

“Part of the reason is the unprecedented scrutiny governments are facing from so-called citizen journalists. The governments are lashing out in various ways, such as stronger legislation, and the mainstream news media is caught in the crossfire,” he said.

“Of course, the AAP presence and coverage has waned, but the AAP at least used to step up during crucial times, such as cyclones and political uprisings, as in the Fiji coups and the Solomon Islands conflict.

“Pacific journalism capacity is lacking due to various structural weaknesses in the system and AAP used to fill the gap at crucial times.”

As an example of the work AAP did in the Pacific, it was the first organisation to tell the world of the 1987 Fiji coup, through then Fiji correspondent James Shrimpton, who also played a round of golf a week later with coup instigator Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka and gained another exclusive.

As journalists reacted with shock around the region, veteran Pacific journalist Michael Field remarked on The Pacific Newsroom social media platform:

‘Legendary journalists’
“AAP were legendary Pacific journalists. They had bureaux in Port Moresby and Suva, and they covered big stories. They cared about the region.

“It was AAP who told the world first about Rabuka’s coup. It was AAP who, as a competitor, I worried about. And I worked for them over the years, marvellous people…”

AAP CEO Bruce Davidson said yesterday: “We’ve seen a lot of cutbacks, closures, a reduction in news coverage by the traditional media companies across Australia; across the rest of the world.

“News agencies have endured [a tough environment] for quite a long time, but we are now in a situation where too many of our customers are not wanting to pay for our content.

“Too many of our customers are relying on what is on Google, what’s out there on Facebook in terms of their content generation,” Davidson said, explaining the rationale for the decision.

The Australian Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEEA) trade union labelled the decision to close the newswire as “irresponsible” and called on the government to rein in digital giant platforms, in a strongly worded statement.

“Look at the news stories, the photos, the coverage, the quotes and the enormous spectrum of excellent journalism that AAP has supplied over the past 85 years. AAP delivers news, photos and subediting services that the major media groups either cannot or will not,” MEAA media federal president Marcus Strom said.

Government failure blamed
He blamed the media crisis on the Australian government’s failure to adequately deal with the effect digital content aggregators, search engines and social media has had on news content makers.

“Google and Facebook are riding the coattails of news outlets, using the outlet’s news stories to lure away their audiences and advertisers which leads to the platforms also taking from the revenue streams that those news outlets sorely need,” Strom said.

“This erosion of media revenues through the proliferation of sharing of content for free by the giant digital platforms is a major cause of why AAP is losing subscriber revenue.”

In an earlier submission to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) digital platform inquiry, MEAA called for a percentage of revenue to be levied on digital platforms for the use of media content, with the funding then to be retained and distributed through a Public Interest Journalism Fund.

AAP made a similar proposal in its submission, the MEAA statement added.

MEAA chief executive Paul Murphy said: “In its final response to the ACCC inquiry last year, the federal government failed to pick up on this recommendation or even to introduce proper regulation of digital platforms. The AAP crisis makes it imperative that this proposal be revisited.

“The government must deal with the serious case of market failure that is resulting in a decline in quality public interest journalism, which is essential for our democracy.”

AAP will close it doors on June 26, while the subediting arm Pagemasters will close in August.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz