Decolonization, the Local weather Disaster, and Bettering Media Training within the Pacific
International Voices interviewed veteran author and educator David Robie who mentioned the state of Pacific media, journalism training, and the function of the press in addressing decolonization and the local weather disaster.
Professor Robie is amongst this yr’s New Zealand Order of Advantage awardees and is on the King’s Birthday Honours record for his “companies to journalism and Asia-Pacific media training.”
His profession in journalism has spanned 5 a long time. He was the founding editor of the Pacific Journalism Evaluation journal in 1994 and in 1996 he established the Pacific Media Watch, a media rights watchdog group. He was head of the journalism division on the College of Papua New Guinea from 1993–1997 and on the College of the South Pacific from 1998–2002. Whereas educating on the Auckland College of Expertise, he based the Pacific Media Centre in 2007.
He has authored 10 books on Asia-Pacific media and politics. He obtained the 1985 Media Peace Prize for his protection of the Rainbow Warrior bombing and the French and American nuclear testing. In 2015, he was given the Asian Media Data and Communication Centre (AMIC) Asian Communication Award in Dubai. International Voices interviewed him concerning the challenges confronted by journalists within the Pacific and his illustrious profession. This interview has been edited for size and readability.
Mong Palatino (MP): What are the primary challenges confronted by the media within the area?
David Robie (DR): Corruption, viability, and credibility — the corruption amongst politicians and affect on journalists, the viability of weak enterprise fashions and small media enterprises, and weakening credibility. After a few years of creating a fairly impartial Pacific media in lots of nations within the area with brave and impartial journalists in management roles, many media teams have gotten vulnerable to rising geopolitical rivalry between highly effective gamers within the area, notably China, which is steadily growing its affect on the area’s media — particularly in Solomon Islands — not simply in improvement help.
Nonetheless, the US, Australia and France are additionally stepping up their Pacific media and journalism coaching influences within the area as a part of “Indo-Pacific” methods which can be actually all about countering Chinese language affect.
Indonesia can be turning into an affect within the media within the area, for different causes. Jakarta is in the midst of a large “hearts and minds” technique within the Pacific, primarily by the media and diplomacy, in an try and blunt the widespread “individuals’s” sentiment in assist of West Papuan aspirations for self-determination and eventual independence.
MP: What ought to be prioritized in bettering journalism training within the area?
DR: The university-based journalism colleges, reminiscent of on the College of the South Pacific in Fiji, are greatest positioned to enhance basis journalism expertise and training, and likewise to encourage life-long studying for journalists. Extra funding could be extra helpful channelled by the schools for extra superior programs, and never simply by short-course business coaching. I can say that as a result of I’ve been by the mill each methods — 50 years as a journalist beginning off within the “faculty of arduous knocks” in lots of nations, together with virtually 30 years working journalism programs and pioneering a number of award-winning scholar journalist publications. Nonetheless, you will need to retain media independence and never enable funding NGOs to dictate insurance policies.
MP: How can Pacific journalists greatest fulfill their function in highlighting Pacific tales, particularly the impression of the local weather disaster?
DR: The most effective technique is collaboration with worldwide companions which have assets and experience in local weather disaster, such because the Earth Journalism Community to provide a world stage for his or her points and issues. Once I was nonetheless working the Pacific Media Centre, we had a excessive profile Pacific local weather journalism Bearing Witness venture the place college students made many profitable multimedia experiences and award-winning commentaries. An instance is that this one on YouTube: Banabans of Rabi: A Story of Survival
MP: What ought to the worldwide group deal with when reporting concerning the Pacific?
DR: It will be important for media to observe the Indo-Pacific rivalries, however to additionally hold them in perspective — so-called ”safety” is nowhere as necessary to Pacific nations as it’s to its Western neighbours and China. It will be important for the worldwide group to control the ball about what’s necessary to the Pacific, which is ‘improvement’ and ‘local weather disaster’ and why China has an edge in some nations in the meanwhile. Australia and, to a lesser extent, New Zealand have dropped the ball in recent times, and are tying to regain misplaced floor, however concentrating an excessive amount of on ‘safety’. Take heed to the Pacific voices.
There ought to be extra worldwide reporting concerning the ‘hidden tales’ of the Pacific such because the unresolved decolonisation points — Kanaky New Caledonia, ‘French’ Polynesia (Mā’ohi Nui), each from France; and West Papua from Indonesia. West Papua, particularly, is just about ignored by Western media regardless of the continuing critical human rights violations. That is unconscionable.
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Beforehand Revealed on globalvoices.org with Artistic Commons License
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Picture credit score: Dr. David Robie. Picture: Asia Pacific Media Community, used with permission