ANALYSIS: By Susan St John

With the coalition government’s second Budget being unveiled, we should question where New Zealand is heading.

The 2024 Budget laid out the strategy. Tax cuts and landlord subsidies were prioritised with a focus on cuts to social and infrastructure spending. Most of the tax package went to the well-off, while many low-income households got nothing, or very little.

Even the tiny bit of the tax package directed to low-income people fell flat. Family Boost has significantly helped only a handful of families, while the increase of $25 per week (In Work Tax Credit) was denied all families on benefits, affecting about 200,000 of the very poorest children.

In the recession, families that lost paid work also lost access to full Working for Families, an income cut for their children of about $100 per week.

No one worked out how the many spending cuts would be distributed, but they have hurt the poor the most. These changes are too numerous to itemise but include increased transport costs; the reintroduction of prescription charges; a disastrous school lunch system; rising rents, rates and insurance; fewer budget advisory services; cuts to foodbank funding and hardship grants; stripping away support programmes for the disabled; inadequately adjusted benefits and minimum wage; and reduced support for pay equity and the living wage.

The objective is to save money while ignoring the human cost. For example, a scathing report of the Auditor General confirms that Oranga Tamariki took a bulldozer to obeying the call for a 6.5 percent cut in existing social services with no regard to the extreme hurt caused to children and struggling parents.

Budget 2025 has already indicated that Working for Families will continue to go backwards with not even inflation adjustments. The 2025 child and youth strategy report shows that over the year to June 2024 the number of children in material poverty continued to increase, there were more avoidable hospitalisations, immunisation rates for babies declined, and there was more food insecurity.

Human costs all around us
We can see the human costs all around us in homelessness, food insecurity, and ill health. Already we know we rank at the bottom among developed countries for child wellbeing and suicide rates.

Abject distress existing alongside where homes sell for $20 million-$40 million is no longer uncommon, and neither are $6 million helicopters of the very rich.

At the start of the year, Helen Robinson, CEO of the Auckland City Mission, had a clear warning: “I am pleading with government for more support, otherwise what we and other food relief agencies in Auckland can provide, will dramatically decrease.

“This leaves more of Auckland hungry and those already there become more desperate. It is the total antithesis of a thriving city.”

The theory held by this government is that by reducing the role of government and taxes, the private sector will flourish, and secure well-paid jobs will be created. Instead, as basic economic theory would predict, we have been handed a long and protracted recession with few signs of growth and prosperity.

Budget 2025 signals more of the same.

It would be a mistake to wait for simplistic official inequality statistics before we act. Our current destination is a sharply divided country of extreme wealth and extreme poverty with an insecure middle class.

Underfunded social agencies
Underfunded and swamped social agencies cannot remove the relentless stress on the people who are invisible in the ‘fiscally responsible’ economic narrative. The fabricated bogeyman of outsized net government debt is at the core, as the government pursues balanced budgets and small government-size targets.

A stage one economics student would know the deficit increases automatically in a recession to cushion the decline and stop the economy spiralling into something that looks more like a depression. But our safety nets of social welfare are performing very badly.

Rising unemployment has exposed the inadequacy of social protections. Working for Families, for instance, provides a very poor cushion for children. Many “working” families do not have enough hours of work and face crippling poverty traps.

Future security is undermined as more KiwiSavers cash in for hardship reasons. A record number of the talented young we need to drive the recovery and repair the frayed social fabric have already fled the country.

The government is fond of comparing its Budget to that of a household. But what prudent household would deliberately undermine the earning capacity of family members?

The primary task for the Budget should be to look after people first, to allow them to meet their food, dental and health needs, education, housing and travel costs, to have a buffer of savings to cushion unexpected shocks and to prepare for old age.

A sore thumb standing
In the social security part of the Budget, NZ Super for all at 65, no matter how rich or whether still in full-time well-paid work, dominates (gross $25 billion). It’s a sore thumb standing out alongside much less generous, highly targeted benefits and working for families, paid parental leave, family boost, hardship provisions, accommodation supplement, winter energy and other payments and subsidies.

Given the political will, research shows we can easily redirect at least $3 billion from very wealthy superannuitants to fixing other payments to greatly improve the wellbeing of the young. This will not be enough but it could be a first step to the wide rebalancing needed.

New Zealand has become a country of two halves whose paths rarely cross: a social time bomb with unimaginable consequences. It is a country beguiled by an egalitarian past that is no more.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

An investigative journalist who was barred from attending New Zealand’s national apology to survivors of abuse in care has now been granted accreditation.

Parliament’s Speaker has now granted temporary Press Gallery accreditation to journalist Aaron Smale for tomorrow’s apology for abuse in care. He must, however, be accompanied by a Newsroom reporter at all times.

It follows a significant backlash from survivors and advocates to the initial decision.

Smale has covered abuse in care, and the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the abuse, for eight years. His work has appeared in multiple publications and websites, including Newsroom, Newshub, The Listener, The Spinoff and RNZ.

Last week, speaker Gerry Brownlee declined an application from Newsroom for Smale to report on the apology.

Parliament’s Press Gallery had asked for an explanation, as a refusal was quite rare, especially when a reporter met the gallery’s criteria for accreditation.

It was told the application was declined, with the Speaker citing Smale’s conduct on a prior occasion.

This afternoon, the Press Gallery wrote to the Speaker, requesting a more fulsome explanation.

Speaker’s about-turn
In an about-turn, the Speaker approved the application.

The initial decision to decline Smale’s application was met with backlash by survivor groups and advocates, as well as politicians and Newsroom itself.

At a media conference at Parliament in July, Smale and the Prime Minister had an exchange over the government’s law and order policies, and whether the Prime Minister would acknowledge the link between abuse and gang membership.

According to Newsroom, Smale had also attended a media event at a youth justice facility in Palmerston North, and pressed Children’s Minister Karen Chhour over whether it had been appropriate to associate the memory of the Māori Battalion with the new youth justice programme.

“The Beehive was in touch with us to say they believed he had been too forceful and too rude, in their view, in those two occasions,” Newsroom’s co-editor Tim Murphy told RNZ’s Nine to Noon programme.

Murphy said that Smale had conceded he had pushed the children’s minister “a bit far”.

“But the one in Parliament, he was asking specific questions and kept asking them of the Prime Minister and I think that became irritating to the Prime Minister,” Murphy said.

‘Most informed’ of journalists
Describing Smale as “the most informed, possibly, probably of all New Zealand journalists” on the issue of abuse in state care institutions, Murphy said political discomfort should not be a reason to exclude Smale, and the ban should not stand.

“He should be there, and he should be asking questions, because he’ll know more than virtually everybody else who could be,” he said.

Murphy said Smale’s intention for his coverage of the apology itself was to write an observational piece through the eyes of survivors, and he was not intending to “get into a grilling.”

The Royal Commission Forum, an advisory group to the commission, said denying Smale accreditation was “profoundly concerning” and a damaging decision in the lead-up to the apology.

The Green Party said it was alarmed by the move, and said it set a dangerous precedent.

“As a society that values the role of the Fourth Estate, we should value the work of journalists like Aaron, because it helps us take a critical look at where we have gone wrong and how we may move forward,” said the Green Party’s media and communications spokesperson Hūhana Lyndon.

“Barring a leading journalist from an important event like this speaks to this government’s lack of accountability. It is something we might expect in Putin’s Russia, not 21st century Aotearoa New Zealand.”

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Newshub, one of the key media companies in Aotearoa New Zealand, is to close its newsroom on June 30, reports RNZ News.

Staff were told of the closure at an emergency meeting today.

Newshub is owned by US-based global entertainment giant Warner Bros Discovery which also owns Eden, Rush, HGTV and Bravo.

In 2020, it took over the New Zealand channel’s assets which had been then part of Mediaworks.

Staff were called to a meeting at Newshub at 11am, RNZ News reported on its live news feed.

They were told that the US conglomerate Warner Brothers Discovery, owners of Newshub, was commencing consultation on a restructuring of its free-to-air business

This included the closure of all news operations by its Newshub operation

All local programming would be made only through local funding bodies and partners.

James Gibbons, president of Asia Pacific for Warner Bros Discovery, said it was a combination of negative events in NZ and around the world. The economic downturn had been severe and there was no long hope for a bounce back

Revenue has ‘disappeared quickly’
“Advertising revenue in New Zealand has disappeared far more quickly than our ability to manage this reduction, and to drive the business to profitability,” he said.

He said the restructuring would focus on it being a digital business

ThreeNow, its digital platform, would be the focus and could run local shows

All news production would stop on June 30.

The consultation process runs until mid-March. A final decision is expected early April.

“Deeply shocked’
Interviewed on RNZ’s Nine to Noon programme, a former head of Newshub, Mark Jennings, said he was deeply shocked by the move.

Other media personalities also reacted with stunned disbelief. Rival TVNZ’s Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver said: “Thinking of my friends and colleagues from Newshub.

“So many super talented wonderful people. Its a terrible day for our industry that Newshub [will] close by June, we will be all the much poorer for it. Much aroha to you all.”

Newshub has broken some important Pacific stories over the years.

Jennings told RNZ a cut back and trimming of shows would have been expected — but not on this scale.

“I’m really deeply frankly shocked by it,” said Jennings, now co-founder and editor of Newsroom independent digital media group.

He said he expected all shows to go, including AM Show and investigative journalist Patrick Gower’s show.

Company ‘had no strategy’
“I think governments will be pretty upset and annoyed about this, to be honest.”

“Unless they have been kept in the loop because we’re going to see a major drop in diversity.

“Newshub’s newsroom has been, maybe not so much in recent times, but certainly in the past, a very strong and vibrant player in the market and very important one for this country and again as [RNZ Mediawatch presenter] Colin [Peacock] points out, who is going to keep TVNZ’s news honest now?

“I think this is a major blow to media diversity in this country.”

“First of all, Discovery and then Warner Bros Discovery, this has been an absolute shocker of entry to this market by them. They came in with what I could was . . . no, I couldn’t see a strategy in it and in the time they owned this company, there has been no strategy and that’s really disappointing.

“If this had gone to a better owner, they would have taken steps way sooner and maybe we wouldn’t be losing one of the country’s most valued news services.”

Loss of $100m over three years
Jennings said his understanding was the company had lost $100 million in the past three years, which was “really significant”.

“I wonder if it had been a New Zealand owner, whether the government might have taken a different view around this, but I guess because it’s owned by a huge American, multi-national conglomerate, they would’ve been reluctant to intervene in any way.”

He said Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee, a former journalist who ran the Asia Down Under programme for many years, faced serious questions now.

“It’ll be her first big test really, I guess, in that portfolio.”

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

ANALYSIS: By Mark Jennings

Until weeks ago, the future of Aotearoa New Zealand’s public media organisations was looking so grim the government was prepared to spend $370 million over four years to merge TVNZ and RNZ and future proof the new entity it was calling ANZPM.

Last December, when the merger plan was under intense scrutiny, then Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern said RNZ “could collapse” if the merger did not go ahead.

Last week, Labour unveiled a very modest plan to strengthen public media. The old, very expensive one, had been thrown on the policy bonfire back in February.

The “burn it” decision had been widely anticipated after new PM Chris Hipkins’ started dumping unpopular policies to focus on cost of living issues.

Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson stayed on message when he released the new public media plan last week. “We have listened to New Zealanders and now is not the right time to restructure our public media.”

Under the new plan RNZ will get $25 million more a year, NZ On Air will get a one-off boost of $10m for 2023/24 and TVNZ will get nothing.

Jackson claims the extra money will “deliver world class public media for all New Zealanders.” This seems improbable given the earlier dire predictions.

The additional $25 million a year for RNZ represents a 60 percent increase in its funding. It sounds a lot but the broadcaster has been under resourced for the past 15 years.

Coping with pandemic
When National came to power in 2008 it froze RNZ funding for 9 years. The state broadcaster did get an increase from the Ardern government but it has had to contend with the additional costs of reporting on and coping with the covid-19 pandemic.

Lately, the demands of covering the Auckland floods and cyclone Gabrielle have stretched it further. Newsroom understands RNZ is currently running a deficit of close to $5 million.

The lack of funding is illustrated by the rundown premises RNZ occupies nationwide, its ageing equipment and out-of-date IT systems. Under constant financial pressure it has struggled to attract and keep top journalists.

Some of its best and brightest have been lured away to TVNZ, Newshub, Newsroom and Stuff.

Jackson’s media release said $12 million of the extra funding was for current services and $12 million for a new digital platform. $1.7 million is to support AM transmission so people can access information during civil emergencies.

Stuff, the NZ Herald and RNZ itself all reported (presumably from the media release) on the funding for the new multimedia digital platform. But there is no new platform. This was either clumsy language or a clumsy attempt at spin from Jackson and his comms people.

RNZ’s chief executive Paul Thompson told Newsroom the money would be used to make improvements to RNZ’s existing web platform and mobile app.

‘Fixing things’
“It is kind of fixing things that should have been fixed a long time ago. Our website and app are serviceable and do a good job but if we are going to be relevant in the future we need to be better than that.”

Thompson says the increase in the amount of baseline funding was calculated to restore RNZ to its former state, more than anything else.

“How much would it take us to stabilise our current operations and get them to where they need to be, so that’s well overdue. It is everything from our premises through to our content management systems, to our rostering — just having enough staff to do the job we do. It’s sufficient but we are going to have to spend every penny very wisely.”

A big part of the government’s reasoning for the merger was that minority audiences are under-served by the media.

Jackson now seems to expect RNZ to do the heavy lifting in this area. His media release quoted him saying the funding would allow RNZ to expand regional coverage and establish a new initiative to prioritise Māori and Pacific coverage.

Asked how he planned to do this, Thompson was circumspect. “It has got to be worked out . . . we are going to have to prioritise, we can’t do it all at once.”

Jackson wants other media to play an (unspecified) role in reaching these audiences. He has restored $42 million of funding to NZ On Air. Under the merger plan this money, which was the amount NZOA spent funding TVNZ programmes (mainly drama, comedy and off-peak minority programmes), was being handed to ANZPM to decide how it should be spent.

Production community upset
The local TV production community was upset by this as it far preferred NZ On Air to be the gatekeeper and not TVNZ executives who would likely end up working for the merged organisation.

Jackson has also given NZOA a one-off boost of $10 million for 2023/2024.

“The funding will support the creation of high-quality content that better represents and connects with audiences such as Māori, Pasifika, Asian, disabled people and our rangatahi and tamariki. It is vital that all New Zealanders are seeing and hearing themselves in our public media,” he said in his media release.

One-off funding can be of limited benefit. It usually has to be project-based rather than supporting ongoing programming and the staff that go with it. It is possible Jackson is hoping or expects NZ On Air to use more of its baseline funding to sustain new shows and programmes for minorities.

On the same day as Jackson’s announcement, but with less fanfare, NZOA released its own revised strategy.

The document says, above all, funded content must have a “clear cultural or social purpose.”

Priority will be given to songs and stories that contribute to rautaki (strategy for) Māori, support a range of voices and experiences, including those of people from varying ages, races, ethnicities, abilities, genders, religions, cultures, and sexual orientations.

Unclear about TVNZ
It is unclear where Jackson’s plan B leaves TVNZ. Throughout the merger discussions TVNZ executives, while saying they embraced the idea, were critical of the draft legislation, the level of independence the new entity would have and they often emphasised TVNZ’s commercial success.

Jackson has, on a number of occasions, linked TVNZ to the National Party which opposed the merger and was committed to rolling it back if elected in October.

When he became frustrated in an interview with TVNZ’s Jack Tame, before the merger was abandoned, Jackson used the line “your mates in National”.

During question time in Parliament last week, when asked what more he was doing to strengthen public media, Jackson said he was going to “sit down with Simon and the National Party mates over there.”

He was referring to TVNZ CEO, and former National Party minister, Simon Power.

Jackson said he wanted TVNZ to play a more active role in public broadcasting and, “we are going to traverse things with Simon in terms of a way forward.”

Power recently announced his resignation and will leave TVNZ in June. With many of the TVNZ board, including its influential chair Andy Coupe, likely to retire or be replaced in the next month, Jackson will, in reality, be sitting down with a new board and CEO to discuss his public media ambitions for TVNZ.

If he is interested in the job, RNZ’s Thompson must now be in with a real chance.

Thompson unequivocally endorsed the merger idea and was almost the only advocate able to clearly articulate its benefits. A new board, eager to take the company in a direction more sympathetic to its owner’s vision, might find that attractive.

Mark Jennings is co-editor of Newsroom. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Mediaworks’ radio station Today FM abandoned scheduling today when presenters broke from programming to question the future of their employer.

Broadcasters told their audience they were going off air and had been instructed to play music.

Today FM hosts Duncan Garner and Tova O’Brien told listeners before 9am the station and staff were being cut.

“We’ve been told to play music.”

“This is it, folks.”

While still on-air, O’Brien said the station had not been given a chance.

Staff had been told they had the support of the chief executive, the board, the executive “and they have f…..d us”, she said.

Garner responded: “This is betrayal.”

Crying staff
“He said other staff had joined the two radio hosts in the studio and several of them were crying.

“Radio is one of those projects, where you have to settle in, and slowly but surely get your numbers, get your ratings, get your revenue,” Garner said.

He said the company was “bleeding cash”.

A short time later the station began playing music.

Show producer Tom Day tweeted that the Mediaworks board had made a proposal to shut down Today FM.

“They have given us only until the end of this afternoon to make submissions. I have no words.”

Today FM PULLED OFF AIR. as Duncan and Tova explain the station and staff are being cut.
“We’ve been told to play music”
“This is it, folks!”

— Tim Murphy (@tmurphyNZ) March 29, 2023

‘Gutting’ to be axed
Day told RNZ it was gutting to have their station axed by Mediaworks.

He confirmed the Mediaworks board had proposed to close down the Today FM Brand in a meeting this morning.

He wished they had been given more time to build their brand after being on the air for just over a year.

He said staff had attended a meeting with Palmer and HR staff this morning and it seemed clear the station would be shut down.

“It’s pretty much a done deal.”

Staff had been told there was a five-year plan for the station but instead it looked like it would close after just one year.

“We feel pretty gutted and let down,” he said.

‘Serious uncertainty’
A story on Today FM’s website says it is facing “serious uncertainty”.

It also references the appearance just before 9am of its key broadcasters Garner and O’Brien who went on air and used a swear word banned in most circumstances by the Broadcasting Standards Authority to describe their current situation.

In the on-air segment O’Brien said that following the resignation of Mediaworks head of news Dallas Gurney, soon after the sudden departure of chief executive Cam Wallace, the team had not been able to get the same level of assurance from the board or acting chief executive Wendy Palmer about the future of the radio station.

“We’ve got to hold out hope here, but we’re scared,” she said.

Tim Murphy, the co-editor of Newsroom, wrote that today’s development was shocking and gutting for many journalists and the industry.

Station-wide meeting
A station-wide meeting had been called with Palmer, the story said.

In a statement, Palmer said: “This morning at the MediaWorks board’s request, we have taken Today FM off air while we consult with the team about the future of the station.

“This is a difficult time for the team and our priority is supporting them as we work through this process.”

She said more information would be released at a later date.

Today FM was set up a year ago to replace Magic Talk, which had struggled to make inroads in the ratings.

MediaWorks also operates the Edge, the Breeze, Mai FM and the Rock among other stations.

Media commentator blames poor ratings
RNZ Mediawatch commentator Colin Peacock told Midday Report the company had spent a reported $6 million to $9 million to set up Today FM in a bid to compete with talkback radio market leader NewstalkZB.

The station needed to build its own news operation because Newshub and the TV channels had been sold to Discovery in 2021.

“The ratings didn’t work out bluntly over the past year,” he said.

The departures of Wallace and Gurney within the last month meant the biggest supporters of the station had left and current management was determined to cut costs.

He said “there was a lot to sort out” because the company would want to use the frequency and there would probably need to be payouts to any staff made redundant.

“They’ve really burned bridges with their staff so there will be fallout from this that will be financial as well.”

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Covid has now killed around 1700 people in New Zealand, but much of our news reporting and commentary has focused on how we’re moving on from the pandemic. Why is there such a mismatch between that media coverage, and the reality of a virus that’s inflicting more suffering and death than ever before?

On her show last week, Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan made a momentous announcement in an almost blithe, off-hand manner.

“The pandemic’s over for all intents and purposes but we’re still having to deal with this nonsense. Isn’t that ultimately why we’re feeling miserable because we all want a break? If I was in government what I’d do right now is ‘green setting guys, go for your life, party party, whatever’. Just for the mental break of it.”

The announcement that the pandemic is over would have been news to the families of the eight people reported to have died with covid-19 in New Zealand that day.

But du Plessis-Allan is far from an outlier in wanting to place a still raging pandemic in the rearview mirror.

Recently a senior Stuff executive sent staff a memo telling them their audience is “over covid” and has “actively moved on from covid content”.

It implored them to find cracker non-covid stories on topics including cons, crime, and safety, the cost of living, NZ culture, and stuff everyone is talking about.

Much wider group
Stuff’s audience is part of a much wider group that’s actively moving on from covid.

National leader Christopher Luxon just returned from a whirlwind overseas tour with the news that most people he met were no longer even talking about covid.

“It’s interesting to me I’ve just come back from Singapore, Ireland, and the UK. In most of those places we didn’t have a single covid conversation. In places like Ireland there’s no mask wearing at all.”

Luxon is right. Many places around the world have dropped their covid restrictions.

But even if we’re determined to ignore it, covid has remained stubbornly real, and is continuing to cause equally real harm.

In the United States, hospitalisations and reinfections are rising with the increasing prevalence of the BA.5 strain of omicron.

In the UK, about 13,000 hospital beds are currently occupied by covid patients. Hospitals are dealing with staff absences, exhaustion, persistent backlogs and problems discharging patients, and the UK government is considering bringing back restrictions if the situation gets any worse.

Same story as here
If that all sounds familiar, it’s because pretty much the exact same story is playing out here.

Association of General Surgeons president Rowan French delivered some dire news to RNZ’s Morning Report about hospitals’ current troubles with scheduling elective surgeries.

“It’s the worst I’ve ever seen it,” he said. “We don’t say that lightly but I think it is the worst we’ve ever seen it, particularly with respect to our ability to treat our patients’ elective conditions.”

French said those issues were exacerbated by a wave of covid-19 and winter flu.

Covid patients were taking up a lot of the beds that would normally be used by people recovering from surgery, and he couldn’t see an end in sight to the crisis.

There’s a jarring mismatch between that kind of interview and the concurrent harping about the need to move on from covid.

That’s producing cognitive dissonance, not just in the public, but among media commentators, some of whom are now bobbling between berating our minimal remaining efforts to mitigate covid-19 and lamenting the damage being caused by the uncontrolled spread of the virus.

Mental oscillations
In some cases, these mental oscillations can take place in mere hours.

On the morning of July 6, Newstalk ZB Wellington host Nick Mills had harsh words for the epidemiologists urging caution over covid.

“Michael Baker, let us get on with our lives. You go back to your lab. Do some intelligent work. Get paid truckloads of money doing it, and live in an extremely flash house. But for me, I don’t want to hear from you anymore. I want to get on with my life and our life.”

On du Plessis-Allan’s panel show The Huddle later that day, he had a different message about the severity of the latest wave.

“I’m absolutely terrified because it could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” he said. “If we have to go back [to a red setting] – and it will all be based on hospitals gonna have to be overcrowded — these numbers are terrifying.”

Maybe if Nick Mills had listened more closely to Professor Michael Baker, his research on BA.5 wouldn’t have come as such a nasty surprise.

To be fair to these hosts, their contradictory approaches to covid are pretty relatable.

Sick of the sickness
Even without any hard data to hand, it’s safe to say many people are sick of the sickness, and some are prepared to live in a state of suspended disbelief to act like that’s the case.

But covid isn’t over, and now many leading experts are saying it may never be.

Last week The Project commissioned a poll which showed 38 percent of people agree with those experts. They believe covid is here for good.

Afterward presenter Kanoa Lloyd quizzed epidemiologist Dr Tony Blakely about whether those respondents were right.

“It’s possible,” he said. “It’s rolling on. Remember influenza in 1918, we still get influenza every year. This is a coronavirus. It could keep coming up every year.”

Dr Blakely is among a number of epidemiologists and healthcare workers who have gone to the media lately to deliver the message that there is still a pandemic on.

On last weekend’s episode of Newshub Nation, the aforementioned Professor Michael Baker compared covid to the “inconvenient truth” of climate change — a global threat that demands real change and ongoing action to mitigate.

Common sense safety
He went on to link covid precautions to another common sense safety measure.

“If you go out when you have this infection and infect your friends and family, you are going to be killing some people — just like drinking and driving,” he said.

At The Spinoff, microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles stuck with the driving metaphor, imploring people to make popping on a mask as natural as clicking in your seatbelt.

This recent flurry of cautious messaging stands in stark contrast to much of the media coverage over the last few months.

Despite the fact 10 to 20 people per day have been dying of covid-19, that is had a muted response outside of the pro-forma coverage of the Ministry of Health’s 1pm press releases.

When covid-19 has been covered, the death toll has usually been superseded in the news by complaints from businesses about the few restrictions that remain.

Maybe that’s not such a surprise. News organisations have a powerful commercial incentive to give their customers what they want, and as Stuff’s executive said, audiences have moved on.

Like drunk party guest
But, like a drunk party guest at 3am, coronavirus does not care that you’re tired of it and you want it to leave.

A month ago, Newsroom’s Marc Daalder made that point in a prescient piece headlined “Covid isn’t over, it’s just getting started“.

He said the media needed to adjust from covering covid as a crisis to seeing it as an ongoing concern like the road toll or crime.

“It’s no longer temporary. It’s here to stay with us. And I don’t think that journalists have really figured out how to cover it as a daily issue, just like we cover all of the other daily issues that are really problematic,” he said.

“In some respects, it’s a bit bigger because it has a much more serious burden in terms of deaths and hospitalisations and long covid than something like the road toll, but just because it’s not a temporary crisis anymore, doesn’t mean that we should be ignoring it.”

Daalder said reporters could reorientate their coverage, writing more human interest stories on issues like the impact of long covid, and looking forward at how the virus and the fight against it will evolve.

“I think we are poorly served by media coverage, after the peak of the first omicron wave, in which there was no looking forward to what’s going to be happening in the short term or the long term.

Omicron peaked … and then?
“There was just this all this focus on what would happen when omicron peaked, and then it did, and, and nothing filled the void after that. And so I think it’s quite natural for people to assume that covid is over.”

Journalists could also apply more pressure to the government over the continuing levels of preventable suffering and death being caused by cmicron’s spread, Daalder said.

He has advocated for the return of the alert level system, which he believes was much more simple and comprehensible than the traffic light system implemented late last year.

“There’s not really very much accountability journalism that looks at holding the government accountable for essentially abandoning vulnerable people to the whims of the virus,” he said.

“You have this sort of very strange juxtaposition in the [parliamentary] press gallery where the covid minister will be asked by one person: ‘Are you concerned about BA.5? It’s starting to spread in New Zealand. Should we be increasing our restrictions?’

“And then in the next breath, the question is ‘Why aren’t we in green? When will we ever get to green?’.

Better balancing
“I’m not sure that either of those get to the heart of the present issue, which is that the current settings aren’t aren’t even aligned with a non-BA.5 world.”

Daalder said news organisations should find ways to balance their commercial incentives and the public interest role of journalism when it comes to important, but not always clickable, stories like covid or climate change.

“There’s an extent to which you should follow what audiences want. And you shouldn’t necessarily be trying to force something down their throats that they don’t want.

“But with something like covid, where it’s such a huge, important thing that’s happening, and that’s going to keep happening, regardless of whether you write about it or not.

“I think that’s where you know that that mission of journalism to tell the truth really comes in and overrides maybe some of the audience imperatives.”

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Sometime this week Newsroom co-editor Mark Jennings is due to be interviewed under caution by the New Zealand police because he kicked the hornet’s nest.

The particular hornet’s nest he disturbed was Oranga Tamariki, a state agency, and the reason it was given a boot was a now-discredited policy called reverse uplifts.

Jennings took editorial responsibility for a series of ground-breaking investigations led by Melanie Reid that including a video documentary containing shocking images of the “uplifting” of a child.

In a story on the Newsroom website last week, co-editor Tim Murphy revealed the police investigation that named Jennings and the demand that he attend the under-caution interview. “Under caution” means that anything he says could be used in a criminal prosecution against him.

The story noted that the case highlighted in the video led directly to Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis seeking a “please explain” from the agency and then directing Oranga Tamariki to stop the new policy of “reverse uplifts’” under which Māori children around the country who had been put in permanent care were being summarily removed and taken, in the case investigated, to unknown and distant whānau.

A Māori advisory panel was appointed from outside the ministry and the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki (OT), Grainne Moss, later resigned.

However, OT did not take the Newsroom investigation on the chin. In fact, it came out fighting and enlisted Crown Law. That intervention led to a High Court order to remove a video from the Newsroom website and the media organisation being hit with a $13,000 costs order it can ill-afford.

Finding may be challenged
The judge in the case did not accept that the matter was of such public interest that it over-rode the (strongly contested) matter of potential identification. While I accept that the identity of vulnerable persons must be protected under both the Family Court Act and the Oranga Tamariki Act, it remains to be seen whether that finding against Newsroom will be challenged. My own – strictly layman’s – view is that it could be.

Now one of Newsroom’s most senior executives is being threatened with criminal prosecution under the Family Court Act. Jennings could face up to three months in prison or a maximum fine of $2000 under that legislation. Arguably, he might even face a charge of contempt of court which can carry up to six months imprisonment or a $25,000 fine.

My question is a simple one: Why?

Why was Crown Law asked to intercede on Oranga Tamariki’s behalf? Why was an injunction sought in spite of Newsroom’s willingness to take steps to avoid identification of children? Why, after the initial aim of removing the video had succeeded, was an order for costs pursued against a fledgling news organisation struggling to maintain financial viability? Why have the police now been involved to pursue a criminal investigation against one of its co-founders? And why has this whole matter been pursued with such vigour?

My own view is that Newsroom’s investigation was very much in the public interest and that the video was a critical element in bringing about a policy change. I thought the possibility of identifying the children was remote.

Collectively, my questions have a simple answer: To send a message that, if you kick a state agency’s hornet’s nest, expect to get stung.

In legal and media circles it has a name: The Chilling Effect. It’s a concept that has been around for a long time.

Sedition laws as punishment
One of America’s founding fathers, James Madison, had real concern during the framing of the Constitution of the United States over the use of sedition laws to punish those who criticised government. Madison rightly concluded that it would lead to an author thinking twice before publishing and create a form of self-censorship.

And so it does.

In 2015 I swore an affidavit in support of Nicky Hager’s action against the Police when they executed a search warrant on his home following publication of Dirty Politics. It was one of three affidavits on the nature of the chilling effect that searches for the identity of confidential sources would have on investigative journalism.

Justice Clifford acknowledged the possibility of a chilling effect and noted that the three statements on its nature and consequence went unchallenged by the Attorney-General’s counsel. Of course, Hager won that challenge, and one might have thought Police would have become more than a little reticent about actions against journalists and their lawful pursuits.

It is doubtful that Crown Law acted against Newsroom of its own volition. It is far more likely that Oranga Tamariki arrived on its doorstep complaining that poor children were being identified and “something has to be done”. OT had genuine concerns for these tamariki and children in general, but there is no doubt its reputation had been damaged by the Newsroom investigations.

The lengths that it has been prepared to go in pursuing Newsroom – in the complete absence of any complaint to the news organisation by any member of the public over possible identification of the children or their whanau –is  nonetheless puzzling.

Put simply, there is no evidence that children or whanua have been publicly identified and, in any event, Newsroom has had the publication of that particular part of its investigation banned. It has also incurred a very substantial financial penalty with the awarding of full costs.

A clear warning
Assuming the police action stems from a complaint emanating from OT, I am left with a nasty feeling that the result is a clear warning about delving too deeply into the agency’s activities. In other words: Don’t kick the hornet’s nest!

It has a chilling effect that extends beyond OT. What is to stop other state agencies from threatening criminal charges if they can find a convenient piece of law?

Convenient laws can be found in unlikely places. Twenty years ago, the British government tried to use the Treason Felony Act of 1848 to hammer The Guardian. The Act contained a clause making it unlawful to call for an end to the monarchy.

Editor Alan Rusbridger was on a republican campaign when he got hit from behind. The House of Lords ruled the particular clause in the Treason Felony Act had (unsurprisingly) been superseded but the action remains an object lesson on the lengths governments might go to send a message.

And some of those messages can be quite chilling.

Dr Gavin Ellis is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications – covering both editorial and management roles – that spans more than half a century. This article is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By David Robie, convenor of Pacific Media Watch

While Pacific countries have got off rather lightly in a major global media freedom report last month with most named countries apparently “improving”, the reality is that politicians are becoming more intolerant and belligerent towards news media and information “black holes” are growing.

The Pacific is at the milder end on the scale of media freedom violations – there are no assassinations, murders, gaggings, torture and disappearances.

But the global trend of “hatred of journalists [degenerating] into violence, contributing to an increase of fear” warned about by the Paris-based global watchdog Reporters Without Borders is being reflected in our region.

READ MORE: UN World Press Freedom Day

Lack of safety for journalists is a growing concern for media organisations around a world where 80 journalists were killed last year, with 348 being jailed and 60 held hostage.

At least 49 of the slain journalists were “deliberately targeted” because they were media workers.

“If the political debate slides surreptitiously or openly towards a civil war-style atmosphere, in which journalists are treated as scapegoats, then democracy is in great danger,” says RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire in the introduction to RSF’s annual World Press Freedom Index.

“Halting this cycle of fear and intimidation is a matter of the utmost urgency for all people of good will who value the freedoms acquired in the course of history.”

Global concerns
The global concerns have been echoed in the Pacific in recent times.

In Papua New Guinea last week, for instance, amid what appeared to be the unravelling of Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s coalition government – described by many critics as a “dictatorship” – with the defection of seven members including the finance minister and attorney-general, an opposition leader made an extraordinary threat against the country’s two foreign-owned newspapers.

Vanimo-Green MP Belden Namah, leader of the PNG Party, one of the two major parties in the opposition, put the Australian-owned Post-Courier and Malaysian-owned National newspapers “on notice” that a new government would “deal” to the media.

Angered by the two dailies for not running his news conference stories, he threatened to regulate the print media if a new government is installed in vote of no-confidence due on Tuesday.

Last November, one of Papua New Guinea’s leading journalists, EMTV’s award-winning Lae bureau chief Scott Waide, was suspended by his company under pressure from the O’Neill government to have him sacked.

Why? Because he exposed the “inside story”of a diplomatic Chinese tantrum and a scandal over the purchase of a fleet of luxury Maserati cars during the Asia Pacific Economic Forum (APEC) hosted by Port Moresby.

Writing in Pacific Media Watch, columnist Vincent Moses thundered:

“Peter O’Neill is acting like another Chinese dictator in Papua New Guinea by exerting control over both state-owned and private media to not report truths and facts that expose his government and their corrupt acts to PNG and the world.”

‘Huge attack’
“This is a huge attack on media freedom in PNG and must be condemned by everyone,” Moses added.

The strong condemnation that followed forced EMTV to reverse its decision and the network reinstated Waide.

Ironically, Papua New Guinea’s Index “freedom” score lifted it 15 places to 38th in the global list of 180 countries.

Other Pacific countries and Timor-Leste also improved in the report assessing 2018 – except for Samoa, which was unchanged at 21st (just one place behind Australia). But this improvement must be seen against the background of global deterioration of media freedom.

The qualitative assessments in the index report make it clear media freedom in Pacific countries is also declining, just not as rapidly as in many other countries.

In the North Pacific, a Pacific Islands Times magazine editorial last month blasted the traditional chiefs on Yap in the Federated States of Micronesia for demanding the expulsion of a probing US reporter as harassment and an attempt to “silence a journalist”.

The magazine’s editor-in-chief, Mar-Vic Cagurangan, strongly defended her Yap correspondent, Joyce McClure, who has been living on the island for the past three years, saying that declaring her persona non grata would set a “dangerous precedent”.

Joyce McClure’s reporting provided transparency, which was “vital to every democratic society”.

‘Truthful information’
“The Pacific Island Times and Ms McClure have no agenda other than to provide truthful information to the people of the Pacific region. She is doing this job not as an outsider but as a member of the community, which has become home to her,” the Times said in its editorial.

Stories that McClure has written include reports on a private company’s apparent attempt to bribe newly installed state officials. She has also exposed Chinese commercial vessels harvesting Yap fish with local help.

The Yap media freedom saga was well documented last week by my Pacific Media Watch colleague Michael Andrew in his Bid to Expel Journalist report.

This week, on Wednesday, the Times reported that Joyce McClure “won’t be kicked off the island” as demanded by the chiefs.

“And questions are being raised about the legitimacy of the letter conveying the chiefly demands to the Yap State Legislature and then on to the Federated States of Micronesia Congress,” the Times added.

Replying to questions from Pacific Media Watch, Cagurangan admitted the stakes are high for small and vulnerable “self-funded” independent island publications such as Pacific Island Times.

“During last year’s elections [on Guam], the campaign team of then candidate and Bank of Guam president (now governor) Lou Leon Guerrero signed a political ad contract with us,” she said. “Despite the signed contract, the campaign team pulled out their ad following the publication of an op-ed piece written by a guest writer, which displeased them.

“Although we rely on advertising revenue to keep going, we refuse to compromise our journalistic integrity and independence.”

Malolo environmental expose
In Fiji, an independent New Zealand website, Newsroom, investigated a major environmental development disaster by the Chinese company Freesoul real Estate on the remote tourism island of Malolo, exposing how Fijian news media had been effectively gagged by 13 years of draconian media legislation and a climate of fear since the 2006 military coup.

Although democracy has returned and two post-coup elections have been held, the most recent last November, journalists are often intimidated into silence.

Opposition Leader Sitiveni Rabuka, the man who staged Fiji’s first two coups in 1987, said the “rot and culture of fear” in the civil service and the “intimidated and cowed media” were now so ingrained in the country that it had taken foreign journalists to break the story.

The three New Zealand Newsroom journalists reporting about Malolo were arrested early last month but Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama ordered their release a day later and apologised to them personally for their ordeal at the hands of “rogue officers”.

The intimidation of the Fiji media is an issue that the editor of the award-winning Wansolwara student journalist newspaper, Rosalie Nongebatu, and three of her fellow students will address at a World Press Freedom Day seminar hosted by the University of the South Pacific today.

Censorship, intimidation
About the Asia-Pacific region, the RSF media watchdog warned in its report that totalitarian propaganda, censorship, intimidation, physical violence and cyber-harassment meant that it now took a “lot of courage … nowadays to work independently as a journalist” in the region where democracies were struggling to resist various forms of disinformation.

It singled out China and Vietnam, which both dropped one place to 177th and 178th respectively on the global list of 180 countries, as the worst culprits (although the bottom placed country on the index is now Turkmenistan).

About 30 journalists and media workers are detained in Vietnam, with nearly twice as many being held in China, a country of major concern to the Pacific in view of the growing economic, aid, trade and strategic influence in the region.

“China’s anti-democratic model, based on Orwellian high-tech information surveillance and manipulation, is all the more alarming because Beijing is now promoting its adoption internationally,” said the RSF report.

“As well as obstructing the work of foreign correspondents within its borders, China is now trying to establish a ‘new world media order’ under its control, as RSF showed in its latest special report on China.”

The RSF Index report sees the growing raft of cyberlaws – such as in the Pacific – as an example of this Chinese-inspired media manipulation.

Special mention was made of the Philippines, whose President Rodrigo Duterte is one of the world leaders – along with US President Donald Trump – most consistently spreading “hate” towards journalists.

‘Silenced with impunity’
“When sworn in as president in June 2016, Duterte issued this cryptic but grim warning: ‘Just because you’re a journalist, you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch. Freedom of expression cannot help you if you have done something wrong.’”

Three Philippine journalists were killed in 2018, “most likely by agents working for local politicians, who can have reporters silenced with complete impunity”.

“The government, for its part, has developed several ways to pressure journalists who dare to be overly critical of the summary methods adopted by ‘Punisher’ Duterte and his notorious ‘war on drugs’.

“After targeting the Philippines Daily Inquirer and the TV network ABS-CBN in 2017, the president and his staff have now unleashed a grotesque judicial harassment campaign against the news website Rappler and its editor, Maria Ressa” (who was recently arrested and now faces six charges).

“The persecution was accompanied by online harassment campaigns waged by pro-Duterte troll armies, which also launched cyber-attacks on alternative news websites and the site of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines in order to block them.

“In response to all these attacks, the Philippine independent media have rallied to Ressa’s call to, ‘Hold the line’.”

Pacific report cards:
The Pacific report card on media freedom from the RSF World Press Freedom Index includes:

New Zealand (7) + 1 = 10.75
“The press is free in New Zealand but its independence and pluralism are often undermined by the profit imperatives of media groups trying to cut costs. Concern was voiced about the editorial integrity of New Zealand’s leading news portal, Stuff, after the Australian entertainment giant Nine Television Network took over its owner, Fairfax Media.

“Stuff was forced to close a third of the sites it hosted and major budget cuts were imposed on the local media outlets it owns. The situation could have been even worse if the Commerce Commission had not blocked another proposed merger between Stuff and New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME), which owns the country’s leading daily, The New Zealand Herald…”

Australia (21) – 2 = 16.55
“Australia has good public media but the concentration of media ownership is one of the highest in the world. It became even more concentrated in July 2018, when Nine Entertainment took over the Fairfax media group. Mainly concerned with business efficiencies and cost-cutting, this new entity resembles Australia’s other media giant, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.

“Under the very conservative Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, the government has abandoned any attempt to regulate the media market. The space left for demanding investigative journalism has also been reduced by the fact that independent investigative reporters and whistleblowers face draconian legislation …

“At the same time, the migrant detention centres run by government contractors on the islands of Manus and Nauru are in practice inaccessible to journalists and have become news and information black holes.’ [Manus is now closed with the asylum seekers living with the local community].

Samoa (22) Unchanged = 18.25
“Despite the liveliness of media groups such as Talamua Media and the Samoa Observer group, this Pacific archipelago is in the process of losing its status as a regional press freedom model. A law criminalising defamation was repealed in 2013, raising hopes that were dashed in December 2017 when Parliament restored the law under pressure from Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, giving him licence to attack journalists who dared to criticise members of his government.

“A few months later, in early 2018, the prime minister warned Samoan media outlets not to ‘play with fire’ by being too critical in their reporting or else his government would censor their websites…”

Papua New Guinea (38) + 15 = 24.70
“Although the media enjoy a relatively benign legislative environment, their independence is clearly in danger. Journalists are exposed to intimidation, direct threats, censorship, prosecution and bribery attempts.

“The situation is all the more precarious because the media groups they work for rarely defend them when they are under attack. As a result, self-censorship is on the rise and many media outlets are regarded as Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s mouthpieces.

“All this was particularly visible during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the capital, Port Moresby, in November 2018, when journalists who wanted to raise sensitive issues were censored by their bosses and the government was accused of accommodating the Chinese delegation’s demands for certain journalists to be excluded although they had obtained accreditation for the events concerned…”

Tonga (45) + 6 = 24.41
“Independent media outlets have increasingly assumed a watchdog role since the first democratic elections in 2010. However, politicians have not hesitated to sue media outlets, exposing them to the risk of heavy fines. Some journalists say they are forced to censor themselves due to the threat of bankruptcy. In an effort to regulate ‘harmful’ online content, especially on social networks, the government adopted new laws in 2015, one of which provides for the creation of an internet regulatory agency with the power to block websites without reference to a judge.

“The re-election of Prime Minister Samuela ‘Akilisi Pōhiva’s [‘pro-democracy’] party in November 2017 was accompanied by growing tension between the government and journalists. This was particularly so at the state radio and TV broadcaster, the Tonga Broadcasting Commission (TBC) …”

Fiji (52) + 5 = 27.18
“The relatively pluralist and balanced coverage of the 2018 parliamentary elections – the second since the 2006 coup d’état – confirmed the Fiji media’s liveliness and spirit of resistance. But journalists are still restricted by the draconian 2010 Media Industry Development Decree, which was turned into a law in 2018, and the regulator it created, the Media Industry Development Authority, whose independence is questionable.

“Journalists who violate this law’s vaguely worded provisions face up to two years in prison. In this hostile legal environment, the acquittal of the country’s leading daily, The Fiji Times, and three of its journalists on sedition charges in May 2018 was seen as an encouraging victory for press freedom.”

Timor-Leste (84) + 11 = 29.93
“No journalist has ever been jailed in connection with their work in East Timor since this country of just 1.2 million inhabitants won independence in 2002. Articles 40 and 41 of its constitution guarantee free speech and media freedom. But various forms of pressure are used to prevent journalists from working freely, including legal proceedings designed to intimidate, police violence, and public denigration of media outlets by government officials or parliamentarians.

“The creation of a Press Council in 2015 was a step in the right direction despite the reservations expressed by the media about the way its members are elected. But the media law adopted in 2014, in defiance of the international community’s warnings, poses a permanent threat to journalists and encourages self-censorship.

“Coverage of the parliamentary elections in May 2018 nonetheless served to show the importance of the role that media pluralism can play in the construction of East Timor’s democracy.”

West Papua
Media freedom issues in West Papua are dire, but are partially hidden from a global gaze in the RSF Index report because they are reported on as part of Indonesia, which as a country is unchanged at 124th. The Index notes the following about President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s “broken promises”:

“President Widodo did not keep his campaign promises during his five-year term [and he now appears to have won a second term]. His presidency was marked by serious media freedom violations, including drastic restrictions on media access to West Papua (the Indonesian half of the island of New Guinea), where violence against local journalists keeps on growing.

“Foreign journalists and local fixers are liable to be arrested and prosecuted there, both those who try to document the Indonesian military’s abuses and those, such as a BBC correspondent in February 2018, who just cover humanitarian issues.

“As the Jakarta-based Alliance for Independent Journalists often reports, the military also intimidate reporters and even use violence against those who cover their abuses. Many journalists say they censor themselves because of the threat from an anti-blasphemy law and the Law on ‘Informasi dan Transaksi Elektronik’ (Electronic and Information Transactions Law).

Dr David Robie is a correspondent for Reporters Without Borders.

China wants to create a ‘new world media order’. Video: Reporters Without Borders

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By RNZ Pacific

Fiji’s opposition has called for a full investigation by an impartial committee into allegations of collusion by government officials in the destruction of reefs, foreshore and land on Malolo Island.

Earlier this month, the Chinese-backed company Freesoul Real Estate Development was ordered to repair the damage which it had caused during months of unconsented work on the reef and on land it did not own.

Opposition leader Sitiveni Rabuka said no action had been taken by ministers or senior government officials despite direct repeated attempts throughout 2018 by landowners seeking assistance.

READ MORE: Newsroom investigates Malolo destruction

Fiji Opposition Leader Sitiveni Rabuka … intimidated and cowed media. Image: Sri Krishnamurthi/PMC

He said Fiji officials had been given drone footage and photographs of the ongoing destruction in breach of the environmental and planning approvals.

Rabuka said the rot and culture of fear in the civil service, the intimidated and cowed media and the country was so ingrained now, that it took foreign investigative journalists to break the story.

-Partners-

The three New Zealand Newsroom journalists reporting about Malolo were this month arrested but Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama ordered their release a day later and apologised to them personally for their ordeal.

Rabuka said the apology was not enough to cover the fact that media in Fiji were now so scared of him and those close to him, that they dared not cover the story.

He said there had to be a probe into the action, inaction or negligence of any ministers, officials, former civil servants or police officers who facilitated the environmental destruction, the flouting of environmental and planning laws, failed to act to prevent it or halt it, or who participated in the illegal detention of the journalists covering the issue.

He also said the prime minister had to come clean on how the extensive environmental destruction would be reversed, if at all possible.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By RNZ News

Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has apologised to three New Zealand journalists detained overnight in Suva by a “group of rogue officers”

Newsroom co-editor Mark Jennings, investigations editor Melanie Reid and cameraman Hayden Aull were held overnight at the main Suva police station after Chinese developer Freesoul Real Estate accused them of criminal trespass.

They were in a holding room while waiting to be interviewed by the police this morning.

READ MORE: Fiji police detain 3 NZ journalists investigating Chinese developer

LISTEN TO MORNING REPORT

The prime minister condemned the police action in a statement in Parliament this morning.

-Partners-

“I have spoken with the Commissioner for Police who has assured me the detention of these journalists was an isolated incident undertaken by a small group of rogue officers,” Bainimarama said.

“A full investigation into why these officers would use such heavy-handed tactics will be undertaken, and any violations of protocol or undue influence will be met with appropriate action.”

Malolo reef damage in Fiji … target of prosecution of Fiji government, say local media reports. Image: FBC News

The news media had been an ally in accountability, helping to expose the company’s illegal environmental destruction, he said.

Punishing country’s image
Fiji Media Association general secretary Stanley Simpson said the detention of foreign journalists overnight in police cells was very damaging and punishes the country’s image.

No one should be put in jail for asking questions or writing a story, he said.

Simpson said the media in Fiji had come through a very tough decade and to see this kind of mindset among certain police officers was shocking.

“We had the feeling that we are moving on and were free to do our work. But seeing this kind of action is, is really disturbing and disappointing and we want assurances from the government that this not happen again and must not happen even to any local journalist, or any journalist at all.

He said the New Zealand journalists should be free to finish off their story and do their job as journalists.

Earlier today, one of the detained reporters, Melanie Reid said the police chiefs decided after talking to the trio that they had no criminal intent.

They had spent around 13 hours in detention at the main police station after trying to interview the developer behind controversial environmental damage on the island of Malolo.

Parliament invitation
Reid said the police chiefs passed on an invitation to the Newsroom team to meet Fijian parliamentarians later today.

“We look forward to discussing the situation at Malolo Island with them. We have serious concerns about freedom of speech issues in Fiji so we will also raise this at our meetings with MPs.”

The New Zealand High Commission in Suva provided consular assistance to three New Zealand citizens.

The journalists had visited Freesoul’s Suva offices seeking an interview but been told to leave. Hours later, while they interviewed a lawyer acting for villagers of the damaged Malolo Island, Fijian police located their rental car and arrived and escorted them to the police station for questioning.

Newsroom had earlier said it understood Freesoul claimed the team walked past a sign in its office that said “authorised staff only”.

Newsroom co-editor Tim Murphy told RNZ Morning Report the journalists went across to Suva to get feedback – or comment at least – from the developer and were told to leave.

Murphy said Freesoul was claiming there was a criminal trespass and were making a statement with the arrest, but he was not sure why.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz