Social cohesion is a national responsibility, and everyone, including the media, should support government’s efforts, according to Dr Shailendra Singh, associate professor in Pacific Journalism at the University of the South Pacific.

While the news media are often accused of exacerbating conflict by amplifying ethnic tensions through biased narratives, media could also assist social cohesion and unite people by promoting dialogue and mutual understanding, said Dr Singh.

He was the lead trainer at a two-day conflict-sensitive reporting workshop for journalists, student journalists, and civil society on reporting in ethically tense environments.

The training, organised by Dialogue Fiji at the Suva Holiday Inn on November 12–13, included reporting techniques, understanding Fiji’s political and media landscape, and building trust with audiences.

Watchdog journalism
Dr Singh said media played an important public interest role as ‘society’s watchdog’. The two main strengths of Watchdog Journalism are that it seeks to promote greater accountability and transparency from those in power.

However, he cautioned reporters not to get too caught up in covering negative issues all the time. He said ideally, media should strive for a healthy mix of positive and what might be termed “negative” news.

Dr Singh’s doctoral thesis, from the University of Queensland, was on “Rethinking journalism for supporting social cohesion and democracy: case study of media performance in Fiji”.

He discussed the concepts of “media hyper-adversarialism” and “attack dog journalism”, which denote an increasingly aggressive form of political journalism, usually underpinned by commercial motives.

This trend was a concern even in developed Western countries, including Australia, where former Labour Minister Lindsay Tanner wrote a book about it: Sideshow, Dumbing Down Democracy.

Dr Singh said it had been pointed out that media hyper-adversarialism was even more dangerous in fragile, conflict-affected and vulnerable settings, as it harms fledgling democracies by nurturing intolerance and diminishing faith in democratically-elected leaders.

“Excessive criticism and emphasis on failure and wrongdoings will foster an attitude of distrust towards institutions and leaders,” he said.

Conflict-sensitive reporting
According to Dr Singh, examples around the world show that unrestrained reporting in conflict-prone zones could further escalate tensions and eventually result in violence.

The number one aim of conflict-sensitive reporting is to ensure that journalists, are aware of their national context, and shape their reporting accordingly, rather than apply the “watchdog” framework indiscriminately in all situations, because a “one-size-fits-all” approach could be risky and counterproductive.

Journalists who adopt the conflict-sensitive reporting approach in their coverage of national issues could become facilitators for peaceful solutions rather than a catalyst for conflict.

“The goal of a journalist within a conflict-prone environment should be to build an informed and engaged community by promoting understanding and reconciliation through contextualised coverage of complex issues,” he said.

A rethink was all the more necessary because of social media proliferation, and the spread of misinformation and hate speech on these platforms.

Challenges in maintaining transparency and accountability in journalism
According to Dr Singh, in many Pacific newsrooms today journalists who are at the forefront of reporting breaking news and complex issues are mostly young and relatively inexperienced.

He said the Pacific media sector suffered from a high turnover rate, with many journalists moving to the private sector, regional and international organisations, and government ministries after a brief stint in the mainstream.

“There is a lot of focus on alleged media bias,” said Dr Singh.

“However, young, inexperienced, and under-trained journalists can unknowingly inflame grievances and promote stereotypes by how they report contentious issues, even though their intentions are not malicious,” he said.

Dr Singh emphasised that in such cases, journalists often become a danger unto themselves because they provide governments with the justification or excuse for the need for stronger legislation to maintain communal harmony.

“As was the case in 2010 when the Media Industry Development Act was imposed in the name of professionalising standards,” said Dr Singh.

“However, it only led to a decline in standards because of the practice of self-censorship, as well as the victimisation of journalists.”

Legislation alone not the answer
Dr Singh added that legislation alone was not the answer since it did not address training and development, or the high rate of newsroom staff turnover.

He said the media were often attacked, but what was also needed was assistance, rather than criticism alone. This included training in specific areas, rather than assume that journalists are experts in every field.

Because Fiji is still a transitional democracy and given our ethnic diversity, Dr Singh believes that it makes for a strong case for conflict-sensitive reporting practices to mitigate against the risks of societal divisions.

“Because the media act as a bridge between people and institutions, it is essential that they work on building a relationship of trust by promoting peace and stability, while reporting critically when required.”

This article was first published by The Fiji Times on 24 November, 2024 and is being republished from USP Journalism’s Wansolwara and The Fiji Times under a collaborative agreement.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

As an economy, Fiji has paid a “very high price for being unable to protect freedom” but people can speak and criticise the government freely now, says Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad.

He highlighted the “high price” while launching the new book titled Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific, which he also co-edited, at the Pacific International Media conference in Suva last week.

Prasad, a former University of the South Pacific (USP) economics professor, said that he, in a deeply personal way, knew how the economy had been affected when he saw the debt numbers and what the government had inherited.

Professor Prasad says the government had reintroduced media self-regulation and “we can actually feel the freedom everywhere, including in Parliament”.

USP head of journalism associate professor Shailendra Singh and former USP lecturer and co-founder of The Australia Today Dr Amrit Sarwal also co-edited the book with Professor Prasad.

While also speaking during the launch, PNG Minister for Information and Communications Technology Timothy Masiu expressed support for the Fiji government repealing the media laws that curbed freedom in Fiji in the recent past.

He said his Department of ICT had set up a social media management desk to monitor the ever-increasing threats on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and other online platforms.

Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad speaking at the book launch. Video: Fijivillage News

• promote media self-regulation;
• improve government media capacity;
• roll out media infrastructure for all; and
• diversify content and quota usage for national interest.

He said that to elevate media professionalism in PNG, the policy called for developing media self-regulation in the country without direct government intervention.

Strike a balance
Masiu said the draft policy also intended to strike a balance between the media’s ongoing role in transparency and accountability on the one hand, and the dissemination of developmental information, on the other hand.

He said it was not an attempt by the government to restrict the media in PNG and the media in PNG enjoyed “unprecedented freedom” and an ability to report as they deemed appropriate.

The PNG Minister said their leaders were constantly being put in the spotlight.

While they did not necessarily agree with many of the daily news media reports, the governmenr would not “suddenly move to restrict the media” in PNG in any form.

The 30th anniversary edition of the research journal Pacific Journalism Review, founded by former USP Journalism Programme head Professor David Robie at the University of Papua New Guinea, was also launched at the event.

The PJR has published more than 1100 research articles over the past 30 years and is the largest media research archive in the region.

Republished from Fijivillage News with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Paul and Selwyn will deep dive into the battle to control a narrative, waged by all sides in a polarised combative world, and how modern mainstream media institutions, like Radio New Zealand, fall vulnerable in the absence of robust all-sides-considered analysis and debate.

In this episode, Paul and Selwyn will analyse how fourth Estate bias, propaganda, and conflict-force fact-vacuums are the challenge of our times in this disinformation age.

Upon this context, Paul and Selwyn will consider:

* Why Is the Radio New Zealand sub-editor pro-RU-content debacle symptomatic of a fact-vacuum environment?

* Why is all media vulnerable to disinformation in the absence of robust NATO-Ukraine-Russia analysis?

* What are the unspoken of ‘big picture’ shifts in Russian Federation / Global South relations?

LINKS and REFERENCES:

• https://KiwiPolitico.com
• https://www.dekoder.org/de/person/ekaterina-schulmann-0
• https://www.rnz.co.nz/media/180
• https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/news-extras/story/2018893905/rnz-editorial-audit
• https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/top/491788/nz-entering-ukraine-conflict-at-whim-of-govt-former-labour-general-secretary
• https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/02/25/russia-ends-nowhere-they-say
• https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-russian-elites-think-putins-war-is-doomed-to-fail

INTERACTION WHILE LIVE:

Paul and Selwyn encourage their live audience to interact while they are live with questions and comments.

To interact during the live recording of this podcast, go to Youtube.com/c/EveningReport/

Remember to subscribe to the channel.

For the on-demand audience, you can also keep the conversation going on this debate by clicking on one of the social media channels below:

• Youtube.com/c/EveningReport/
• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

RECOGNITION: The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication. Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category.

You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

A Ukrainian man who complained about an RNZ story last year having Russian propaganda says his concerns are only now being noticed.

It comes after the revelation a staff member altered Reuters copy to include pro-Russian sentiment.

Since Friday, 250 articles published on RNZ back to January last year have been audited.

Of those articles, 15 are now known to have been altered, and an RNZ employee has been placed on leave. Fourteen of the articles were from the Reuters wire service, and one was from BBC.

An independent review of the editing of online stories has been commissioned by RNZ.

Michael Lidski, who wrote the complaint, signed by several Ukrainian and Russian-born New Zealanders said the article he complained about appeared not only on RNZ, but The New Zealand Herald and Newshub as well.

Lidski said it took some time after the article was published to send the complaint letter to RNZ to make sure everyone who signed it was happy with what it said.

It was received by RNZ on the evening of Labour Day, October 24.

Russian ‘behavior similar to Nazi Germany’
“Obviously Russia is the aggressor and behaving very similar to what the Nazi Germany did in the beginning of the Second World War,” Lidski said.

“Luckily”, he said, Russia was much less “efficient” and “successful on the front” but not so luckily, they were “very efficient” in their propaganda.

Lidski said he also sent the complaint to Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson and other media outlets – but Jackson was the only one to provide any response.

Lidski said Jackson’s response essentially said the government could not interfere with the press and refrained from “taking sides”.

As part of the audit, RNZ reviewed the story published on rnz.co.nz on May 26, 2022 relating to the war in Ukraine, which it said was updated later that day to give further balance after an editorial process was followed.

When Lidski sent his letter, he said he received no response from RNZ.

Awaiting external review
He said he would be waiting to see what comes of the external review.

“I just want to stress that we are not dealing with a situation where someone just made a mistake.

“We are in the war, the enemy is attacking us, it’s very important that, you know, we take it seriously.”

RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson declined to speak with Morning Report today, describing the breaches of editorial standards as extremely serious.

In a statement, Thompson said it was a “very challenging time for RNZ and the organisations focus is on getting to the bottom of what happened and being open and transparent”.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Irra Lee of Te Waha Nui

A well-known Kiwi journalist has said the New Zealand news industry is getting better at showing care for reporters who cover distressing stories.

Alison Mau, who started her journalism career in Australia in the 1980s, said the industry had changed a lot since then and is now better at considering the wellbeing of journalists.

Mau’s first front-page story was the 1987 Hoddle St mass shootings in Melbourne.

READ MORE: NZ journalists focusing on ‘tragedy prevention’, says CJR research

The incident left seven dead and 19 injured. Mau was assigned to interview one of the bereaved families soon after the shootings.

“I went back to the office . . . quite traumatised.

“It didn’t cross their minds that we were in some way in need of any care. It would have been just, like, ‘Harden up’,” she said.

Now Stuff’s editor of its #MeTooNZ project, she leads a team investigating sexual harassment cases in the workplace.

Mau said some stories kept her up at night in a fury.

“My bosses are always saying: ‘Are you okay?’”

On the journalism industry, she said: “In a lot of cases, it’s kind of lip service . . . and that’s as far as it goes. But I think the intent is there and that’s a good change.”

Several news organisations are also offering counselling services through confidential assistance programmes.

Former reporter Eli Orzessek said one of his first assignments as a young reporter was to interview a rugby coach after three players in his team died in a car crash.

“I had some coaching from editors . . . I guess I just tried my best to be very sensitive,” he said.

“At the end of the call, he actually thanked me and said everyone in the media had actually been really decent.”

Orzessek said while there was a lot “you have to just deal with” when reporting on upsetting stories, he found unwinding from work and talking to colleagues helped.

“Sometimes you just go home and, like, want to cry about it a lot. Other times, it doesn’t really affect you.”

Lyn Barnes, who completed her PhD at AUT on the effects of trauma on New Zealand journalists, said younger journalists were more willing to speak about their experiences than reporters in the past.

“The thick-skinned journos, as they call them, I think they’re kind of a dying breed and the younger ones who are keeping up now and have got quite good editorial roles are supporting younger staff,” she said.

“A trauma counsellor is needed, often, because unless you know what you’re dealing with, you can’t support someone through it.

“To know that employers are willing to pay for that sort of support is fantastic.”

• Irra Lee is a final year Bachelor of Communication Studies student journalist and is editor of Te Waha Nui

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

FILM REVIEW: By David Robie

While a gripping film about the apocalyptic Bougainville war, or more accurately the peace that ended the decade-long conflict, opened in cinemas across New Zealand last week, an island roadshow has been taking place back in the Pacific.

Initiated by the United Nations, the roadshow – featuring Bougainville President Father John Momis, many of his cabinet members and UN Resident Coordinator Gianluca Rampolla – is designed to help prepare the Bougainvillean voters to decide on their future.

This future is due to be put to the test in a referendum on October 17 in the crucial political outcome of an extraordinary peace process that began in chilly mid-winter talks at Burnham Military Camp near Christchurch in July 1997.

The vote is already four months delayed, partly due to spoiling tactics of Peter O’Neill’s Papua New Guinean government which would avoid the vote if it could.

The Bougainville referendum roadshow … speaking to the women. Image: Bougainville News

In any case, the vote is not binding and the O’Neill government may not even honour it, even if there is an overwhelming vote for independence in the island with a population of 250,000.

The choice is simple: Voters will be asked to choose between greater autonomy and full independence. The vote is expected to favour independence.

Also at stake is the future of the Panguna – once the mainstay of Papua New Guinea’s economy and now abandoned because of the environmental devastation caused by the huge Australian-owned copper mine – and the right of a people to choose their own destiny free from rapacious foreign extraction industries.

After almost 10 years of civil war when an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 people lost their lives through the actual fighting between the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) and other armed groups and the Papua New Guinean military, and through deaths from lack of medical treatment and starvation as a result of a military blockade around the island state, a breakthrough was achieved in New Zealand.

Training a child to play shoot … a scene from both Hakas And Guitars and Soldiers Without Guns. Image: Freeze frame from Hakas And Guns trailer

Exhausted by the deadlock, the deprivations of the war and 14 failed attempts at negotiating a peace, talks in the bitter cold at Burnham sparked off the long journey for a lasting peace. As former North Solomons provincial government official and a peace process officer Robert Tapi recalls:

The silent majority of Bougainvilleans were tired of war and longed to return to normal village life. Women’s groups, church groups and chiefs increased the pressure on both the BRA and the PNG-backed Bougainville Transitional Government to negotiate for peace.

On all sides, the likely cost of victory was proving too high. The moderate revolutionary leaders realised that even if they did “win”, they “would inherit a hopelessly divided society”.

The first meeting resulted in the Burnham Declaration of July 18, 1997, which urged the leaders to call a ceasefire and for the establishment of an international peacekeeping force with the withdrawal of the PNG Defence Force.

Following the Burnham Truce and the endorsement of a Truce Monitoring Group (TMG) in Cairns in November 1997, a further Burnham meeting in January 1998 produced the Lincoln Agreement and paved the way for the Ceasefire Agreement in Arawa on April 30, 1998.

The success of the breakthrough in Burnham and the following meetings was thanks to the inclusion of women’s groups, churches and local chiefs as well as the political opponents, meeting on neutral territory and with New Zealand not intervening in the talks. Also helpful was then Foreign Minister Don McKinnon’s friendly and chatty style with the delegates, which boosted Bougainvillean morale.

“Land is our heartbeat” … women played a key role in the Bougainville peace – and the documentary. Image: Freeze frame from Soldiers Without Guns

Filmmaker Will Watson stepped up to tell the extraordinary New Zealand peacekeeping story initially through an award-winning 2018 documentary for Māori Television, Hakas And Guitars, following up with this year’s feature film Soldiers Without Guns.

He had been monitoring the war and aftermath while a journalism student and began to put together a project team in 2005. Ironically, due to funding and other obstacles, it took him 13 years to complete the feature film – longer than the actual war.

A couple of years later, in 2007, he had a film crew on the ground in Bougainville to carry out interviews and gain invaluable footage. His documentary is an inspiring and fitting tribute to the innovative “guitars, waiata and wahine” approach of the NZ-led peacekeeping force.

Soldiers Without Guns poster at the Civic premiere in Auckland earlier this month. Image: David Robie

By concentrating on a strategy of winning the hearts and minds through hundreds of kilometres of foot slogging treks to villages and communicating directly and honestly with ordinary people, the soldiers gained the trust of Bougainvilleans from all sides.

It was a courageous and insightful decision by the first mission commander, Brigadier Roger Mortlock, now retired, to go to Bougainville without weapons and guarantee the peace. He had experienced a UN peacekeeping failure in Angola and was determined this mission would succeed.

Bougainville … a long history of struggle against the Australian-owned Panguna mine and for independence. Image: Freeze frame from Soldiers Without Guns

Another key factor in the success was Major Fiona Cassidy, an Army public relations manager at the time, and her ability to communicate in a meaningful way with the Bougainvillean women in what is a matriarchal society.

In a recent RNZ Pacific interview, she admitted finding the challenge a bit “scary”:

“When you looked at the country brief, you knew that you were not going into a benign environment. It actually was hostile. So it was a little bit scary thinking, ‘Okay, we’re going to a country which has been at war for so long, it still isn’t stable, and we’re going in unarmed.’”

During the start of the Bougainville war, I was head of the journalism programme at the University of Papua New Guinea and reported the first year of the conflict in a cover story for Pacific Islands Monthly. As part of this, I revealed how a New Zealand environmental consultancy unwittingly became a catalyst for fuelling the conflict.

I wrote in my 2014 book Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific:

Apart from convoys with soldiers riding shotgun and yellow ochre Bougainville Copper Limited trucks packed with security forces sporting M16s, you would hardly guess that a guerrilla war was in progress near the Bougainville provincial capital of Arawa. But once you reached the sandbagged machinegun nest in Birempa village at the foot of the rugged mountain jungles of the Crown Prince Range, the tension started to rise.

Scanning the dense vegetation for a sign of the militants of the Bougainville Republican Army (BRA)—known as Rambos in the first year of the decade-long civil war – the Papua New Guinea Defence Force soldier manning the machinegun didn’t notice the irony of the T-shirt he was wearing.

“Mine Of Tears” … a t-shirt popular early in the Bougainville war. Image: David Robie

Scrawled across his chest were the words MINE OF TEARS, a word play on the title of Richard West’s 1972 book River of Tears: The rise of Rio Tinto-Zinc Mining Corporation. The book was an expose of the mining operations by BCL’s parent company CRA Limited of Australia—a subsidiary of Britain’s Conzinc-Riotinto—and it had already become the “Bible” of the many of the militants.

At the time I was reporting on the fledgling war for a cover story featured by Pacific Islands Monthly in its November 1989 edition entitled MINE OF TEARS: BOUGAINVILLE ONE YEAR LATER. No other journalists were on the ground at the time, and the only other people staying at the small hotel in the port town of Kieta were soldiers, some cradling guns on their knees when having dinner. The atmosphere was surreal and ghostly in those early days.

The problems of Bougainville cannot be divorced from the rest of the country, or even from the rest of the Pacific. At stake are the crucial issues of a conflict between Western concepts of land ownership and indigenous land values, the equity between the national government, provincial administration and the traditional landowners, and a choice between genuine sovereignty over resource development projects or dependence on foreign control.

For those of us who have had some involvement in the Bougainville war bearing witness, Will Watson and his crew deserve huge praise for bringing this story to the big screen, and honouring New Zealand’s contribution to peace – Australia couldn’t have done it – and providing hope for Bougainville’s future.

With luck, the island will become independent and bring some meaning to all that terrible loss of life and deprivation.

Professor David Robie is director of the Pacific Media Centre.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A former Papua New Guinea military commander has warned that he is “concerned, if not frightened” that the PNG Defence Force may be deploying police and soldiers in the troubled Southern Highlands province facing a deadly weapon.

Ex-Brigadier-General Jerry Singirok , a former commander of the PNGDF who arrested mercenaries deployed by the Sir Julius Chan government for the Bougainville war in the so-called Sandline crisis in 1997, has made his views known in independent media.

In an item published by PNG Attitude and EMTV journalist Scott Waide’s blog, Singirok described Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s government response to last week’s Mendi riots as a “premature state of emergency” and a “cheap, reckless and knee-jerk option”.

His comments have come at a time when the nation has been shocked by the display of high powered assault weapons by protesters since last week’s Mendi rioting.

It is clear that the government’s guns amnesty last year did little to encourage people to surrender their weapons, reports Loop PNG.

Defence Minister Solan Mirisim said that talks of weapons surrender or disposal would be part of discussions as leaders continued to discuss solutions to the Southern Highlands unrest.

•     More Mendi riot stories

This article was first published on Café Pacific.]]>

]]> https://eveningreport.nz/2018/05/04/journalists-talk-press-freedom-be-afraid-but-do-the-job/ Fri, 04 May 2018 06:01:28 +0000 https://eveningreport.nz/2018/05/04/journalists-talk-press-freedom-be-afraid-but-do-the-job/ ]]> In this World Press Freedom Day video, Filipino journalists Ed Lingao, Jason Gutierrez, Inday Espina-Varona, Ezra Acayan, and JC Gotinga speak about facing threats against the press, and why it’s important to keep reporting. Video: Rappler

By Patricia Evangelista in Manila

The threat against press freedom, say local journalists in the Philippines, one of the world’s dangerous zones according to Reporters Without Borders, comes from the republic’s highest office.

The Philippines has dropped six places to 133rd in the RSF’s latest World Press Freedom Index – and a Filipino radio journalist was gunned down on Monday, just three days before World Press Freedom Day yesterday.

The country is now ranked the deadliest country for journalists in Asia.

“Do I think the President is a threat to press freedom?” asks international broadcast producer JC Gotinga. “He has threatened press freedom – in public.”

Ed Lingao, a conflict journalist who has found himself in the crossfire of anger from government supporters, characterises the administration as one uncomfortable with criticism – “and it has taken out a very big stick.”

-Partners-

“I think people are getting their strength in the fact that government seems very courageous in whipping up the crowd,” says Lingao.

The threats online are varied, he says, and occasionally specific.

‘Death threat … rape threat’
“Every day over breakfast,” says Rappler Presidential Palace reporter Pia Ranada, “it’s kind of a routine that I look through my Twitter feed, my Facebook messages, my emails. No fail, there will be a death threat, mixed in with those trolling.

“There will always be a rape threat.”

Veteran journalist Inday Espina-Varona calls the attack against the press “consistent and systematic.”

The most dangerous threat, she says, comes from members of the propaganda machine whose goal is to “scare the media into silence”.

Although she laughs off many of the insults – “they call me old, of course, I’m a grandmother of 3!” – she says it is necessary to take the physical threats seriously.

“Am I afraid? All the time,” says Lingao. “Only a stupid person would be a reporter and not be afraid. So be afraid. Be very afraid. But do the job.”

Freelance photojournalist Ezra Acayan, whose work covering the brutality of the drug war has seen publication in The New York Times, Le Monde, The Guardian, and The Washington Post, denies there is reason for concern when journalists stand for particular principles.

Bias constant refrain
Bias is a constant refrain among detractors of critical reportage.

“When they say we shouldn’t take sides, I think that’s wrong,” says Acayan. “We should be on the side of what’s right and true.”

“Before I am a journalist, I am also a Filipino,” says international correspondent Jason Gutierrez.

“I care about what is happening to my country. That’s a large part of my being a journalist.”

The trouble, says Gutierrez, is that people are locked within echo chambers constantly validating their own opinions.

Gotinga, a former local broadcast journalist himself, says part of the mandate of journalism is to provide information to protect citizens from abuse.

It is the reason, he says, why news is often negative.

“Otherwise,” he says, “the other word for it is propaganda.”

Patricia Evangelista is a journalist for Rappler in Manila.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

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