The Pacific Media Centre on 18 December 2020 … everything removed in early February 2021 without consultation with the stakeholders – VIDEO: Cafe Pacific.

PACIFIC journalists, media researchers, students and other stakeholders have expressed concern about the future of New Zealand’s Pacific Media Centre after more than two months without a director and a recent shock “closure” of the centre’s office.

The centre, founded in 2007 and described by an external review as a “jewel in the AUT crown”, had worked in its current Communication Studies office in the Sir Paul Reeves Building at the Auckland University of Technology’s city campus since it opened eight years ago.

It was abruptly emptied earlier this month of more than a decade of awards, books, files, publications, picture frames and taonga, including a traditional carved Papua New Guinean storyboard marking the opening of the centre by then Pacific Affairs Minister Luamanuvau Winnie Laban in October 2007.

The official line is that it is a “move” for the centre but there is confusion over the actual location of any replacement space.

• READ MORE: Pacific journalism, media and diversity researchers tackle challenges ahead

It is understood that none of the centre’s staff or the PMC Advisory Board members were consulted, nor were they notified before the removal took place. None were present at the removal.

Concern has been expressed over the treatment of taonga – “highly disrespectful and inappropriate”, say some critics.

A social media posting criticising the action drew 150 responses and more than 80 negative comments – most of them from Pacific journalists, media personalities and current or former project students, some describing it as “academic vandalism”.

However, one defending comment said the materials had been relocated to a “new space”.

Television New Zealand Pacific affairs correspondent Barbara Dreaver responded by asking: “Do you want to show us all a photo of this new space you speak of?”

The AUT website still lists the PMC office as being located at the original WG1028 – not level 12 as being cited.

Among many criticisms, the doyen of Tongan publishing Kalafi Moala said: “That’s unbelievable … We are still trying to get over the Gestapo-style deportation of the USP vice-chancellor from Fiji, and now this? How shameful!”

Leading Vanuatu-based photojournalist Ben Bohane said: “Outrageous example of a disposable mentality, but your legacy will remain …”

Director of the Toda Peace Institute in Tokyo Professor Kevin Clements said:“This is terrible … but typical of NZ universities at the moment.”

Australian columnist Keith Jackson, a retired academic, journalist and former administrator in Papua New Guinea, said: “That’s the kind of behaviour that happens in the worst organisations … Damn shame … But you and I and hundreds of others know you are a consummate pro who built a terrific organisation that affected and informed thousands of people. Sori tru.”

Dr Jason MacLeod, an academic affiliated with the West Papua Project of the University of Sydney, said: “So sad. Another uni with no soul or sense of purpose beyond bottom lines.”

Seini Taumoepeau, an Oceanic creative consultant and former presenter at ABC Australia, said: “Oh, so sorry for the loss – this is heartbreaking.”

Ena Manureva, a Tahitian doctoral candidate, said: “This is shameful given the recommendations of the [recent harassment policies] “review” and AUT promising to do better and this is what you get – an utter failure and shame!

Ami Dhabuwala, a onetime Gujarat Guardian reporter and former PMC Bearing Witness climate project student, said: “This is heartbreaking! PMC was the only thing that got me through my time in AUT! PMC was the best thing that happened to me. Thank you so much for all the support and the work you do.”

Founding director Professor David Robie, who retired late last year, was also critical of the “unconscionable” closure/relocation, saying that no inventory had been drawn up and it was disrespectful of the research publications and artefacts gifted by partner organisations around the Asia-Pacific region.

Concern from collaborating Asia-Pacific groups worried about the status of their projects with PMC has been growing too as there has not been an appointment of an acting or substantive director in more than two months since Dr Robie retired.

The website PMC Online and its YouTube and Soundcloud offshoots for multimedia and the radio programme Southern Cross have not been updated since mid-December.

Pacific Media Centre’s office as featured on Facebook … active to empty. IMAGE: Cafe Pacific

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

As well as playing a role in critical moments of history as a journalist in the region, Professor David Robie’s students have also covered landmark events that helped shape some Pacific nations. Image: AUT Pasifika

By Laurens Ikinia

A JOURNALIST who sailed on board the bombed environmental ship Rainbow Warrior, was arrested at gunpoint in New Caledonia while investigating French military garrisons in pro-independence Kanak villages, and reported on social justice issues across the Pacific has stepped down as founding director of the Pacific Media Centre.

Professor David Robie, 75, an author, academic, independent journalist and journalism professor at Auckland University of Technology, retired last week after more than 18 years at the institution.

He has been working as a journalist for more than 56 years and as an academic for more than 27 years.

• READ MORE: Pacific journalism, media and diversity researchers tackle challenges ahead
• Gallery: PMC celebrates Pacific ‘reset’ vision and farewells founding director

As well as playing a role in critical moments of history as a journalist in the region, his students have also covered landmark events that helped shape some Pacific nations, especially in Melanesia – such as the 1997 Sandline mercenary crisis in Papua New Guinea and the George Speight coup in Fiji in May 2000.

But a journalism or academic career were not always clearcut pathways for Dr Robie. During his studies in high school, he was heavily involved in outdoor pursuits and he became a Queen’s Scout.

At the time he was thinking of becoming a professional forester and he was recruited by the NZ Forest Service at 17 in 1963 as a forester cadet with a view to studying for a BSc and then forestry science.

But the same year he was selected to represent New Zealand at a World Jamboree at Marathon Bay, Greece – the site of a famous battle between the Athenians and the Persians in 490 BC.

Future options
This brought his future options to a head.

“At school I was interested in three things – writing, art and mapping/outdoors. So, that’s why I initially wanted to become a forester,” he says.

But going to Greece changed everything. He started his science degree course while working part time at the NZ Forest Service publications division at its headquarters in Wellington. He then realised he was more interested in writing.

“I realised that I didn’t want to spend my life talking with trees, even though I love trees, he says.”

At the end of the year, he became a cadet journalist at The Dominion (now the Dominion Post). Shortly after he became the youngest subeditor at the newspaper.

He later went to Auckland to work as assistant editor on Auto Age magazine, had a short stint on The New Zealand Herald as a subeditor before moving to Australia to join the Melbourne Herald.

While working there in 1968, he was strongly influenced by the student riots in Paris and took a serious interest in politics over the student protests against Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War.

Youngest editor
At 24, he became the youngest editor of a national Sunday newspaper, the Sunday Observer, which campaigned strongly against the Vietnam War.

In his mid-20s, Dr Robie migrated to Johannesburg, South Africa, and was appointed chief subeditor of the Rand Daily Mail, the country’s leading newspaper crusading against the apartheid regime.

Even though Dr Robie’s social justice views as a journalist became shaped while he was working at the Sunday Observer in Melbourne, this was not risky as in South Africa.

“In South Africa, we were really pushed hard. I probably learned most of what I have learned in my career as a journalist in South Africa.

“Mainly because of the threats and experiences. I worked with a number of ‘banned’ and inspirational people, like photojournalist Peter Magubane.

“I was threatened many times and on one occasion I drove Winnie Mandela’s two daughters from their home in Soweto to a multiracial school in Swaziland because Winnie, being banned, could not travel.

“I drove the girls 360 km through roadblocks to take the children to school,” Dr Robie recalls.

Threats against journalists
The late Winnie Mandela was the wife of imprisoned anti-apartheid revolutionary Nelson Mandela who became President of South Africa 1994-1999 and died in 2013. The two daughters are Zindziswa Mandela and Zenani Mandela-Diamini.

While working in South Africa, Dr Robie learned a lot of things he had never experienced in New Zealand – the vital need to campaign for social justice, threats against journalists and jailings, and the role of human rights journalism.

Subsequently, he travelled overland as a freelancer across Africa and ended up in Nairobi, Kenya. There, he worked as group features editor of the Aga Khan’s Daily Nation for a year before travelling to West Africa, Nigeria and across the Sahara Desert to Algeria and France.

In Paris, he camped in the Bois de Boulogne forest until he found a garret to live in a refurbished 17th century building in Rue St Sauveur in the heart of the city.

He worked for Agence France-Presse global news agency for three years and covered the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games when there was a black African walkout in protest about New Zealand playing rugby against white South Africa.

While working for AFP, he gained familiarity with French foreign colonial policies, and especially the nuclear testing issue in the South Pacific.

The Pacific Journalist 2001 … one of David Robie’s books on South Pacific media and politics. Image: USP

He says it was ironic that it took travelling to France for him to “wake up” to the Pacific right on New Zealand’s doorstep.

Foreign editor
Dr Robie returned to New Zealand in 1979 and became foreign editor on the Auckland Star. He started doing trips to the Cook Islands, New Caledonia, Tahiti, Vanuatu and elsewhere as a freelance in his holidays. He thought he might as well go fulltime freelance to do the stories he was interested in.

In 1984, he set up the Asia Pacific Network which he ran for 10 years from his home in Grey Lynn.

He became a chief correspondent for Fiji-based Islands Business news magazine covering investigative and environmental stories and decolonisation issues. He also reported for the Global South news agency Gemini, The Australian, the New Zealand Times, RNZ International and other media.

In 1985, he sailed on board the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior for 11 weeks and took part in the evacuation of islanders from Rongelap Atoll.

French secret agents bombed the Rainbow Warrior on 10 July 1985 and he wrote the book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior – the first of 10 books.

In early 1987, he was arrested at gunpoint near Canala, New Caledonia, for taking photographs of “nomadisation” style military camps designed to intimidate Kanak villagers seeking independence.

In 1993, Dr Robie was appointed as a lecturer and head of journalism at the University of Papua New Guinea. His students published the award-winning fortnightly newspaper Uni Tavur and they covered the 1997 Sandline crisis when the military commander arrested foreign mercenaries hired by the PNG government to wage war against rebels on Bougainville in a “coup that wasn’t a coup”.

PJR launched
While at UPNG, Dr Robie launched Pacific Journalism Review, the only specialised research journal to investigate media issues in the South Pacific, Asia-Pacific, Australia, and New Zealand.

As a journalist and journalism educator, he raises concern that “most media organisations send someone to cover a particular event – they go in and they come out. Quickly. It is parachute journalism. Unfortunately, it is not a good way to cover things.

“Often journalists who work on a parachute basis don’t have enough background. They don’t have enough information or the sources to get a deeper understanding of the complex nuances,” he says.

After serving Papua New Guinea as a journalism educator for more than five years, he shifted to the University of South Pacific in Fiji.

In 1998, Dr Robie began his new journey as head of USP’s journalism department. He was teaching while actively writing news articles, academic journal articles, and books.

“One of the lessons I learned as a journalism educator is that a journalism project is the best way to learn,” he says.

He cites the George Speight coup in Fiji in May 2000 when his students covered downtown riots in Suva, the seizure of the elected government in Parliament at gunpoint by Speight’s renegade soldiers, and a protracted siege as an example.

The PMC Project – A short documentary by Alistar Kata. Video: PMC

Crisis website updates
The students updated their website Pacific Journalism Online several times daily at a time when the mainstream newspapers did not have websites and they produced the Wansolwara newspaper that the university tried to confiscate.

“What we were doing was contributing to empowerment. To me, empowerment is really important. It isn’t just about writing a good story, and things like that. But empowering, giving people the information that they need to make decisions in a democracy,” he says.

Dr Robie also gained his PhD in history/politics from the University of the South Pacific. After serving the country for five years, he moved back to New Zealand.

Since 2002, Dr Robie has worked at AUT and became director of the Pacific Media Centre in 2007 and remained editor of Pacific Journalism Review.

West Papuan students sing Tanah Papua in honour of PMC director Professor David Robie earlier this month. Image: PMC

He became an associate professor in 2005 and a professor in 2012. During his academic career, Professor Robie gained a number of awards nationally and internationally, including the 2015 AMIC Asia Communication Award in Dubai, Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award in 2011, the PIMA Special Award for Contribution to Pacific journalism in 2011 and the PIMA Pacific Media Freedom award in 2005.

Dr Robie was also an Australian Press Council fellow in 1999, and has been on the editorial boards of Asia-Pacific Media Educator, Australian Journalism Review, Fijian Studies, Global Media Journal and Pacific Ecologist.

He is currently the New Zealand representative of the Asian Media, Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) and a life member. His books are listed at NZ Pen.

One thing can be sure. Social justice will remain high on his ongoing agenda.

Laurens Ikinia is a Papuan Masters in Communication Studies student at Auckland University of Technology who has been studying journalism. He is on an internship with AUT’s Pacific Media Centre. This article was first published by Asia Pacific Report.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

“It’s a bit of a lighthouse” for vital regional news and information, says former contributing editor Alex Perrottet summing up the value of the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch freedom project for New Zealand and Pacific journalism.

The Radio New Zealand journalist is among seven international media people involved in the 23-year-old project featured in a new video released this week.

Pacific Media Watch – The Genesis is a 15-minute mini documentary telling the story of the project launched by two journalists at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) in 1996 and adopted by Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre in 2007.

READ MORE: The Pacific Media Watch freedom project

The video was released this week to coincide with the global media freedom conference in London this week.

Pacific Media Watch has become a challenging professional development opportunity for AUT postgraduate students seeking to develop specialist skills in Asia-Pacific journalism.

It is was launched by Professor David Robie, then head of the UPNG journalism programme in Port Moresby and Peter Cronau, editor of Reportage investigative magazine at UTS.

Now Dr Robie is director of the Auckland-based PMC and Cronau is an award-winning senior producer of the ABC’s flagship Four Corners investigative journalism programme.

Video producers, Blessen Tom of TVNZ’s Fair Go, and Sri Krishnamurthi of the Pacific Media Centre. Image: PMC

The ‘Tongan three’
The catalyst for Pacific Media Watch was the jailing of the “Tongan Three” – founding editor of Taimi ‘o Tonga Kalafi Moala, his deputy Filokalafi Akau’ola, and pro-democracy MP ‘Akilisi Pohiva, now Prime Minister of Tonga – for contempt of Parliament in 1996.

Dr Robie and Cronau could not sit back and allow this happen – the second major attack on media freedom in the Pacific after Fiji was thrown into turmoil with the first coup in 1987.

“The Tongan Three was really how we got started,” recalls Dr Robie about their response to the unprecedented and “outrageous” 30-day jailing sentence imposed on the trio at the time.

Peter Cronau says: “The case of the three was just a shock and it was a rallying point.”

Since then Pacific Media Watch has grown to become a reliable media outlet based on professional development for student journalists but it also has a network of contributing media and academic correspondents around the region.

Many events
The PMW has covered many events in the Pacific including tsunamis, Fiji peacekeepers being taken hostage in the Golan Heights, beatings and torture of a prisoner by the security forces in Fiji, two Fiji general elections, the New Caledonian independence referendum and – most recently – the massacre of 51 Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch and the impact on journalism.

Blessen Tom pushing a dolly for the Pacific Media Watch documentary. Image: PMC

So far nine postgraduate student contributing editors and two reporters have been trained on the PMW project, and between them at least 11 awards have been won at the annual Ossie Awards for the cream of student journalism in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific.

For Blessen Tom, who produced last year’s Bearing Witness climate change project short film Banabans of Rabi along with Hele Ikamotu, and I, producing this Pacific Media Watch programme was a deeply satisfying project.

We hope that through our six interviews and countless hours spent in the editing suite that we have made a fitting tribute to the work of David, Peter, Kalafi and all those who have made the Pacific Media Watch project what it is today.

Media freedom challenge
In London yesterday, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and 31 other press freedom and media development agencies met in advance of the Global Media Freedom Conference.

They called on all nations taking part to ensure the protection and safety of all journalists and media workers in compliance with their existing obligations and international standards.

The group, representing and working with hundreds of thousands of journalists and media workers throughout the world, said new pledges would only be credible if countries immediately:

• Release all imprisoned journalists;
• Stop killing, attacking and denigrating journalists; and
• Investigate and prosecute all murders of journalists.

The group demanded that all states hold themselves and their counterparts accountable and show demonstrable progress.

Several countries attending the conference have imprisoned journalists and unsolved murders.

This article was first published by Asia Pacific Report.

• The 11 recommendations by media freedom groups
• More Pacific Media Watch stories

This article was first published on Café Pacific.