Ngāti Toa Rangatira have gathered near the peak of their sacred maunga, Whitireia, to celebrate its historic return to iwi ownership.

Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira has purchased 53 ha of land at Whitireia — just north of Tītahi Bay — from Radio New Zealand (RNZ) for just under $5 million — adjoining an earlier settlement acquisition on the peninsula.

Ngāti Toa have waited 177 years to get the whenua back. In 1848, the iwi gifted around 202 ha to the Anglican Church in exchange for the promise of a school to be built for Ngāti Toa tamariki.

• READ MORE: Other RNZ Te Ao Māori reports

The school was never built, but the land remained in church ownership.

That prompted Wiremu Te Kakakura Parata, a Ngāti Toa rangatira and MP, to take court action against the Bishop of Wellington who argued the whenua “ought to be given back to the donors” because the promise of a school was never fulfilled.

In his 1877 judgement, Chief Justice James Prendergast ruled that the Treaty of Waitangi was a “simple nullity” signed by “primitive barbarians”. It denied Ngāti Toa ownership of their maunga for decades and set a damaging precedent for other Māori seeking the return of their land.

Ngāti Toa kuia Karanga Wineera, 96, remembers listening to her elders discuss how her people had fought to reclaim Whitireia over the decades.

She told RNZ seeing the maunga finally returned was “wonderful”.

‘Wonderful gift’
“It’s a most wonderful, wonderful gift to Ngati Toa to have Whitireia come home after so many years of fighting for Whitireia and not getting anywhere, but today, oh, it’s wonderful,” she said.

In the early 1900s, Whitireia was vested in the Porirua College Trust Board, allowing the whenua to be sold. In 1935, the New Zealand Broadcasting Service purchased 40 ha for what would become Radio 2YA, now RNZ.

Iwi members, rūnanga chiefs and representatives from police, the Anglican Church and RNZ attended a formal ceremony to commemorate the sale.

In his speech, Ngāti Toa chair Callum Katene said the deal showed what a “Te Tiriti-centric” New Zealand could look like.

“The birds still sing here at dawn, the same winds sweep the hills and carry the scent of the sea. Beneath us, the earth remembers every footprint, every prayer — Whitireia holds these memories… in this morning, as the first light spills across the harbour, we are reminded that history is not carved in stone, it is living breath,” he said.

“As we look ahead, Whitireia can shine as a beacon of hope, a reminder that reconciliation is not about reclaiming the past so much, but about realising the future envisaged in 1848 — education, faith, unity, and enduring partnership.”

The rūnanga say all existing leases, easements, and public access agreements have been transferred to them as part of the acquisition and day-to-day operations for tenants, recreational users, and visitors will not change.

Lease back for AM
They will lease back 12 ha to RNZ to continue AM transmission operations.

Ngāti Toa Rangatira had a first right of refusal on the property under the Ngāti Toa Rangatira Claims Settlement Act 2014 and Public Works Act.

Speaking to media after the ceremony, Katene said he could not speak highly enough of how “accommodating” RNZ had been during the negotiation process, but admitted there were a few “hiccups”.

“There were a few hiccups when it came to the technical details of the exchanges, there always are in these sorts of things.

“The important distinction for us is this isn’t a financial transaction, it’s not economic for us — it’s returning the land,” he said.

Asked why the land could not be gifted back free of charge, RNZ chair Jim Mather said the possibility of gifting the land back was raised during negotiations.

“The return of the land recognised that Ngāti Toa Rangatira had been compensated previously as part of the settlement and were now in a position to actually effect that transaction,” he said.

“If it was up to us as a board we would have handed it over, but we have responsibilities as governors of assets held in the interest of the public of Aotearoa.”

Breach of the Treaty
Rūnanga chief executive Helmut Modlik said while the negotiations were “principled”, there was still a “conversation” worth “revisiting” at some time.

“As everybody has admitted, the loss of this land was as a result of a breach of the Treaty, and as everybody knows, Treaty settlement processes are a take it or leave it exercise, and we weren’t able to have this whenua returned at that point,” he said.

“To me, that’s a matter of principle that’s worth a future conversation.”

Ngā uri o Wi Parata spokesperson Kahu Ropata said because Wiremu Te Kakakura Parata had had the audacity to take the case up he was discriminated against by the “Pākehā propaganda machine”.

The whānau have had to grow up with that hara (offence) against their tūpuna, he said.

“We grew up with the kōrero that it cost him his health and his wealth fighting this case.

“And so for many years, we grew up in that, I suppose, for some of my uncles and aunties, in that trauma of a loss of mana, I suppose you could say, and for a rangatira of his ilk, it would have been quite damaging knowing that he was to go to the grave and the case actually not settled in his name.”

Ropata said RNZ returning the whenua was a “great step” towards reconciliation.

“We’re still in discussions with the Anglican Church in terms of the whānau and the iwi about reconciliation and moving forward.

“Fifty-three-odd hectares, there’s still another . . .  450-odd acres that we still need to reconcile [and we’re] looking at discussions around how we can accomplish that.”

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

The New York Times recently revealed that the Israeli military has “never found proof” that Hamas has “systematically stolen aid from the United Nations” — a lie that has been told by Israeli officials for months now, reports the independent media company Zeteo.

And the lie has also been repeated by multiple Western media outlets, including the New York Times itself.

With the Israeli and US government telling so many lies about the violence in the Middle East, and with so much false reporting circulating in mainstream media around what even Israeli rights groups are now calling a genocide in Gaza — here’s a full list of groups Zeteo reported — many people are understandably looking for a fresh breeze of truth.

• READ MORE: Israeli army kills 56 aid seekers as 22,000 aid trucks stuck outside Gaza
• Palestine surveillance author says Australian protesters ‘outraged’ by Israel’s war on Gaza
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

“We hear you, we feel you, and we will gladly debunk as many falsehoods as we can for you,” says Mehdi Hasan, the British-American progressive broadcaster, writer, and founder of Zeteo.

“Debunked!” is back. Watch Mehdi shatter the top 10 lies you’ve been seeing and hearing about this genocide for the past 22 months — in under three minutes!

“Debunked! Israel’s Top 10 Lies on Gaza”

Watch me bring receipts to debunk them all, from falsehoods about Hamas stealing aid to brazen lies about hostages, human shields, and more.

All in under 3 minutes!

And please do subscribe to Zeteo:https://t.co/SyJd2TiF6V pic.twitter.com/LzCDHWjbcr

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) August 3, 2025

Papua New Guinea’s state broadcaster NBC wants shortwave radio reintroduced to achieve the government’s goal of 100 percent broadcast coverage by 2030.

Last week, the broadcaster hosted a workshop on the reintroduction of shortwave radio transmission, bringing together key government agencies and other stakeholders.

NBC had previously a shortwave signal, but due to poor maintenance and other factors, the system failed.

• READ MORE: Other PNG media reports

Its managing director Kora Nou spoke with RNZ Pacific about the merits of a return to shortwave.

Kora Nou: We had shortwave at NBC about 20 or so years ago, and it reached almost the length and breadth of the country.

So fast forward 20, we are going to celebrate our 50th anniversary. Our network has a lot more room for improvement at the moment, that’s why there’s the thinking to revisit shortwave again after all this time.

Don Wiseman: It’s a pretty cheap medium, as we here at RNZ Pacific know, but not too many people are involved with shortwave anymore. In terms of the anniversary in September, you’re not going to have things up and running by then, are you?

KN: It’s still early days. We haven’t fully committed, but we are actively pursuing it to see the viability of it.

We’ve visited one or two manufacturers that are still doing it. We’ve seen some that are still on, still been manufactured, and also issues surrounding receivers. So there’s still hard thinking behind it.

We still have to do our homework as well. So still early days and we’ve got the minister who’s asked us to explore this and then give him the pros and cons of it.

DW: Who would you get backing from? You’d need backing from international donors, wouldn’t you?

KN: We will put a business case into it, and then see where we go from there, including where the funding comes from — from government or we talk to our development partners.

There’s a lot of thinking and work still involved before we get there, but we’ve been asked to fast track the advice that we can give to government.

DW: How important do you think it is for everyone in the country to be able to hear the national broadcaster?

KN: It’s important, not only being the national broadcaster, but [with] the service it provides to our people.

We’ve got FM, which is good with good quality sound. But the question is, how many does it reach? It’s pretty critical in terms of broadcasting services to our people, and 50 years on, where are we? It’s that kind of consideration.

I think the bigger contention is to reintroduce software transmission. But how does it compare or how can we enhance it through the improved technology that we have nowadays as well? That’s where we are right now.

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

The future of Māori radio in Aotearoa New Zealand requires increased investment in both online platforms and traditional airwaves, says a senior manager.

Matthew Tukaki, station manager at Waatea Digital, spoke with Te Ao Māori News about the future of Māori radio.

He said there was an urgent need for changes to ensure a sustainable presence on both AM/FM airwaves and digital platforms.

• READ MORE: Waatea News reports
• Other Māori media reports

“One of the big challenges will always be funding. Many of our iwi stations operate with very limited resources, as their focus is more on manaakitanga (hospitality) and aroha (compassion),” Tukaki said.

He said that Waatea Digital had been exploring various new digital strategies to enhance viewership and engagement across the media landscape.

“We need assistance and support to transition to these new platforms,” Tukaki said.

He also highlighted the continued importance of traditional AM frequencies, particularly during emergencies like Cyclone Gabrielle, where these stations served as vital emergency broadcasters.

Report originally by Te Ao Māori.

RNZ International (RNZI) began broadcasting to the Pacific region 35 years ago — on 24 January 1990, the same day the Auckland Commonwealth Games opened.

Its news bulletins and programmes were carried by a brand new 100kW transmitter.

The service was rebranded as RNZ Pacific in 2017. However its mission remains unchanged, to provide news of the highest quality and be a trusted service to local broadcasters in the Pacific region.

• READ MORE: Other RNZ Pacific reports

Although RNZ had been broadcasting to the Pacific since 1948, in the late 1980s the New Zealand government saw the benefit of upgrading the service. Thus RNZI was born, with a small dedicated team.

The first RNZI manager was Ian Johnstone. He believed that the service should have a strong cultural connection to the people of the Pacific. To that end, it was important that some of the staff reflected parts of the region where RNZ Pacific broadcasted.

He hired the first Pacific woman sports reporter at RNZ, the late Elma Ma’ua.

The Pacific region is one of the most vital areas of the earth, but it is not always the safest, particularly from natural disasters.

Disaster coverage
RNZ Pacific covered events such as the 2009 Samoan tsunami, and during the devastating 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai eruption, it was the only news service that could be heard in the kingdom.

More recently, it supported Vanuatu’s public broadcaster during the December 17 earthquake by providing extra bulletin updates for listeners when VBTC services were temporarily out of action.

Cyclones have become more frequent in the region, and RNZ Pacific provides vital weather updates, as the late Linden Clark, RNZI’s second manager, explained: “Many times, we have been broadcasting warnings on analogue shortwave to listeners when their local station has had to go off air or has been forced off air.”

RNZ Pacific’s cyclone watch service continues to operate during the cyclone season in the South Pacific.

As well as natural disasters, the Pacific can also be politically volatile. Since its inception RNZ Pacific has reported on elections and political events in the region.

Some of the more recent events include the 2000 and 2006 coups in Fiji, the Samoan Constitutional Crisis of 2021, the 2006 pro-democracy riots in Nuku’alofa, the revolving door leadership changes in Vanuatu, and the 2022 security agreement that Solomon Islands signed with China.

Human interest, culture
Human interest and cultural stories are also a key part of RNZ Pacific’s programming.

The service regularly covers cultural events and festivals within New Zealand, such as Polyfest. This was part of Linden Clark’s vision, in her role as RNZI manager, that the service would be a link for the Pacific diaspora in New Zealand to their homelands.

Today, RNZ Pacific continues that work. Currently its programmes are carried on two transmitters — one installed in 2008 and a much more modern facility, installed in 2024 following a funding boost.

Around 20 Pacific region radio stations relay RNZP’s material daily. Individual short-wave listeners and internet users around the world tune in directly to RNZ Pacific content which can be received as far away as Japan, North America, the Middle East and Europe.

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

Journalist Maiki Sherman (Ngāpuhi/Whakatōhea) has been appointed Television New Zealand’s political editor, the first wahine Māori to lead the 1News political team in the channel’s history, reports Whakaata Māori’s Te Ao Māori News.

“This is a huge milestone for me and one I’ve worked hard for. I’m proud to be the first wahine Māori appointed as the political editor of a mainstream broadcast newsroom,” she said.

“That is something to be celebrated.”

• READ MORE:  Maiki Sherman: Holding the powerful to account
• Other Te Ao Māori news reports

The New Zealand Herald’s Katie Harris reports that Sherman said her background meant she would be able to bring a unique perspective to the role, alongside an unwavering commitment to holding political decision-makers to account.

“People want strong, fair, and impartial journalism. That’s something I’m committed to providing across the political divide,” Sherman said.

TVNZ executive editor Phil O’Sullivan said Sherman had been impressive in her role as deputy political editor for TVNZ during a turbulent time in New Zealand politics impacted on by the covid pandemic, events of national significance and highly charged general elections.

‘Calm leadership’
“Her calm leadership and strong coverage of important political issues, particularly demonstrated during her moderation of our Kaupapa Māori Debate last year, made her a natural pick for the role.”

Sherman takes over from Jessica Mutch McKay, who concluded her tenure earlier this year.

Mutch McKay resigned to become head of government relations and corporate responsibility at ANZ Bank.

1News said in a statement that Sherman first joined the press gallery in 2012, serving as a political reporter for both Whakaata Māori and Newshub before rejoining 1News.

Sherman began her broadcasting career with the state broadcaster’s Te Karere show 16 years ago.

She has also served as chair of New Zealand’s parliamentary press gallery for the past three years.

Pacific Media Watch with Te Ao Maori News and The New Zealand Herald.

Editorial staff at Australia’s public broadcaster ABC have again registered a vote of no confidence in managing director David Anderson and senior managers over the handling of complaints by Israeli lobbyists.

At a national meeting of members of the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance this week, staff passed a resolution of no confidence in Anderson and all ABC managers involved in the decision to unfairly dismiss freelance broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf, MEAA said in a statement.

The meeting was held in response to the Fair Work Commission hearings to determine Lattouf’s unfair dismissal claim after she had been sacked from her temporary job as host of ABC Sydney radio’s morning show in December.

• READ MORE: Other reports on ABC and media bias over Israel’s war on Gaza

Staff have also called for ABC’s head of content, Chris Oliver-Taylor, to step down immediately for his role as the ultimate decisionmaker in the dismissal of Lattouf.

“The mishandling of Antoinette Lattouf’s employment has done enormous damage to the integrity and reputation of the ABC,” said MEAA media director Cassie Derrick.

“Evidence provided in the Fair Work Commission hearing about the involvement of David Anderson and Chris Oliver-Taylor in her dismissal has further undermined the confidence of staff in the managing director and his senior managers to be able to protect the independence of the ABC.

“The Lattouf case continues a pattern of ABC journalists, particularly those from culturally diverse backgrounds, lacking support from management when they face criticism from lobby groups, business organisations and politicians.

“For these reasons, Chris Oliver-Taylor should be stood down immediately, while Mr Anderson must demonstrate he is taking the concerns of staff seriously to begin to restore confidence in his leadership.”

Lattouf co-founded Media Diversity Australia (MDA) in 2017, a nonprofit agency which seeks to increase cultural and linguistic diversity in Australia’s news media.

Her parents arrived in Australia as refugees from Lebanon in the 1970s.

Lattouf was born in 1983 in Auburn, New South Wales. She attended various public schools in Western Sydney and studied communications (social inquiry) at the University of Technology Sydney.

Union-led ABC staff call for the resignation of the Australian @ABCNews chief content officer after court documents revealed his role in journalist Antoinette Lattouf’s dismissal for an accurate social media post about Israel’s starvation strategy.https://t.co/eQ8fLBiQL6

— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) March 21, 2024

The full motion passed by ABC MEAA members on Wednesday:

“We, MEAA members at the ABC, are outraged by the revelations of how ABC executives have disregarded the independence of the ABC, damaged the public’s trust in our capacity to report without fear or favour, and mistreated our colleague Antoinette Lattouf.

“Staff reaffirm our lack of confidence in managing director David Anderson, and in all ABC managers involved in the decision to unfairly dismiss Antoinette Lattouf.

“Chris Oliver-Taylor has undermined the integrity of the entire ABC through his mismanagement, and should step down from his role as Head of the Content Division immediately.

“We call on ABC management to stop wasting public funds on defending the unfair dismissal case against Antoinette Lattouf, provide her and the public a full apology and reinstate her to ABC airwaves.

“We demand that ABC management implement staff calls for a fair and clear social media policy, robust and transparent complaints process and an audit to address the gender and race pay gap.”

After 21 years, Radio New Zealand’s Kim Hill has hosted Saturday Morning for the final time.

In the final hour of the show on Saturday, the beloved broadcaster chatted to long-time colleague Bryan Crump about some of her favourite songs.

Like many former Saturday Morning guests, Kim found it difficult to select just a handful of songs for the regular segment “Playing Favourites”.

“Because I love so much music,” she told Bryan.

• WATCH: Kim Hill’s final Saturday Morning show

Born Fiona Anderson Hill in Shropshire, UK, the broadcaster who was to become known as Kim Hill moved with her family to Ōtorohanga at 15.

“I was a posh white kid and I didnt know one end of a basketball from the other.”

As a teenager in the North Island town, she enjoyed sunbathing in a mixture of olive oil and vinegar, eating feijoas and sneaking out with her new friend Colleen Mcleod who happened to live downstairs.

“I would go out my door, having said goodnight to my parents, and I would go down to Colleen’s house and we would go out on the town. We’d go round with boys in V8s, around the Tron.”

‘Mad Men’ parenting
In those days, the parenting on offer was “very sort of Mad Men“, Kim says.

“My father had a shotgun that he once greeted me at the door with when a boy dropped me off. That was his idea of humour. Honestly, I’ve never seen anybody go so white.”

While picking raspberries with Colleen in Tapawera one summer, Fiona decided to change her name to ‘Kim’ and Colleen changed hers to ‘Lee’.

Yet after Kim’s family moved to another town, she lost touch with the “staunch” friend she describes as “my protector and my coming-of-age facilitator”.

“If she’s out there and anybody knows Colleen Mcleod, born Ōtorohanga, brother called ‘Sniggs’, she needs to be told how important she was to me, she was massive.”

After high school, Kim worked at various jobs including a Christchurch massage lounge, which she knows sounds “very dodgy” but wasn’t.

“They had little curtained cubicles and I would have known if something untoward was going on. Nothing untoward ever went on, strange as that sounds.”

Key programmes
After completing a post-grad journalism course at Canterbury University, Kim first joined RNZ in 1985, later presenting key programmes, including Nine to Noon and Morning Report.

Her punchy and penetrating interviewing style has not been without critics, she says.

The British writer Tony Parsons, who hung up on Kim during an interview before saying “You’ve got your head up your arse”, and New Zealand journalist Karl du Fresne, who once called her “dominatrix”, come to mind.

“[du Fresne] hated me because I hadn’t given a very nice interview with [former Australian prime minister] John Howard and also I say ‘filum’ [an Irish pronunciation of the ‘film’] … Because he criticised me saying ‘filum’, I’ve never been able to stop in case he thinks he’s won.

“So I do it all the time now.”

Her favourite interviewees include the late New Zealand scientist Paul Callaghan who she describes as a “genius”. (Kim spoke to Paul Callaghan in 2009 and 2014.)

“He knew so much but he was still awestruck by it . . . He was not fazed by not understanding. It fascinated him that things were so complex and he was able to make them so simple.”

North Carolina musician and author John Darnielle of the indie rock band Mountain Goats is another of her favourites: “He’s so clever and a very good writer … I love him.”

Kim Hill: The Jim Mora interview
“There is nobody who fails to be interesting”https://t.co/HhIBsSYZWO

— RNZ Sunday Morning with Jim Mora (@RNZSunday) November 25, 2023

More RNZ work
In 2024, Kim Hill will continue to do some work for RNZ, chief executive Paul Thompson recently told Checkpoint.

She concluded her final Saturday Morning show with the following message:

“I am very very grateful to Radio New Zealand and to the producers and to the listeners. I have been privileged and enriched by doing this programme. It’s been absolutely wonderful.

“This is my happy place — Saturday mornings in the studio, hearing from people who are enjoying it. And I’m not dying. I’ll be around doing something in the future. Thank you all so much. Thank you.”

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

A new language app developed for Gagana Samoa — the Samoan language — has been launched in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Samoa Capital Radio in Wellington, the oldest Samoan radio station in Aotearoa, is behind the production and development of the app.

Samoa’s Acting High Commissioner to New Zealand, Robert Niko Aiono, said it would help to bridge the gap for people wanting to learn more about the language.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific languages reports

“They’ve made this app available and it caters for a lot of Samoans who are born in New Zealand,” he said.

“Not only in New Zealand but everywhere else in the world.”

With Samoan being the third-most spoken language in New Zealand, Samoa Capital Radio initially thought language classes delivered on Zoom was the best way to draw in learners.

However, it was decided developing an app would be better as it was a tool that can be accessed anywhere, any time.

‘Labour of love’
Work on the software began in January and according to the radio station’s social media manager, Murray Faivalu, it was a “labour of love”.

“We started to get a team together; get an advisory panel to advise us because no one can claim that they’ve got the knowledge of everything in terms of the Samoan language,” Faivalu said.

“We had two lecturers from the National University of Samoa, one of them being Dr Niusila Eteuati who was able to bring an academic perspective to the language; we got one of the teachers from Samoa who’s teaching the language and the Language Commission.”

Faivalu said he hopes the app helps users overcome their shyness when trying to converse or pray in Samoan.

“We’ve got a big population of people who associate as Samoans and a lot of them are young,” he said.

“A lot of them may know some Samoan but being able to speak it is a whole different thing.

“Some of the young ones get embarrassed when they go up to do the prayer at family gatherings.”

Basic language
The app covers the most basic of the Samoan language — from the spelling, grammar, placement of macrons and glottal stops. Audio is also built in so users can hear how words are meant to be pronounced.

“When you read Samoan on its own, you lose the meaning of it — so unless you have those glottal stops, the macrons, you won’t get the actual meaning of what you’re trying to say.”

At the launch, Pacific Peoples Minister Barbara Edmonds shared how she became distant from speaking Samoan.

“Like many of our families who crossed the Pacific Ocean to come to New Zealand, we too had many families come to stay with us, and my cousins came to live with us.

“My cousins, who could only really speak Samoan, became quickly frustrated when they went to school, and they started giving other kids beatings because they couldn’t understand what they were saying,” Edmonds said.

“So what my dad said to us was, we needed to speak English more, so we could help teach our cousins how to speak English. So unfortunately as time progressed, Gagana Samoa came less and less out of my mouth.

Youngest and fastest growing
“With the Samoan population being one of the youngest and fastest growing [in New Zealand], it’s clear that we need to do everything we can to support the next generation to understand and use our language.”

School student Ti’eti’e Frost is eager to improve his Samoan speaking skills, especially as he is the only member of his family who has yet to master the language.

“Sometimes I’ll be speaking Samoan and there will be people who grew up speaking it who will make a joke about my Samoan,” he said.

“Right now, I feel like I’m 60 percent with my Samoan, but hopefully by using this app I get to 100 percent.”

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

• The app is now available to download.

MEDIAWATCH: By Colin Peacock, RNZ Mediawatch presenter

The comedians on 7 Days had a few laughs at RNZ’s expense against a backdrop of the Kremlin on TV Three this week.

“A Radio New Zealand digital journalist has been stood down after it emerged they’d been editing news stories on the broadcaster’s website to give them a pro-Russian slant, which is kind of disgusting,” host Jeremy Corbett said.

“You’d never get infiltration like that on 7 Days. Our security is too strong. Strong like a bear. Strong like the glorious Russian state and its leader Putin,” he said.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MEDIAWATCH: The RNZ editing fallout
• RNZ appoints panel to investigate inappropriate editing of online stories
• ‘I think it’s really important that we preserve the editorial independence of an institution like RNZ’ – PM Chris Hipkins
• Prime Minister responds to questions on RNZ investigation into pro-Russian editing
• Other RNZ inquiry reports

“I love this Russian strategy: ‘First, we take New Zealand’s fourth best and fourth most popular news site — then the world!” said Melanie Bracewell, who said she had not kept up with the news.

Just a joke, obviously, but this week some people have been asking if Kremlin campaigns played a role in the inappropriate editing of online world news.

It was on June 9 that the revelation of it kicked off a media frenzy about propaganda, misinformation, Russia, Ukraine, truth, trust and editorial standards that has been no laughing matter at RNZ.

The story went up a notch last weekend when TVNZ’s Thomas Mead revealed Ukrainian New Zealander Michael Lidski — along with 20 others — had complained about a story written by the journalist in May 2022, which RNZ had re-edited on the day to add alternative perspectives after prompting from an RNZ journalist who considered it sub-standard.

The next day on RNZ’s Checkpoint, presenter Lisa Owen said the suspended RNZ web journalist had told her he edited reports “in that way for five years” — and nobody had ever queried it or told him to stop.

RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson, who is also editor-in-chief, then told Checkpoint he did not consider what he had called “pro-Kremlin garbage” a resignation-worthy issue.

“I think this is a time for us actually working together to fix the problem,” he said.

RNZ had already begun taking out the trash in public by listing the corrupted (and now corrected) stories on the RNZ.co.nz homepage as they are discovered.

Thompson said the problem was “confined to a small area of what RNZ does” but by the following day,  RNZ found six more stories — supplied originally by the reputable news agency Reuters — had also been edited in terms more favourable to the ruling regimes.

“RNZ has come out with a statement that said: ‘In our defence, we didn’t actually realise anyone was reading our stories’,” said 7 Days’ Jeremy Corbett.

That was just a gag — but it did actually explain just how it took so long for the dodgy edits to come to light and become newsworthy.

Where the problem lay
Last Wednesday’s cartoon in the Stuff papers — featuring an RNZ radio newsreader with a Pinocchio-length nose didn’t raise any laughs there either — because none of the slanted stories in question ever went out in the news on the air.

They were only to be found online — and this was a significant distinction as it turned out, because the checks and balances are not quite the same or made by the same staff.

“In radio, a reporter writes a story and sends it to a sub-editor who will then check it. And then a news reader has to read it so there’s a couple of stages. Maybe even a chief reporter would have checked it as well,” Corin Dann told RNZ Morning Report listeners last Monday.

“What I’m trying to establish is what sort of checks and balances were there to ensure that that world story was properly vetted,” he said.

That question — and others — will now be asked by the external experts appointed this week to run the rule of RNZ’s online publishing procedures for a review that will be made public.

On Thursday a former RNZer Brent Edwards made a similar point in the National Business Review where he’ is now the political editor.

“For a couple of years, I was the director of news gathering. I had a large responsibility for RNZ’s news coverage but technically I had no responsibility whatsoever for what went on the web,” he said.

“Done properly the RNZ review panel could do all news media a favour by providing a template for how online news should be curated. It should reinforce the importance of quality, ethical journalism,” Edwards added.

His NBR colleague Dita di Boni said “there but for the grace of God go other outlets” which have “gone digital” in news.

“I worked at TVNZ and there was a rush to digital as well with lots of resources going in but little oversight from the main newsroom.”

Calls for political action
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has made it clear he doesn’t want the government involved in RNZ’s editorial affairs.

David Seymour of the ACT party wanted an inquiry — and NZ First leader Winston Peters called for a Royal Commission into the media bias and manipulation.

Former National MP Nathan Guy told Newshub Nation this weekend “heads need to roll” at RNZ.

“If I was the broadcasting minister, I would want the chair in my office and to hold RNZ to account. I want timeframes. I want accountability because we just can’t afford to have our public broadcaster tell unfortunate mistruths to the public,” he said.

In the same discussion, Newsroom’s co-editor Mark Jennings reminded Guy that RNZ’s low-budget digital news transition happened under his National-led government which froze RNZ’s funding for almost a decade.

“This is what happens when you underfund an organisation for so long,” he said.

Jennings also said “trust in RNZ has been hammered by this” — and criticised RNZ chairman Dr Jim Mather for declining to be interviewed on Newshub Nation.

Earlier — under the headline Media shooting itself in the foot — Jennings said surveys have picked up a decline and trust and news media here.

“And the road back for the media just had a major speed bump,” he concluded.

How deep is the damage to trust?

While the breach of editorial standards is clear, has there been an over-reaction to what may be the actions of just one employee, which took years to come to light?

Last week the think-tank Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures at Auckland University hosted a timely “disinformation and media manipulation” workshop attended by executives and editors from most major media outlets.

It was arranged long before RNZs problems arose — but those ended up dominating discussion on this theme.

Among the participants was media consultant and commentator Peter Bale, who has previously worked overseas for Reuters, as well as The Financial Times and CNN.

“I really feel for RNZ in this, for the chief executive and everybody else there who does generally a great job. The issue of trust here is in this person’s relationship with their employer and their relationship with the facts.”

Bale is also the newsroom initiative leader at the International News Media Association, which promotes best practice in news and journalism publishing.

The exposure of the “inappropriate editing” undetected for so long has created the impression a lot of content is published online with no checking. That is sometimes the case when speed is a priority, but the vast majority of stuff does go past at least two eyes before publication.

“I think it is true also that editing has been diminished as a skill. But I don’t think it’s necessarily a failure of editing here but a failure of this person’s understanding of what their job is,” Bale told Mediawatch.

“You shouldn’t necessarily need to have a second or third pair of eyes when processing a Reuters story that’s already gone through multiple editors. The critical issue for RNZ is whether they took the initial complaints seriously enough,” he said.

‘Pro-Kremlin garbage’?

There have been many reports in recent years about Russia seeding misinformation and disinformation abroad.

Last Tuesday, security and technology consultant Paul Buchanan told Morning Report that RNZ should be better prepared for authoritarian states seeking to mess with its news.

“This incident that prompted this investigation may or may not be just one individual who has certain opinions about the war between Russia and Ukraine. But it is possible that . . . stories were manipulated from abroad,” he said.

Back in March the acting Director-General of the SIS told Parliament: “States are trying, in a coercive disruptive and a covert way, to influence the behaviors of people in New Zealand and influencing their decision making”.

John Mackey named no nations at the time, but his GCSB counterpart Andrew Hampton told MPs research had shown Russia was the source of misinformation many Kiwis were consuming.

Is it really likely the Kremlin or its proxies are pushing propaganda into the news here? And if so, to what end?

“I think there’s been a little bit of ‘too florid’ language used about this. This person has inserted what are in some people’s views genuine talking points from those who . . . want to have expressed what the Russian view is. But it was very ham-fisted,” said Bale.

“There are ways to do this. You could have inserted the Russian perspective to highlight the fact that there is a different view about things like the Orange Revolution when the pro-Kremlin leader in Kyiv was overthrown,” he said.

Not necessarily ‘propaganda’
“I don’t think it is necessarily ‘Kremlin propaganda’ as it’s been described. It was just a misguided attempt to bring another perspective, I suspect, but it still represents a tremendous breach of trust,” he said.

“I write a weekly newsletter for The Spinoff about international news, and I try sometimes to show . . . there are other perspectives on these stories. Those things are legitimate to address — but not just surreptitiously squeeze into a story in some sort of perceived balance.

“I don’t think in this particular case that it is to do with the spread of disinformation or misinformation by Russia. I think this is a different set of problems. But I agree (there’s a) threat from the kind of chaos-driving techniques that Russia is particularly brilliant at. They’re very skilled at twisting stories . . . and I think we need to be ready for it,” he said.

The guest speaker at that Koi Tū event last Wednesday was Dr Joan Donovan, the research director of the Shorenstein center on Media and Politics at Harvard University in the US, where she researches and tracks the sources of misrepresentation and misinformation in the media, and the impact they have on public trust in media — and also how media can prepare for it.

At the point where 15 supplied news stories had been found to be “inappropriately edited” by RNZ, she took to Twitter to say: “This is wild. Fake news has reached new heights.”

Set against what we’ve seen in US politics — and about Russia and Ukraine — is it really that bad?

“Usually what you see is the spoofing of a website or a URL in order to look like you’re a certain outlet and distribute disinformation that way. It’s very unlikely that someone would go in and work a job and be editing articles without proper oversight,” said Donovan  — who is also the co-author of recently published book, Meme Wars, The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy. 

“I think when it comes to one country, wanting to insert their views into another country — even though New Zealand is very small — it does track that this would be a way to influence a large group of people.

“But I don’t think if any of us know the degree to which this could be an international operation or not,” she told Mediawatch.

“What you learn is that their pattern is that they happen over and over and over again until a news agency or platform company figures out a mitigation tactic, whether it’s removing that link from search or writing critical press or debunking those stories.

“When I think about the fallout of it . . . using the legitimacy of RNZ in a parasitical kind of way and that legitimacy to spread propaganda is one of the most important pieces of this puzzle that we would need to explore more,” she said.

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

Twenty five broadcasters from 13 Pacific countries touched down in Auckland recently for the Pacific Broadcasters conference.

A meet and greet filled with lots of talanoa, networking and healthy debate, the conference was a welcome change from a typical Zoom meeting.

Natasha Meleisea, chief executive of Pacific Cooperation Broadcasting Ltd (PCBL), which operates Pasifika TV, says the conference was about uniting Pacific broadcasters.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific broadcasting reports

“I’ve kind of shared messages today around, it’s never a solo journey. There is strength in the collective and partnerships is really important,” Meleisea says.

“For a very long time we’ve had Pacific voices or Pacific stories being told by non-Pacific. There’s nothing wrong with that.

“However, it’s good to provide a platform where our own Pacific people can share those stories themselves and PCBL, Pasifika TV enables that.”

Vanuatu Broadcasting and Television Cooperation (VBTC) chief executive Francis Herman says that after seeing Vanuatu stories in the hands of overseas productions, story sovereignty is an important point of discussion.

‘Misconstrued a lot of things’
“We’ve noticed that in previous years, people have just flown in, told our stories, misconstrued a lot of things,” says Herman.

“[They’ve] gone for the ratings, gone for the dollars and left us high and dry, and they really haven’t told the real stories. We are the experts in our own culture, our own island, or about our people.”

But Herman says the PCBL partnership has been a “faithful . . . and equal partnership.”

“We haven’t been seen as a very small island developing state or a very small broadcaster. They’ve treated us as equals.

“We tell our own stories. We know our audience better, we know our country better than they do.

“Let’s tell our stories. And I think Pasifika TV has given us that opportunity and that’s why we’ve continued that partnership.”

Story sovereignty major factor for Pacific broadcasters. Video: Tagata Pasifika

Part of that partnership includes training in camera production, operation of Live U units and journalism training, something which Kiri One TV chief executive Tiarite George Kwong deeply values.

“Kiri One just started five years ago . . . and so we are very new in this kind of industry,” Kwong says.

‘Upgrading our skills’
“The idea for the partnership with PCBL is to upgrade our skills so that the news that we produce is up to the standard that people want to listen and watch every day.

“Compared from day one that we started, we have seen the improvement.”

Broadcasters like Mai TV in Fiji have taken the PCBL training one step further, when they acquired the netball rights for the Oceania Netball Series in 2022, their first time to do so.

“We were thinking we cannot do this because you need all the different equipment and costs and things,” says director of Mai TV Stanley Simpson.

“But we spoke with PCBL and they found solutions for us. And through that we were able to take the Oceania Netball series to Tonga, to Samoa and the Cook Islands, which is the first time that we were able to distribute rights from Fiji.

“That empowerment has been really strong. And from the discussions and the inspiring conversations we’ve had with the team at PCBL, it made us look around and realise that we have the best stories in the world in the Pacific.”

Now that their Pacific counterparts are receiving the necessary training and equipment, Meleisea says there is an abundance of Pacific content being produced from their regional partners.

‘A phenomenal feat’
“We went to air in 2016, at that point in time we weren’t getting any content from the Pacific. Fast forward eight years down the track, we’re now getting eight to 10 hours a day from the Pacific, which is a phenomenal feat.

“In order to achieve that, it’s been a slow build. It’s been about providing equipment, providing training, and then providing the infrastructure and the connectivity to enable it.

“So without all of those three things, we wouldn’t have been able to get the content from the region.”

Funded as part of NZ’s Public Interest Journalism project. Republished from Tagata Pasifika with permission.

RNZ has announced Charlotte Cook as the new presenter of Midday Report — Te Pūrongo o te Poutūtanga on RNZ National and Susana Suisuiki as host of Pacific Waves on RNZ Pacific.

Cook has most recently been a senior reporter/producer for Morning Report and hosted the programme over the summer, as well as filling in on Midday Report.

Her career highlights to date include telling the stories of multiple New Zealanders on the front line of the war in Ukraine and reporting live from the Parliament protests when the police were called in to clear the grounds.

• READ MORE: Other RNZ reports on Asia Pacific Report

Cook is known for spotting a great yarn — her video of Wellington’s “Sushi Penguins” passed more than a million views, and her 2020 Elevator Pitch election series saw her challenge political party leaders to summarise why people should vote for them in the space of a quick trip in a lift.

Her podcast Hair and Loathing is a finalist for Best Documentary or Factual Talk Feature at the 2023 NZ Radio Awards.

Suisuiki joined RNZ Pacific as a journalist in early 2022 and has spent time on air as a fill-in newsreader and Pacific Waves host.

Succeeds Koroi Hawkins
She takes on the permanent presenter role following Koroi Hawkins’ move to the Pacific news editor role at RNZ Pacific.

A proud New Zealand-born Samoan, Suisuiki has strong family ties to the villages of Letogo and Satapuala in Upolu, Samoa.

She followed a long-held dream to pursue journalism, joining RNZ Pacific after six years working in the communications field with stints in public health, not-for-profit organisations, and foreign affairs/international development.

Born into a family of performers and creatives, she strives to carry on her family’s legacy through performing and teaching the Siva Samoa.

Her passion for the siva has led to choreographing and tutoring solo performances, one of which took the top award at the Polyfest Samoan stage in 2021.

RNZ head of news Richard Sutherland said both presenters are great examples of the outstanding fresh talent at RNZ.

“Charlotte quickly made her mark in the RNZ newsroom as someone with a keen eye for a story and the ability to build a rapport with the people she interviews, and that’s something she’s continued as a producer and reporter for Morning Report,” he said.

“Her stints as a fill in host on several programmes have proven she’s ready for this next step.

Key Pacific programme
“Pacific Waves is an important Pacific-focused current affairs programme that’s broadcast across the Pacific via the internet and short-wave radio, as well as on RNZ National.

“Susana has been a key part of the team contributing to the programme since she first joined the RNZ Pacific team early last year, and she’s impressed when hosting the show.

“It’s great to have Pacific Waves presented out of Aotearoa’s biggest Pacific city, Auckland.”

Suisuiki is on air in her new role immediately and Cook will present Midday Report from Friday.

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

• Go to Pacific Waves

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.

• READ MORE:  At the end of Today
• LISTEN TO RNZ MIDDAY REPORT: Media commentator Colin Peacock blames low ratings
• Other Today FM reports

“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. 

New Zealand pay-TV company Sky TV plans to cut some jobs in the country as it outsources roles to India and the Philippines, reports the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union.

Sky chief executive Sophie Moloney said the proposal would result in some of Sky’s work in technology and content operations being outsourced to experienced international provider Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), according to TVNZ’s 1News.

TCS is an India-based information technology services and consulting company.

In customer care, Sky TV said it would adopt a hybrid model, with one third of its team based in New Zealand and two-thirds in the Philippines (through Sky’s existing partner Probe CX Group).

It said the proposal would see “over 100 roles” retained in its New Zealand call centre, while “around 200” roles would be created in the Philippines to deal with “more straightforward” inquiries.

“Overall, the proposed changes would boost Sky’s customer service capacity by 40 percent across the two teams, driving better customer experiences and the ability to meet customer demand as it flexes,” said Sky in an announcement to New Zealand’s stock exchange last month.

Sky said the changes would result in “multi-million dollar permanent savings within two years”.

Sky TV provides pay television services via satellite, media streaming services and broadband internet services.

It has no connection with the UK’s Sky Group or Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

Fijian Broadcasting Corporation (FBC) board chairman Ajay Bhai Amrit says he has receipts to prove former FBC chief executive officer Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum received an annual package of $387,790 including benefits and entitlements.

He said this worked out to $32,315 a month and that the board had evidence in the form of payslips and Sayed-Khaiyum’s contract.

Sayed-Khaiyum had denied the amount disclosed was what he received in salary.

• READ MORE: Behind the News: State media and independence
• Media freedom in Fiji

In response to media queries about going public with Sayed-Khaiyum’s salary, Amrit said the people owned FBC as the public broadcaster and they had every right to know where and how their money was being spent.

He also said the $93 million that FBC received over the past 14 years would be closely scrutinised to see where the money went — a process which he said could take weeks.

Responding to a question from the media on claims made by Sayed-Khaiyum that the government left FBC “short changed”, Amrit said the corporation could not continue without government funding.

Government funding was about $11.2 million a year — almost $1 million per month.

Amrit said since the ex chief executive had taken the reins at FBC, it had received about $93 million in public service broadcasting funds, but it would not be known for some time whether the funds were used for public service broadcasting or for other things.

“It takes quite a long time to work out where that money is going, how it came in, what it was used for, and 100 percent we need to work on this but it will take weeks,” he said.

“It’s not a simple situation where I can sit down and say hold on, this money went yeah there, everywhere.

“It was used for various means so we’ve got to find out.”

Amrit said some of FBC best customers were government departments.

Ian Chute is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Former Fijian Broadcasting Corporation chief executive Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum was paid $224,792 in bonuses during his term at FBC which began in 2008, the new board chair has claimed.

He was due for a $30,000 bonus this year.

FBC chair Ajai Bhai Amrit also revealed Sayed-Khaiyum, brother of former attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, received a salary of F$304,453 (NZ$218,000) and was paid a bonus of $25,671 during the covid-19 pandemic.

• READ MORE: Other Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum reports
• Other Fiji politics reports

Amrit revealed this while speaking to the media.

Amrit said FBC would have incurred a loss of more than $63 million if the company had not received annual grants from government.

He clarified questions regarding the purchase of a vehicle by the sacked CEO.

“The final price of the vehicle was $207,470 and the vehicle is at Customs,” Amrit said.

“The vehicle will be tendered, I haven’t seen it yet.”

He said no staff would lose their jobs and the board was now dealing with the company’s annual reports and continuing investigations into its operations.

Wata Shaw is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum denies chair’s claims
FijiVillage News reports that Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said in a statement today that Amrit’s comments that he was being paid $32,000 a month in salary was “absolutely false”.

Sayed-Khaiyum said that under his most recent 3 year contract, which was approved by the previous board in late December, he was paid “nowhere near” what has been falsely reported.

He said that for all his contracts over the last 15 years of his tenure as CEO, FBC had been strictly sanctioned and approved by several boards with a clearly defined job description.

The former FBC chief executive said the board had always approved his salary, bonus and other entitlements based on performance and job evaluation reports.

He said the board also sanctioned every major development at the FBC over the past 15 years.

Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said Amrit’s allegation that Sayed-Khaiyum had received more than $304,000 in salary during the covid19 pandemic was also incorrect.

He said that during this time the FBC staff went through a 10 percent salary reduction for about half a year in order to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on their revenue, and he took a 12 percent salary reduction on his own volition.

Wata Shaw is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat reports today on how Fiji has fared under the draconian Media Act that has restricted media freedom over the past decade.

There are hopes that state-endorsed media censorship will stop in Fiji following last month’s change in government to the People’s Alliance-led coalition.

Reported by Fiji correspondent Lice Movono, the podcast outlines former Fiji Times editor-in-chief Netani Rika’s experiences of repression under the former FijiFirst government.

• LISTEN TO ABC PACIFIC BEAT: Media freedom under the new Fiji government
• READ MORE: Former Fiji Times editor has no regrets about resisting censorship

But a change in government has also been reflected by a change in attitude towards the media.

It comes as the Fijian Broadcasting Corporation board has terminated the contract of FBC’s chief executive Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum amid reports that the CEO for the public broadcaster earned more money than the prime minister of the country.

Media veterans are also hoping for changes to Fiji’s controversial Media Act, or its complete removal, to protect freedom of the press.

Movono also reports on Islands Business editor Samantha Magick’s view on media freedom and retired journalism professor Dr David Robie, who founded the Pacific Media Centre, expressing his “scepticism” over whether the hoped for relaxed rules would go far enough for the global RSF Media Freedom Index which ranks Fiji at just 102nd out of 180 countries.

The media item is rounded off with an interview with Attorney-General Siromi Turaga who says the repression of the past should never have happened.

He said he would directly work on the changes to the Act, once the minister responsible for information moves to suggest changes.

“The coalition government is going to provide a different approach, a truly democratic way of dealing with press freedom,” Turaga said.

“We’re going to ensure they have freedom to broadcast to impart knowledge information to members of the public.”

Interviewed:
Netani Rika, former editor of The Fiji Times and former Fiji Television manager of news and current affairs
Samantha Magick, editor of Islands Business
Dr David Robie, retired journalism professor and editor of Asia Pacific Report
Siromi Turaga, Attorney-General of Fiji

In other items on today’s Pacific Beat:

• Fiji’s top cop and head of prisons are suspended pending an investigation by a special tribunal.
• A programme is launched in the Australian state of Victoria to get seasonal workers road-ready.
• Pacific women take part in Tennis Australia’s leadership programme, coinciding with the Australian Open.
• And scientists warn some sharks are on the brink of extinction.

Reporter Lice Movono

Presenter: Prianka Srinivasan

The BBC celebrated its 100th birthday last Tuesday. It came as the institution faces increasing competition for audiences from global entertainment providers, anxieties about the sustainability of its funding and a highly competitive global news market.

Its international broadcasting operation, the BBC World Service, is only a little younger, established 90 years ago.

Delivering news and programmes in 40 languages across the continents, it faces similar, significant questions about financing, purpose and its ability to deliver in a world of increased social media and online news consumption.

• READ MORE: US and Russia engage in a digital battle for hearts and minds
• 100 years of the BBC: the rebels who reshaped broadcasting – and paid the price

Currently the BBC’s international services are mostly funded by British people who pay a television licence fee, with a third of the total cost covered by the UK government.

The BBC claimed that, as of November 2021, the World Service reached a global audience of 364 million people each week.

The role of radio
Radio is still clearly a key means to extend the reach of the World Service and a core part of the BBC’s global news package. It is highly adaptable and reasonably affordable.

It also gives people in parts of the world where access to media can be difficult relatively easy access to news. Short-wave radio, the traditional means of broadcasting over very long distances, is also difficult for hostile regimes to block.

Recently, fears that Russia would target Ukraine’s internet infrastructure and erect firewalls to prevent its own citizens’ accessing western media sources, led the BBC to reactivate shortwave radio news services for listeners in both countries. UK government funding of £4.1 million supported this.

Current thinking about the World Service has been shaped by a 2010 decision of UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s government to withdraw Foreign and Commonwealth Office funding for BBC international operations from 2014. This seemed to end a 60 years-long era when the BBC was the key subcontractor for British global “soft power” (using cultural resources and information to promote British interests overseas).

The plan was that British TV licence-fee payers would fund the World Service, seemingly as an act of international benevolence, free of government ties. However, this seemed unlikely to be sustainable at a time when BBC income was being progressively squeezed.

In 2015, World Service revenues were boosted by a major grant from the UK’s Official Development Assistance fund, covering around a third of the World Service’s running costs.

One anonymous BBC insider was quoted by The Guardian saying that this would sustain the corporation’s “strong commitment to uphold global democracy through accurate, impartial and independent news”.

Even before the Second World War, the BBC claimed it only broadcast truthful and objective news. Policy makers recognised this as a crucial asset for promoting British interests overseas, and seldom sought to challenge (openly at least) the “editorial independence” of the BBC.

The BBC’s 2016 royal charter further entrenched this thinking, stating that news for overseas audiences should be “firmly based on British values of accuracy, impartiality and fairness”. The idea that a truthful approach to news was a core “British value” that could help promote democracy around the world became part of the BBC’s basic mission statement.

In 2017, the BBC established 17 new foreign-language radio and online services. To maximise possibilities for listening it purchased FM transmitter time in major cities around the world, and deployed internet radio, increasingly accessible to many users via mobile devices.

The focus was on Africa and Asia. However, the World Service also strengthened its Arabic and Russian provision to serve those who “sorely need reliable information”.

The British Broadcasting Company has placed an advertisement in today’s edition of The Times for its first permanent members of staff.

(14 October 1922) pic.twitter.com/iRSDfvHsAz

— The BBC, 100 years ago today (@BBC100yearsago) October 14, 2022

Fake news factor
The World Service’s rationale has been strengthened by growing concerns about “fake news”: distorted and untrue reports designed to serve the commercial or geopolitical interests of those who manufacture it.

The BBC has, in response, further emphasised its historic role as a truthful broadcaster. In its trusted news initiative it has worked with other global media outlets to tackle disinformation, hosting debate and discussion, and sharing intelligence about the most misleading campaigns.

Claims for continued relevance also rest on a drive to bring news to an ever larger audience. The BBC’s stated aim is to reach 500 million people this year, and a billion within another decade.

In 2021 the BBC claimed to be on course to realise this goal, reaching a global audience of 489 million. The audience for the World Service accounted for the single largest component of this global figure.

What then should we make of the BBC’s announcement in September 2022 that 400 jobs would have to go at the World Service due to the freezing of the licence fee and rapidly rising costs?

Radio services in languages including Arabic, Persian, Hindi and Chinese will disappear, and programme production for the English-language radio service will be pared down. Certainly, these cuts will reduce the BBC’s impact overseas.

But they should also be understood as part of a longstanding and ongoing transition from shortwave radio to web radio.

Similarly, cutting back on World Service non-news programming might not be a major cause for concern. In an age of global streaming services and social media, audiences can receive programmes from providers from across the globe.

The World Service would find it hard to compete with many of these services. However, the BBC remains in a pre-eminent position to offer trusted news.

By focusing on providing news online, the World Service is putting its resources where it can best promote British soft power and international influence, thereby improving prospects for its own continued existence.

However, abandoning radio entirely would be a mistake. As the Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated, radio remains a crucial way to reach audiences who might find their access to trusted news via the internet suddenly cut off.

Dr Simon Potter, Professor of Modern History, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Philippine police have announced the arrest of a suspect in the killing of a radio journalist who was known for criticising President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his immediate predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte.

The suspect, identified as Joel Estorial, 39, gave himself up to the Philippine National Police (PNP) and Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos and was charged with murder two weeks after seasoned radio broadcaster Percival Mabasa (also known as Percy Lapid) was gunned down in a suburb south of Manila, officials said.

Estorial surrendered “out of fear for personal safety following public disclosure of … CCTV footage revealing his face during the incident and naming him as [a] primary person of interest,” according to a statement from Abalos’ office.

• READ MORE: Assassins gun down Philippine broadcaster outside home
• Other Philippine media freedom reports

“This is a major breakthrough. He made an extra-judicial confession, duly assisted by counsel,” Abalos said, adding that the suspect had named three other accomplices who were subjects of “intensive follow-up operations”.

The gun used to shoot Mabasa was recovered and “positively linked to the crime scene” by the police forensics laboratory, according to the national police.

Estoral confessed that five others had allegedly participated in the planning and killing of the broadcaster, but he only managed to identify three.

Mabasa, who worked for DWBL radio station, was ambushed on October 3 as he drove his car toward a gated community in Las Pinas, a suburb in southern metro Manila. He was the latest in a long line of killings targeting members of the Philippine media.

Motive remains unknown
However, the motive for his murder remains unknown. Abalos did not answer reporters when they asked him about this on Tuesday.

“Just give us a few more days. We have to get the mastermind, that’s very important. The investigation is ongoing right now, there are many more details. Let’s not jeopardise them,” he said.

The suspect in custody was presented at the press briefing, where he spoke to reporters.

Someone from inside the country’s main prison facility, whom Estoral did not identify, had ordered a hit on Mabasa, he said. He identified two brothers and a third man as fellow accomplices in the attack.

“I was afraid and conscience-struck for the killing of Percy Lapid,” said a handcuffed Estorial, who wore a helmet and bullet-proof vest.

“Our arrangement was for whoever got closest to Percy would be the one to fire the fatal shot, and I was in that position. I was threatened with death if I didn’t shoot Percy at that moment, so I did,” Estorial said.

The team was paid 550,000 pesos (US$9300) for the hit, he told reporters.

“I hope the family forgives me. I did not want to do it, I was just forced to do so,” he said.

Family thank police
Mabasa’s family issued a statement Tuesday thanking the police and saying they hoped his killing would not become just another statistic among murders of Filipino journalists dating back decades.

“We hope this development leads to the identification, arrest and prosecution of the mastermind,” the family said.

Filipino activists light candles in memory of killed radio journalist Percival Mabasa (also known as Percy Lapid) during a demonstration in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Oct. 4, 2022. [Basilio Sepe/BenarNews]

The Southeast Asian nation ranks among the most dangerous countries for journalists worldwide. Dozens have been killed with impunity since the dictatorship of Marcos’ late father, Ferdinand E. Marcos, more than 36 years ago.

Mabasa’s commentaries were often bold and sharp as he sought to counter fake news spread on air as well as on social media. He had also hit out against a perceived attempt by supporters of the Marcos family to distort history and had been bitingly critical of the war on drugs by Marcos’ predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, which left thousands dead. During his six years in office, Duterte had said journalists were fair game if they were corrupt.

The Duterte administration worked to close down broadcaster ABS-CBN Corp. and convict Maria Ressa, the chief executive of the news website Rappler who was later named a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, on cyber libel charges.

Jeoffrey Maitem and Mark Navales in Cotabato City, southern Philippines, and Basilio Sepe in Manila contributed to this report.

Two radio stations linked to the French Pacific’s decolonisation movements want to co-operate to lift the use of indigenous languages.

The heads of Radio Tefana in French Polynesia and Radio Djiido in New Caledonia said this was in line with the United Nations declaring the next 10 years as the decade of vernacular languages.

Tahiti Nui TV quoted a member of Radio Djiido, Kengy Wiwale-Hauata, saying New Caledonia had 30 local languages and they were all honoured on the radio every day.

• READ MORE: Temaru hits back over probe in pro-independence Radio Tefana case

The two stations plan to expand co-operation in the region, considering partnerships with Wallis and Futuna, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji.

The two stations were set up in the 1980s when the pro-independence movements were led by Oscar Temaru and the late Jean-Marie Tjibaou respectively. Both broadcast on the frequency 97.4FM.

Radio Tefana is threatened with closure because of a US$1 million fine imposed three years ago when Temaru, mayor of Faa’a and a former President of French Polynesia, was handed a suspended prison sentence over the station’s funding arrangement.

The conviction has been appealed but a hearing of the case has been deferred for a fifth time until next year.

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

The Civicus Monitor has documented an uptick in restrictions on civic space by the Solomon Islands government, which led to the downgrading of the coiuntry’s rating to “narrowed” in December 2021.

As previously documented, there have been threats to ban Facebook in the country and attempts to vilify civil society.

The authorities have also restricted access to information, including requests from the media. During violent anti-government protests in November 2021, journalists on location were attacked with tear gas and rubber bullets from the police.

• READ MORE: Other Solomon islands reports

Elections are held on the Solomon Islands every four years and Parliament was due to be dissolved in May 2023.

However, the Solomon Islands is set to host the Pacific Games in November 2023, and Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has sought to delay the dissolution of Parliament until December 2023, with an election to be held within four months of that date. The opposition leader has criticised this delay as a “power grab”.

There have also been growing concerns over press freedom and the influence of China, which signed a security deal with the Pacific island nation in April 2022.

Journalists face restrictions during Chinese visit
In May 2022, journalists in the Solomons faced numerous restrictions while trying to report on the visit of China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi to the region.

The Australian government is moving fast to reset relations with Australia’s Pacific partners, including a larger Pacific role for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Detailed research undertaken late last year for the ABC in our six key Pacific markets (Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu and Tonga) confirms that the ABC today is used, valued and highly trusted by Pacific audiences.

This result has been made possible through the ABC’s multi-channel approach, and by thoughtful programming made with Pacific partners and designed specifically for Pacific audiences.

• READ MORE: Other reports on Radio Australia in the Pacific

In terms of reach, access to AM/FM radio today is significantly higher than access to shortwave across the Pacific, and our research confirms that the most effective way today to engage audiences in urban and peri-urban regions is through FM radio transmission.

ABC Radio Australia currently has 13 transmitters across the Pacific. ABC Australia (TV) broadcasts to 16 Pacific island nations and territories under more than 25 distribution deals.

Meanwhile, a transition to digital and social media in the Pacific is also well underway. Smartphone use is high in urban areas, and increasingly, the ABC connects to its Pacific audiences via Facebook and through our digital offerings.

Our multi-channel approach is paying off. Total Pacific user interactions late last year with the ABC, whether via the ABC website, the ABC app or social media channels, were reportedly higher than usage and interactions with any other international provider, including the BBC, CNN, RNZ and CGTN.

Big jump in numbers
In the Papua New Guinea market, the research showed that more than half of all respondents had either watched ABC Australia (TV), listened to ABC Radio Australia or accessed the ABC online in the second half of 2021. That’s a big jump in audience numbers within just a few years.

The Australian government has plans to review the merits of restoring shortwave radio and the ABC will be contributing to that process. Part of that will include understanding how many people still have access to shortwave radios and the interest or need to use them as an information source.

In terms of content, the ABC’s unique advantage lies in its commitment to, and relationship with, Pacific audiences. We aim to be local. Our Asia–Pacific newsroom is the only one of its kind in Australia, with 50 journalists and producers telling the stories that matter to Indo-Pacific audiences, told in Bahasa Indonesia, Tok Pisin and Chinese as well as English.

Our flagship daily current affairs programme, Pacific Beat on ABC Radio Australia, features interviews with leaders and newsmakers, attracting audiences of all ages and genders. Then there’s Sistas, Let’s Talk (conversations with inspirational Pacific women), Wantok (Pacific-focused news and current affairs in Tok Pisin, Solomon Islands pidgin and Bislama), Island Music (reggae, dancehall and R’n’B with a focus on the Pacific region) and Pacific Playtime (for kids and families across the region).

A shared love of sport offers opportunities to strengthen social ties across the Pacific, and particularly to engage young people. ABC Radio Australia takes the men’s and women’s National Rugby League competitions to lovers of the sport across the region.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade supports the ABC to produce the only pan-Pacific sport-focused TV show, That Pacific Sports Show, and a fresh and humorous sport-oriented radio show and podcast, Can You Be More Pacific?, hosted by Australian and Pacific sportspeople.

This commitment to genuine partnership with the Pacific is paying off. The proportion of respondents in Pacific markets last year who valued the ABC across all its channels as a “trusted source of news and information” was comparable to that in Australia, at a very high 75 percent.

Pacific content locally available
It’s also worth noting that all the content we produce for Pacific audiences is available domestically in Australia, helping to maintain regional ties and build greater Australian awareness about our Pacific neighbours.

The ABC’s International Development Unit, supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and donors like USAID and the United Nations, works with partners across the region to enhance journalism skills and media capacity.

The ABC also provides skills development training for specific challenges like election coverage and emergency broadcasting, plus support for media associations, like the Media Association of the Solomon Islands, which has been active in campaigning for press access and freedom in the Solomons.

The government has committed to increase funding to the ABC’s international programme by $8 million a year over the next four years. The focal points of this strategy are enhanced regional transmission, more content production, and increased media capacity training for Pacific partners.

This approach has been informed by the ABC’s own proposals.

Over recent years, various ideas have been floated for a new administrative process or organisation to “manage” Australia’s media presence in the Pacific. That would add unnecessary bureaucracy.

There’s a lot more the ABC could do in and for the Pacific. The ABC today has the strategy, systems and relationships in the Pacific to enable rapid expansion, given funding support.

And our research confirms there is a demand for it.

Claire M. Gorman is the head of international services at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Republished from The Strategist with the author’s permission.

The head of the Solomon Islands state-owned broadcaster has defended its role in the face of the government tightening control — a move that critics say is squarely aimed at controlling and censoring the news.

The government said last Friday that the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC) would retain editorial control and that government officials would not censor or restrain the outlet.

Earlier in the week, the government had lashed out at the broadcaster, accusing it of a “lack of ethics and professionalism” and saying the government had a duty to “protect our people from lies and misinformation” it claimed was propagated by the SIBC.

• READ MORE: Other media freedom in the Solomon Islands reports

In an interview published by the VOA News, Johnson Honimae, the SIBC chief executive, said he was proud of the broadcaster’s award-winning journalism.

He said it was business as usual for the broadcaster and there were no government censors vetting stories before they were broadcast, contrary to what was reported by some news outlets.

The government’s move came at a politically tumultuous time in the Solomon Islands.

There were riots in the capital of Honiara last November, followed by a no-confidence vote in Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare in December, which he survived.

Security pact with China
Then in April, Sogavare signed a security pact with China that has caused deep alarm in the Pacific and around the world.

The SIBC has reported those developments and has included the views of Sogavare’s opponents.

The broadcaster, which began as the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service, has been a fixture for 70 years in the Solomon Islands.

Employing about 50 people and operating under the slogan “Voice of the nation,” the broadcaster is the main source of radio and television news for the nation’s 700,000 people and is listened to and watched from the capital to the smallest village.

In late June, the government moved to delist the SIBC as a state-owned enterprise and take more direct control, saying the broadcaster had failed to make a profit, something that had been expected of such state-owned businesses.

Opposition Leader Matthew Wale said the delisting was a scheme orchestrated by Sogavare as “a clear attempt to directly control and censor the news content of SIBC”.

“This will hijack well-entrenched principles of law on defamation and freedom-of-speech, thus depriving the public using SIBC to freely express their views, or accessing information on government activities,” Wale said.

Critical government calls
Honimae said the broadcaster took critical calls from Sogavare’s office in recent months.

“They believe we’ve been running too many stories from the opposition side, causing too much disunity,” Honimae said.

Honimae said the broadcaster and its staff won several journalism awards this year from the Media Association of Solomon Islands, including newsroom of the year and journalist of the year.

He also said the broadcaster plays the national anthem when broadcasts begin each morning at 6 am and again when they finish at 11 pm.

“We believe we are a great force for unity and peace in this country,” Honimae said.

Honimae added that the broadcaster needed to “balance our stories more” and leave no opportunity for criticism.

He said Sogavare — who is also the government’s Broadcasting Minister– had said in Parliament that the government would not tamper with the broadcaster’s editorial independence.

“There is no censorship at the moment,” Honimae said. “We operate as professional journalists.”

The Solomon Islands government has prompted anger by ordering the censorship of the national broadcaster.

The government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has forbidden it from publishing material critical of the government, which will vet all stories before broadcast.

The Guardian reports that on Monday the government announced that the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC), a public service broadcaster established in 1976 by an Act of Parliament, would be brought under government control.

• READ MORE: Outrage as Solomon Islands government orders vetting of stories on national broadcaster
• Censoring SIBC an ‘assault on media freedom’ in Solomons, says IFJ
• Solomon Islands orders national broadcaster SIBC to ‘self-censor news’
• Campaign over Solomons media freedom ‘misguided’, claims PM’s office
• Other Solomon islands media freedom reports

The broadcaster, which airs radio programmes, TV bulletins and online news, is the only way to receive immediate news for people in many remote areas of the country and plays a vital role in natural disaster management.

Staff at SIBC confirmed to media that as of Monday, all news and programmes would be vetted by a government representative before broadcast.

The development has prompted outrage and raised concerns about freedom of the press.

“It’s very sad that media has been curtailed, this means we are moving away from democratic principles,” said Julian Maka, the Premier for Makira/Ulawa province, and formerly the programmes manager and current affairs head at SIBC.

“It is not healthy for the country, especially for people in the rural areas who need to have balanced views available to them.”

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has also condemned the move.

“The censoring of the Solomon Islands’ national broadcaster is an assault on press freedom and an unacceptable development for journalists, the public, and the democratic political process. The IFJ calls for the immediate reinstatement of independent broadcasting arrangements in the Solomon Islands.”

Claims of bias
The restrictions follow what Sogavare has called biased reporting and news causing “disunity”.

The opposition leader, Matthew Wale, has requested a meeting with the executive of the Media Association of Solomon Islands (MASI) to discuss the situation.

The Guardian reports there have been growing concerns about press freedom in Solomon Islands, particularly in the wake of the signing of the controversial security deal with China in May.

During the marathon tour of the Pacific conducted by China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, Pacific journalists were not permitted to ask him questions and in some cases reported being blocked from events, having Chinese officials block their camera shots, and having media accreditation revoked for no reason.

At Wang’s first stop in Solomon Islands, MASI boycotted coverage of the visit because many journalists were blocked from attending his press conference. Covid-19 restrictions were cited as the reason.

Sogavare’s office was contacted by the newspaper for comment.

Mounting pressure on SIBC ‘disturbing’
In Auckland, Professor David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report and convenor of Pacific Media Watch, described the mounting pressure on the public broadcaster Solomon islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC) as “disturbing” and an “unprecedented attack” on the independence of public radio in the country.

“It is extremely disappointing to see the Prime Minister’s Office effectively gagging the most important news service in reaching remote rural areas,” he said.

• The Solomon Islands is not yet ranked on the Reporters Without Borders World Media Freedom Index.

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

The Solomon islands Prime Minister’s office (PMO) has accused local news media of being involved in a “war on media freedom” that is misguided, unethical and unprofessional.

In a statement, the government said: “First and foremost, [the public broadcaster] SIBC is funded by SIG through community service obligations and subvention grants. It is a statutory body and not a private entity like Solomon Star or Island Sun.”

Second, SIBC was the national broadcaster that had a “duty to our people and country”, it added.

• READ MORE: Solomon Islands orders national broadcaster SIBC to ‘self-censor news’
• Other media freedom in the Solomon Islands reports

“That duty is to practice [sic], fair, responsible and ethical journalism, something that has decayed over the years to a point where pretty much anything gets published just to make a buck,” said the statement.

“It is a sad day for journalism and freedom of the press in this country when such indifference is not frowned upon or condemned by their fellow peers and profession.”

It said the action in removing SIBC as a state-owned enterprise was in response to SIBC’s claimed lack of ethics and professionalism in dissemination of information for public consumption.

The statement said that it was the duty of the government to protect “our people from lies and misinformation, especially when these very lies and misinformation is propagated by the national broadcaster”.

‘No one beyond approach’
“And just for the record, no one is beyond reproach, including the person who wrote the editorial for the Sunday Star [not named].

“The daily editorial is spinning stories and goes to show that they having nothing to say but everything to sell.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt made an observation that everybody needed to be reminded about.

“Freedom of the press is essential to the preservation of a democracy; but there is a difference between freedom and licence. Editorialists who tell downright lies in order to advance their own agendas do more to discredit the press than all the censors in the world,” the statement said.

The statement said that editors as gatekeepers should at least show “some sense of balance and fairness”.

“OPMC is concerned that if editors do not respect their important role then it is them who are a threat to freedom of press in our country, and not the government,” the statement concluded.

Mounting pressure on SIBC ‘disturbing’
However, in Auckland, Professor David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report and convenor of Pacific Media Watch, described the mounting pressure on the public broadcaster Solomon islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC) as “disturbing” and an “unprecedented attack” on the independence of public radio in the country.

“It is extremely disappointing to see the Prime Minister’s Office effectively gagging the most important news service in reaching remote rural areas,” he said.

• The Solomon Islands is not yet ranked on the Reporters Without Borders World Media Freedom Index.

The Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill — introduced to Parliament this week — will have a long journey before it is fit for purpose.

The Bill gives effect to the government’s plan to replace TVNZ and RNZ with a new entity designed for the digital age, but the legislation as it stands does little more than cement the two public broadcasters together.

On first reading (mine, not Parliament’s), it looks like a legislative instrument to give effect to the merger, but its stated intent and functions are much wider. This is supposed to be the legal foundation upon which a new age of public media is to be built.

• READ MORE: Gavin Ellis: An open letter to the incoming media minister
• Public media: new name, new law, new minister, old questions
• The BBC Charter

The general policy statement accompanying the Bill says: “This Bill seeks to strengthen the delivery of public media services by establishing a new public media entity.” It may achieve the latter, but it falls far short of guaranteeing its objective.

The Bill falls short on many fronts: Matters that should be covered are omitted, others are dealt with in obtuse ways, boilerplate clauses are employed in place of purposeful creativity, and ironclad protection of the public interest is absent.

The Bill’s shortcomings are too numerous to set out all of them, but a few key failings give a sense of how much work must be done on the proposed law through its committee stages.

The Bill states the new organisation will be a Crown entity but does not stipulate the category under which it must fall. We need to go to Schedule 2 Part 1 to find that Schedule 2 of the Crown Entities Act is to be amended to make Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media an autonomous Crown entity.

Why the change?
Both TVNZ and RNZ are currently Crown companies. Why the change?

Was it because autonomous Crown entities “must have regard to government policy when directed by the responsible Minister”? While the new public media organisation will be protected against ministerial interference on matters relating content and news gathering, there are many ways to skin the cat.

Why was the new entity not designated an Independent Crown Entity which is “generally independent of government policy”?

The Bill states that, in accordance with provisions of the Crown Entities Act, the Minister of Broadcasting and Media will appoint the board of the new entity, but the new Bill stipulates at least two of those directors will be nominated by the Minister for Māori Development.

As things stand, that means Willie Jackson will appoint the entire board because he holds both portfolios. The proposed legislation does not anticipate that aggregation of power.

Ministers are writ large across the Bill. There is oversight of the new entity by no fewer than three, possibly four. Aside from the Minister of Broadcasting and Media, the finance minister has direct powers over financial issues and the Māori development minister has Te Tiriti oversight.

The Crown Entities Act provides for the broadcasting minister to appoint a monitor to act as his eyes and ears over the new entity. The Ministry for Culture and Heritage has been working behind the scenes to gear itself to take on that role – and an even wider role across all media if its current strategy framework draft is anything to go by. So, it is possible that its minister (currently Carmel Sepuloni) will also have a look-in.

Independence absolutely vital
I do not think that augers well for the independence that is absolutely vital if the new body is to gain and retain public trust and confidence.

Yes, the Bill does carry over the provisions in existing legislation that tells ministers to keep their hands off editorial matters. However, there are too many other mechanisms by which politicians can influence the direction of the new organisation.

There is a charter that should provide its own protections, given that the relevant minister’s actions must be consistent with it. However, the charter in the Bill consists largely of boilerplate generalities that are less aspirational than the existing RNZ charter.

It is in marked contrast to the BBC Charter, which is erudite, explicit, and carries more direct obligations.

Submissions on the Bill will, no doubt, focus on the charter and it may yet go through iterations that improve it. One necessary improvement relates to the digital environment that made all of this reorganisation necessary. Although there is passing reference to online services, the tenor of the Bill is rooted in the present, not the future.

The entity’s principal purpose is “broadcasting”. That would be fine if the term was defined in broad enough terms. However, it talks of “transmitting” and “reception by the New Zealand public by means of receiving apparatus”. That hardly conjures up pictures of very smart interactive devices and a community for whom one-way linear transmission is antiquated.

The charter does state that one of its principles is “innovating and taking creative risks” but that looks tame alongside the BBC Charter’s clause on technology that states it “must promote technological innovation, and maintain a leading role in research and development”.

Technologically aspirational requirements
I would have thought that, in order to set the stage for a future-oriented organisation built for the digital age, the Bill just might contain some technologically aspirational requirements.

It is not the only element of the new organisation that is absent from the proposed legislation.

Aside from a pressing need to provide far more robust independent governance, the Bill’s most glaring omissions relate to finance and internal structures.

The Bill contains an explicit requirement that RNZ’s commercial-free services will continue, and where a charge is applied to new services on first broadcast it will later be free. There is no reference in the Bill, however, to TVNZ’s current commercial status, nor to annual appropriations from government.

It takes a careful reading of the Bill’s schedules and amendments to those in other acts to determine whether the current practice of channelling RNZ’s funding through NZ on Air will continue. Reading between the lines it appears that a more direct funding stream is being contemplated, with some form of coordination with other bodies such as NZ on Air and Te Māngai Pāho.

The Bill itself makes no direct reference to future requirements for TVNZ to pay a dividend but a tick in a column in the Bill’s schedule suggests the new entity will not contribute to the Treasury coffers.

Beyond that, the finances of the new entity are a deep void. The new organisation faces real challenges in reconciling public funding and commercial revenue. It must also determine the division of expenditure associated with programming to meet the expectations created by both sources.

No legislative guidance
However, there is no legislative guidance on how these challenges should be met. There is total silence on commercial expectations, and on the mechanisms by which any continuity of government funding will be calculated or guaranteed. The Cabinet papers released to date suggest funding matters will be dealt with through the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. So why is that not explicit in the Bill?

Internal structures — which must address the cultural and funding process differences between commercial and non-commercial broadcasting — are apparently entirely in the hands of the Establishment board as there is nothing in the Bill that mandates the unique internal structure that will be needed to satisfy both imperatives. Does Parliament have no view, for example, on whether news and current affairs should be structurally separated from a commercial enterprise, say as a separate subsidiary with its own statutory independence?

Why is there no requirement to follow the Irish precedent whereby the state broadcaster RTÉ must adhere to a Fair Trading Policy that complies with EU rules on State aid? That policy requires RTÉ “to trade in a manner which ensures that public funds are not used to subsidise RTÉ’s commercial activities…[and] that ensures that RTÉ’s commercial activities are compatible with its public service objects.”

These questions, and more, will be raised during the Bill’s select committee hearings. My fear is that the timetable set out for the legislation — it must be passed and in force by the end of the year — will truncate the process to the point where the necessarily exhaustive examination of its provisions will not take place.

Last week I set 12 labours for the new Minister of Broadcasting and Media. This Bill, as it currently stands, will make Willie Jackson’s tasks even more Herculean.

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He 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. Dr Ellis publishes a website called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

French Polynesia’s pro-independence leader and mayor of Faa’a, Oscar Temaru, says double standards are at play in probing him over the payment of his legal defence.

Temaru commented on being held for six hours last week for questioning over the Faa’a Council’s decision to pay his legal bill in a 2019 court case, which is still under appeal.

The prosecution claimed the payment amounted to an abuse of public funds and that Temaru should have paid for the expense with his own money.

• READ MORE: The judgment of Tahiti’s Oscar Temaru – a neocolonial sense of déjà-vu – Ena Manuireva
• Other Oscar Temaru reports

A lawyer acting for Temaru said the council was obliged to cover the mayor’s bill, describing last week’s brief detention of Temaru as a bid to tarnish him.

Temaru said such cover had for example been extended to the former chief-of-staff of Nicolas Sarkozy, Claude Gueant.

As part of the probe, the prosecutor in 2020 ordered the seizure of Temaru’s US$100,000 personal savings — a move being challenged by Temaru.

The probe drew criticism as his defence team risked court action for accepting funds that the prosecutor claimed were unduly allotted to Temaru’s benefit.

Prosecutor’s move challenged
One lawyer, David Koubbi, raised the prosecutor’s move with a 22-member agency which rules on professional ethics.

In the 2019 court case, Temaru and two others were given suspended prison sentences and fines in the criminal court in Pape’ete.

They were convicted for exercising undue influence over funding arrangements for a community station, Radio Tefana, which supports Temaru’s pro-independence political party Tavini Huiraatira.

In what was his first conviction, Temaru was given a six-month suspended prison sentence and a US$50,000 fine.

The current and former chairs of the board of the association which runs Radio Tefana, Heinui Le Caill and Vito Maamaatuaiahutapu, had also been given suspended jail sentences of one and three months, respectively.

Radio Tefana was fined US$1 million.

Maamaatuaiahutapu said it would have been easier to blow up the station with dynamite instead of having a trial.

US$1m fine five times radio’s budget
Le Caill said the station’s US$1 million fine was five times its budget, meaning the station was unable to pay and would have to close.

At the time of the trial, Temaru said if he had to be convicted, he should be jailed for life.

After sentencing, Temaru said he was being punished because in the eyes of France he “committed treason” by taking French presidents to the International Criminal Court over nuclear weapons tests.

The case was appealed two years ago but has been deferred four times and is now due to be heard on August 29.

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

ANALYSIS: By Graeme Dobell

Australia’s polity grapples with the need to remake and rebuild our media voice in the South Pacific.

Domestic political battles and budget cuts have degraded the central role Australia played in islands journalism in the 20th century. Australia’s media voice in the South Pacific is at its weakest since Robert Menzies launched the shortwave radio service in 1939.

Now we must reimagine that role and empower that voice for the 21st century — a new model of talking with, not to, the South Pacific.

• READ MORE: Other reports on ABC in the Pacific

The policy failure that has so weakened our voice in the past decade had one deeply familiar element — recurring Oz amnesia about our interests, influence and values in the islands.

See the amnesia lament offered by a Canberra wise owl, Nick Warner, in his Financial Review op-ed about “Australia’s long Pacific stupor’”: “For two generations, since the end of World War II, Australia has squandered the chance to build deep and enduring relations with our neighbours in the South Pacific. And now it’s almost too late.”

This is a candid view from the heart of the Canberra system. You don’t get much more plugged in and powerful than Warner, who served as our top diplomat in Papua New Guinea, led the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, and then headed the Department of Defence, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service and the Office of National Assessments.

‘Stupor’ history framing
Warner’s “stupor” history frames his diagnosis of how China could clinch a security treaty with Solomon Islands:

“China is now seemingly entrenched in Solomons and will also be looking for other opportunities for a base elsewhere in the Pacific. But, for better or worse, Pacific politics seldom provide certainty. It’s not too late for Australia to shore up its place in the South Pacific and to protect its strategic interests.”

The need to “shore up our place” that Warner points to brings us back to a specific example of the stupor/amnesia — the degrading of our media voice in the islands and the role of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

In the South Pacific, Radio Australia and the international television service, ABC Australia, still do great work. But they have only a third of the budget they enjoyed a decade ago. Underline that stupor/amnesia fact: spending on the ABC as our Indo-Pacific media voice has been cut by two- thirds.

In 2014, the Abbott government hacked into the ABC by killing funding for international television, a sad, bad and dumb decision that also decimated Radio Australia.

Political payback in Canberra produced a gang-that-couldn’t-shoot-straight tragedy in the South Pacific. The Abbott aim was to scratch the anti-Aunty itch, but he badly wounded a major instrument of Australian foreign policy. The damage was compounded when the ABC turned off shortwave in 2017; here again was a domestic focus that damaged our regional interests.

For an account of all this, see ASPI’s “Hard news and free media as the sharp edge of Australia’s soft power“.

Aunty as the villain
In this long-running melodrama with elements of dark comedy, a valiant ABC is also a victim — with foes instead seeing Aunty as villain. What a long run the drama has had: three generations of Murdochs have warred with Aunty, starting in the 1930s with Keith Murdoch’s bitter fight against the creation of an independent ABC news service.

A re-run of the domestic battle devaluing our international voice happened with Labor’s election campaign launch last month of its Indo-Pacific broadcasting strategy, promising the ABC an extra $8 million a year for international programmes, plus a review of whether shortwave should be restored.

Labor’s idea is a good first step to restart Australia’s conversation with the islands, Jemima Garrett writes, but it “seems to be simply pushing out more ‘Australian content’ and crowding the regional airwaves with ‘Australian voices’. This is ‘soft power’ in a crude form – a one-way monologue when what is needed is a dialogue — a 21st century conversation in which Australia and Australians talk ‘with’ and not ‘to’ our Pacific neighbours.”

Preferring hard power to soft power, Prime Minister Scott Morrison called Labor’s policy “farcical”, saying that in the South Pacific, “I sent in the AFP [Australian Federal Police]. The Labor Party wants to send in the ABC, when it comes to their Pacific solution.”

Australia, of course, needs it all—the AFP and the Australian Defence Force, but also the ABC.

In this argument, I declare my love of Aunty. I worked as a journalist for Radio Australia and the ABC (1975–2008) and had the huge privilege of spending much time as a correspondent in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.

I did break the habit of a lifetime by putting the boot into Aunty when it switched off shortwave. The ABC had damaged its international role, set by parliamentary charter, in favour of its domestic responsibilities.

Soft-power thinking
Labor’s soft-power thinking is work in the minor key compared to the recent effort of parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.

In the final sitting week before the start of the election campaign, the committee issued its report “Strengthening Australia’s relationships in the Pacific”. The media recommendations were the most ambitious to come out of Canberra in many a day:

“The Committee notes the media environment within the Pacific is becoming more contested, and recognises Australia has a national interest in maintaining a visible and active media and broadcasting presence there. The Committee recommends the Australian Government considers steps necessary to expand Australia’s media footprint in the Pacific, including through:

– expanding the provision of Australian public and commercial television and digital content across the Pacific, noting existing efforts by the PacificAus TV initiative and Pacific Australia;

– reinvigorating Radio Australia, which is well regarded in the region, to boost its digital appeal; and

– consider[ing] governance arrangements for an Australian International Media Corporation to formulate and oversee the strategic direction of Australia’s international media presence in the Pacific.’

I own up to the idea for the creation of an Australian international media corporation, contained in my submission [No 21] to the inquiry. The committee’s findings and the idea of a new international body, to build on the ABC foundations, will be the next column in these musings on the Oz media voice in the South Pacific.

This article was first published in The Strategist journal of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). Graeme Dobell is ASPI’s journalist fellow and this is republished with the author’s permission.

Good news — an Australian parliamentary review recommends a more “expansive” media presence in the Pacific.

Bad news — little of that expansion envisions a role for island media.

Instead, the committee endorsed a proposal for “consultation” and the establishment of an independent “platform neutral” media corporation, versus the existing “broadcasting” organisation.

• READ MORE: Televising Australian soft power in the Pacific
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• Media freedom defenders criticise China, other Pacific information threats
• How China is manipulating the information war in the Pacific

That proposal was among several points raised at two public hearings and nine written submissions as part of Australia’s “Pacific Step Up” programme, aimed at countering the growing regional influence of China.

Former long-time Pacific correspondent Sean Dorney last month told the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade that Australia was previously leading regional media spaces.

“But the vacant space that was left there when Australia Network disappeared, as people have said, has really been taken over by China,” he said.

“Throughout my time as the Pacific correspondent for the ABC, I saw this Chinese influence growing everywhere.”

Local media delivery
Dorney suggested local media ought to deliver news content in any future media expansion.

“I’ll just end off by saying that, if we did boost broadcasting again, it does require greater collaboration.

“There are excellent journalists out there in the Pacific that we could work with to create content for both of us. It’s our region, and I think we should embrace it.”

Similar points were made by Free TV Australia.

“Key to the success of the PacificAus TV initiative has been Free TV’s ability to work with our Pacific broadcast partners to ensure that the programming made available meets the needs of the Pacific communities.”

However recommendations for local staff were not picked up in the final findings of the standing committee.

Only “consultation” was called for.

Relatively comprehensive
Taking up ten of 176 pages, the report’s media section is nonetheless seen as relatively comprehensive compared with the dismantling of broadcasting capacity in recent years.

This includes the literal dismantling of shortwave equipment in Australia despite wide protest from the Pacific region.

Nearly three years previously, a 2019 Pacific Media Summit heard that discontinuation of the shortwave service would save Australia some $2.8 million in power costs.

A suggestion from a delegate that that amount could be spent on $100,000 for reporters in each of 26 island states and territories was met with silence from ABC representatives at the summit.

However, funding would be dramatically expanded if the government takes up suggestions from the submissions to the joint committee.

Members of the Australia Asia Pacific Media Initiative (AAMPI) called for the “allocation of a total of $55-$75 million per year to ensure Australia has a fit-for-purpose, multi-platform media voice in the Asia Pacific region.”

Overall, submissions called for greater recognition of the media in “soft power” calculation.

Public diplomacy tool
AAPMI member Annmaree O’Keeffe said that “international broadcasting and its potency is not recognised at government level as a public diplomacy tool.”

Consultancy group Heriot Media and Governance cautioned against trying to use media as a policy messenger.

“A substantial body of research internationally supports the view that audiences are likely to invest greater trust in an international media service if they perceive it to be independent of political and other vested interests.”

Heriot also noted the loss of radio capacity, submitting that “shortwave [radio] had been the only almost uninterruptible signal when local media had been disabled by natural events or political actions.”

ABC told the inquiry that around 830,000 Pacific Islanders access their various platforms each month.

Off-platform, there were 1.6 million views of ABC content via social media such as YouTube.

Jason Brown is a long-time Pacific reporter based in Aotearoa New Zealand and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

RNZ and TVNZ will be subsidiaries of a new mega public media organisation, Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi has confirmed.

Faafoi announced the long-awaited changes to public broadcasting today, outlining the government’s plans for RNZ and TVNZ and the creation of a new public media entity.

Faafoi, a former political journalist, said the government was aiming to have the new organisation up and running by the middle of next year.

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He said the government had accepted the recommendations of the business case working group, and agreed to establish the organisation as a new Autonomous Crown Entity.

It will operate under a charter, with “trustworthy news” as a core service. It will be funded by a mix of government funds and commercial revenue, with complete editorial independence. Advertising-free programming will be maintained.

An establishment board will be set up in the next month, with the aim of having the new entity operational by 1 July next year.

Decisions about how the new organisation would work in practice would be left for the board to make.

This could include whether to keep TVNZ and RNZ as subsidiaries, and while current programmes would be maintained there would also be the opportunity for new ones.

This could include the likes of advertising-free television, but again those decisions would be left for the board to make.

Watch the announcement

“Whether it be covid, national emergencies or Olympic Games, the last few years have shown how important a strong media environment is to reflect New Zealanders’ stories, dreams and aspirations and it is important we support public media to flourish,” Faafoi said.

“RNZ and TVNZ are each trying to adjust to the challenges, but our current public media system, and the legislation it’s based on, is focused on radio and television.

“New Zealanders are among some of the most adaptive audiences when it comes to accessing content in different ways; like their phones rather than television and radio, and from internet-based platforms.

“We must be sure our public media can adapt to those audience changes, as well as other challenges that media will face in the future.

“The new public media entity will be built on the best of both RNZ and TVNZ, which will initially become subsidiaries of the new organisation.

“It will continue to provide what existing audiences value, such as RNZ Concert, as well as better reaching those groups who aren’t currently well served; such as our various ethnic communities and cultures.”

He said funding decisions would be made as part of Budget processes, and the new organisation would have a focus on providing quality content to under-served or under-represented audiences.

Deliver on Te Tiriti obligations
It would be required to deliver on the Crown’s Te Tiriti obligations, and could collaborate with and support the wider media sector where appropriate.

Faafoi said the public would have a chance to give their views, including on the new charter, through the select committee process later in 2022.

Faafoi, who is unwell but has tested negative for covid-19, made the announcement from his home today.

Labour first announced intentions to boost public broadcasting through “RNZ Plus” at the 2017 election, but since then the proposal has gone through several iterations.

A working group was commissioned to look into a new public media entity in March last year.

Faafoi said he announced in-principle decisions in February 2020 to ensure public media could face the challenges of the future, to keep up with audience, technology and market trends.

“The world is a vastly different place compared to that time. There are new challenges, but still fundamentally the challenges that face audiences and media are the same and if anything they have intensified.”

He said when the government began looking at this issue, TV and radio were ranked one and two for the biggest daily audience in New Zealand, and now are ranked two and four, with video on demand like YouTube at number one, and subscription video on demand like Netflix at number three.

Process put on ice
The process was put on ice when the covid pandemic hit, but last year the government followed through and asked experts to develop a business case. They delivered their recommendations late last year, to create a modern public media entity.

They also stressed the importance of protecting and future-proofing the trust and strength that public media has built up over decades.

He said the case for change is there, so Cabinet had decided to create the new public media entity, but has committed that all current non-commercial programming and platforms will endure and the likes of RNZ National and Concert FM will continue.

“The establishment of the new entity will allow better use of a range of platforms including current radio and linear TV, and those of third parties, to reach audiences when, where and how audiences choose, and will operate under a public charter set out in legislation.”

He said there will be some areas where it will make sense to collaborate with others, but “there will also be areas where it will continue a long-standing tradition of excellence and fierce competition”.

The establishment board will have members from both RNZ and TVNZ, and Faafoi said he intended to ensure there will be “some representation of people on the shop floor. Someone who understands the media and the issues that are important to staff as we work through this transition”.

Budget announcements will come on Budget Day, he said, but some of the decisions are best left to the establishment board, “which is why that board will be up and running soon”.

A stronger foundation
He said this change will cause some unease, but the future under a new entity with the ability to respond to the challenges and opportunities of local media will give a stronger foundation “to do what public media has done for decades, and that is to tell our stories”.

He disagreed with criticisms that the move would lead to dominance of the media sector by a publicly funded behemoth.

RNZ and TVNZ had a long history of editorial independence and Faafoi said he was pleased that would continue, with protections maintained in legislation.

He said the very heart of the proposal was to ensure the content the public media had provided over decades could continue to be delivered in whatever form audiences would consume it from in future.

“Audiences need to know that the government is moving with it.”

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

Investigators in French Polynesia have reassessed their case against the pro-independence leader Oscar Manutahi Temaru, who has challenged the seizure of his US$100,000 savings.

The money was taken at the behest of the French prosecutor as part of a probe into the community radio station funding of Temaru’s defence in a trial in 2019.

The highest court in France rejected the move and ordered the investigators to again make the case for seizing the funds.

• READ MORE:  France sued for ‘crimes’ over nuclear tests: Polynesia leader
• Other reports on the Radio Tefana controversy

According to Tahiti-infos, a decision is due on March 8.

The probe into the defence funding was launched after the criminal court in Pape’ete had given Temaru a suspended prison sentence and a US$50,000 fine.

He was found to have benefitted from the funding arrangement for Radio Tefana, which the court said amounted to “undue influence”.

Temaru was implicated as the mayor of Faa’a whose administration paid for the community radio station, which in its turn was fined US$1 million.

Defence wanted case thrown out
The defence wanted the case to be thrown out, saying the prosecution failed to cite a single incident of propaganda on behalf of Temaru’s Tavini Huiraatira party.

At the time, Temaru said the real reason for his conviction was that in the eyes of France he had “committed treason” by taking French presidents to the International Criminal Court over the nuclear weapons tests.

In court, Temaru asked for the appeal case to be heard after the French presidential election, saying he feared there could be political interference in the judicial process.

He suggested as a date for the appeal court sitting June 29, 2022, which he said was the anniversary date of French Polynesia’s annexation by France, but the court rejected his suggestion and set March 22 as the start date for the week-long trial.

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

My name is Muzhgan Samarqandi and I am from Baghlan, Afghanistan, but living in New Zealand with my Kiwi husband and our son. Like Charlotte Bellis, I too was a broadcaster in Afghanistan, back when this was possible for a woman without being a foreigner.

As a mother, my heart goes out to Charlotte, and I sincerely hope she and her partner get to New Zealand so she can give birth at home surrounded by her family.

As someone who has travelled for study and work and love, and who does not share the same passport as their significant other, my heart goes out to everyone stranded overseas, and I sincerely hope they can all get home and be reunited with their loved ones.

• LISTEN TO RNZ SUNDAY MORNING: ‘I mean, how do you schedule your birth?’ – New Zealand journalist Charlotte Bellis
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• Charlotte Bellis’ open letter on MIQ to New Zealand – New Zealand Herald
• Pregnant New Zealand journalist stranded by quarantine rules says she turned to Taliban
• Taliban takeover: Charlotte Bellis faces perils outside ‘enemy territory’ – Pacific Journalism Review

But as an Afghanistani woman, who has only recently emigrated from Afghanistan to New Zealand, I have to speak up.

I almost did so when Charlotte interviewed Abdul Qahar Balkhi, the Taliban spokesperson with the Kiwi accent. She went easy on him. For example, at the end of the interview, she asked what he had to say to those who called the Taliban “terrorists”.

He said people didn’t really believe they were terrorists, but this was just a word the US used for anyone who didn’t fall in line with their agenda. There were no further questions.

This was a man who claimed responsibility on behalf of the Taliban for attacks on innocent civilians. A man who has admitted to crimes against humanity. It made me so upset to see him get away with answers like that. But then my energy was taken up just coping with the reality of what was happening to my friends and family in Afghanistan.

Social media responses
But now, when I read Charlotte’s letter in the New Zealand Herald and see the media and social media responses, I see the situation in my country being trivialised, and it makes me angry.

Charlotte refers to herself asking the Taliban in a press conference what they would do for women and girls, and says she is now asking the same question of the New Zealand government.

I understand there are problems with MIQ. And I understand the value in provoking change with controversy. But what I don’t understand is how someone who has lived and worked in Afghanistan, and seen the impact of the Taliban’s regime on women and girls, can seriously compare that situation to New Zealand.

Afghanistani women who resist or protest the regime are being arrested, tortured, raped and killed. Young girls are being married off to Talibs (a member of the Taliban). Education and employment are no longer available to them.

A 19-year-old girl I know from my village, who was in her first year of law last year is now, instead, a housewife to a Talib.

There are so many stories like this.

The Taliban distort Islam
Charlotte says the Taliban have given her a safe haven when she is not welcome in her own country. This is obviously a good headline and good way to make a point. But it is an inaccurate and unhelpful representation of the situation.

One commentary on Instagram, re-posted by Charlotte, suggested her story represents the truly Muslim acts of the Taliban, which the Western media have not shown. This makes me angry.

If a person in power extends privileges to someone who doesn’t threaten their power, it doesn’t mean they are not oppressive or extremist or dangerous.

The Taliban distort Islam and manipulate Muslims for their political gain. They violate the rights of women and girls, and it is offensive to compare them to the New Zealand government in this regard.

New Zealand is no paradise, I have experienced my fair share of racism here, and I am sure the MIQ situation can be improved.

But relying on the protection of a regime that is violently oppressive, and then using that to try to shame the New Zealand government into action, is not the way to achieve that improvement.

It exploits and trivialises the situation in Afghanistan, at a time when the rights of Afghanistani women and girls desperately need to be taken seriously.

Muzhgan Samarqandi works for an international aid agency in New Zealand. Her article was first published on the TV One News website and is republished here with the author’s permission.

Former Papua New Guinea radio broadcaster and tourism personality Erigere Singin has been elected as the first woman national president of the ruling Pangu Pati at its 26th National Convention in Port Moresby, reports the PNG Post-Courier.

Prime Minister and Pangu leader James Marape announced the election of Singin and other party executives after last Friday’s convention.

He also announced the election of Louisah Hosea as female vice-president, Sama Auro as male vice-president, and Joe Tep as church representative.

Singin, from Boana in Morobe, replaces Patrick Pundao.

Marape thanked Pundao for his service to Pangu over the past seven years.

“One of the key outcomes of today was the historical election of Ms Erigere Singin as our national president of Pangu Pati,” he said.

“It is my distinguished pleasure to make this official announcement to the country.

‘Historical milestone’
“It is a historical milestone for Pangu Pati.

“In 1977, the first lady into Parliament was Pangu’s Mrs Nahau Rooney, and Pangu is breaking the frontier barrier again.

“It is not only men who can do the job, women can also do the job.”

Singin, a former senior executive of PNG Tourism Promotion Authority (PNGTPA) and then executive director of Madang Visitors’ and Cultural Bureau, Singin thanked Marape and said what has happened was a breakthrough for women in the country.

She told The National that it was a breakthrough for women in the country.

“What happened today was very historic,” she said.

“There’s a huge paradigm shift here, from having men around the party, to giving some responsibility to women.

‘Important to work together’
“It is important that both men and women leaders work together to carry this party through, this country through, to stand together.

“I am very happy to be given this responsibility to work with the people of PNG.”

Pangu general secretary Morris Tovebae said the party’s message to the nation was clear: “Pangu is not a male-dominated political party. We are very inclusive and gender-conscious.”

By Ian Johnstone, former manager of RNZ International

All across the South Pacific, tribute is being paid to broadcaster and journalist Shiu Singh who has died in his home in Suva, Fiji.

The sad news will be carried throughout Micronesia, Polynesia and Melanesia via media networks such as PACNEWS, which was pioneered and built up over years of dedicated hard work by Singh.

In the 1960s, as Singh began a term of service in the RNZAF, his homeland Fiji and many other Pacific colonies of Britain, USA, New Zealand and Australia were preparing to become self-governing or independent, but were hindered because their only communication links were with their colonial masters.

• READ MORE: The PACNEWS media service today
• Radio Happy Isles: Media and politics at play in the Pacific – a history of PACNEWS

Pacific Islanders heard no news from or about their neighbours, and had no chance to talk with each other, swap advice, exchange experiences.

In the 1970s, Singh, now back in Fiji with a fine reputation as a current affairs broadcaster set about changing that state of affairs.

Soon after helping to establish the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) he took on the daunting task of gathering, editing, compiling and re-distributing Pacific news right across our region. It is largely because of his dedication and professionalism that PACNEWS exists today.

Singh overcame many challenges, including a threat by Fiji’s military government to censor bulletins and destroy the credibility he had worked so hard to establish.

His response was to say goodbye to his beloved Prabha and family and – after a two-day hiatus – resume the much valued PACNEWS from a new home in Vanuatu.

We mourn the passing of an outstanding public broadcaster who gave great service to Pacific people in the course of a distinguished career marked by reliability, honesty, impartiality and extremely hard work.

Vinaka vaka levu, Shiu. May you rest in peace.

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

What were you doing during the foreshore and seabed hīkoi in 2004?

I wish I could say I was at the protest, gripping the hem of Nana’s dress while she raised her fist in the air, marching for sovereignty, echoing the cries of our tīpuna who were fighting for the very same thing on the very same whenua all those years ago.

But this wasn’t the reality for me and for so many other urban Māori who grew up disconnected from our culture. I was living in Avondale, Auckland and watched the protest unfold on the news. Mum was still at work and I was eating noodles, my homework spread out on the dinner table.

• READ MORE: Other Newsroom articles by Shilo Kino
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A sea of black and white flags flying in the air came on the TV. I remember a wave of emotion coming over me from seeing the crowds of brown faces who looked like me, who looked like my mum, my Nana.

I wish I could say it was a feeling of pride but it wasn’t. I felt whakamā – a word every Māori knows because it is an emotion that has been forced upon us to feel inherently bad for who we are.

The news coverage of the foreshore and seabed told me Māori were greedy, wanted special privileges, were angry over nothing and were trying to ban the public from beaches. It didn’t speak of Māori relationship to the land, the history of land confiscation, the fight for sovereignty or the issues that have come from colonisation and dispossession.

It was a narrative carefully formulated by the media for the intended target audience which was, you guessed it: Pākehā.

Misframing a story just one example
Weaponising activism through misframing a story is just one example. We were also sold a narrative that Māori are the criminals, the baby killers, the gang members, the underachievers, the prisoners, the drug and alcohol addicts.

What do you think this does to a person when you are constantly fed a false narrative of your identity? Your mana diminishes every time you switch on the news, open the newspaper, turn on the radio. Even worse, what happens when you are a child?

The media didn’t care how this narrative would impact me or the thousands of other Māori growing up in urban cities, unsure of who we were, no grandparents alive to teach us our identity, busy parents trying to push us into mainstream because that’s what they were told would be “best” for us and so we were forced to learn about who we are through the eyes of the media. And it wasn’t pretty.

Many years have passed since the foreshore and seabed hīkoi, yet in the year 2021 the same racism exists today, instigated by the same institutions that continue to push this same, tired narrative.

Joe Bloggs calls up a radio station well known to be racist to Māori and says “they’re (Māori) victims of their own genetic background. They are genetically predisposed to crime, alcohol, and underperformance educationally” – and the radio host who used to be the Mayor of Auckland doubles down and says something equally, if not more, racist.

This incident is not shocking to Māori, because we have heard this our whole lives. The question we should be asking ourselves is: How have we allowed the media to get away with this for so long? The continual, blatant attacks against Māori from this particular station have been among the biggest contributors to racism in this country.

There are many examples of racism from this network but I’m not about to dive into its racist history, because I’m tired. We. Are. Tired. Google the radio hosts, look at their Twitter feeds, turn on talkback at any time of the day and the same, racist rhetoric will be there.

Network needs to stop hiding
John Banks deserves criticism but the network needs to stop hiding behind the facade of this being an individual problem. There are many John Banks who come in different forms, some working in the media who get to say whatever they want under the guise of “free speech”. Even the Christchurch terrorist attacks, where a white supremacist murdered 51 people could only keep these people quiet for one week before the station went back to regular, racist programming.

So what happens now? I can predict what will happen because this is the same vicious, ugly cycle. The racist outburst goes viral, there is some outrage. Advertisers pull out, there’s a loss of revenue, the network apologises. The person is fired. Then it happens again the next day, the next week, the next month. It seems it is much more convenient to take out the individual rather than address the racist and colonial system that exists within our media and institutions.

It’s good to see the outpouring of support from Pākehā but we need more than empathy. We need action. You get to feel outraged for a day and then go home and forget about it and not think about it again. Māori can’t switch it off. We experience racism in our workplaces, in everyday life and we have to turn on the media and see it there too.

How many more racist outbursts do you need to hear before something is done? How many more articles do you need to read before there is change?

This isn’t a matter of opinion. This is about human rights.

Shilo Kino is a reporter and the author of her new book The Pōrangi Boy, released last month with Huia publishers. She writes about social issues, justice and identity. This article was first published by Newsroom and is republished on Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.
Twitter: @shilokino

French Polynesia’s pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru has suspended his hunger strike launched five days ago in protest at the French judiciary.

Temaru, mayor of the largest municipality Faa’a and a former territorial president, made the announcement outside the courts in Pape’ete where he and his supporters gathered every day this week.

He said he would resume his hunger strike on Monday when he expects the prosecutor Herve Leroy to appear in court following a complaint lodged by his lawyers.

READ MORE: Temaru takes French prosecutor to court

Last week, Leroy seized US$100,000 from Temaru’s private account and had a judge afterwards approve the action, saying the funds were taken so that they could not be spent.

In response, Temaru’s lawyers have taken legal action against Leroy, arguing that as prosecutor he failed to honour Temaru’s presumption of innocence because there was no final verdict in the case, over which the money was seized.

Temaru said he thus demanded US$100,000 in damages, which is the equivalent sum taken last week.

Last year, Temaru, who is the veteran mayor of Faa’a holding office since 1983, was convicted for exerting undue influence over the funding of a community radio station by the Faa’a council.

According to Leroy, the money seized was what the Faa’a municipal council spent on Temaru’s defence and which Leroy said was an abuse of public funds.

Apart from challenging Leroy in court, Temaru is appealing to the judicial authorities seeking to reverse the judge’s formal order to seize his money.

The judge had said taking the mayor’s savings was not a disproportionate move.

However, Temaru’s backers said the action was unprecedented as the 75-year-old politician was treated as if he was a drug dealer who posed a flight risk.

They also said it amounted to colonial justice because none of the pro-French politicians facing court and with a record of corruption convictions had their savings seized.

The president of French Polynesia is awaiting an appeal court ruling after being convicted a year ago for abusing public funds of the town of Pirae.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

A reprieve for the newsagency Australian Associated Press (AAP) is featured today on Pacific Media Centre’s Southern Cross segment on Radio 95bFM.

An article written by student journalist Jade Bradford of Curtin University in Perth tells of how AAP is being saved. The implications of the story is discussed given that the agency was supposed to have been ceased operations later this month.

It comes as a major relief to Pacific Island nations that rely on it for balanced coverage of the region.

LISTEN: PMC’s Sri Krishnamurthi and Southern Cross on Soundcloud

On Friday, AAP announced that a consortium of philanthropists and media executives had expressed an interest in buying the AAP Newswire service. Good news for a free media in the Pacific.

“There is now a generation of journalists in Fiji who have never known what it’s like to have a truly free press,” says PMC director Professor David Robie, who is also editor of Asia Pacific Report.

In fact, it was AAP foreign correspondent based in Suva at the time, Jim Shrimpton, who broke the story of Fiji’s first coup in May 1987.

Also discussed on Southern Cross was the Papua New Guinea police investigating death threats texted to Lae city chief Neil Ellery, who has a New Zealand father, and his wife.

There is also a chat with Debate writer and programme producer James Tapp about confronting Pākehā Privilege as a white male student.

Tapp is a Bachelor of Communication Studies and Bachelor of Business conjoint student at Auckland University of Technology, majoring in international business and advertising creativity.

• Pacific Media Centre’s Southern Cross segment on 95bFM
• Pacific Media Watch reporter Sri Krishnamurthi, The Wire presenter Sherry Zhang and producer James Tapp

Homegrown Australian television shows to the tune of $17.1 million will be broadcast in the Pacific in a bid believed intended to stymie China’s diplomatic and media rise in the region.

Shows such as The Voice, Border Security, Neighbours and are to be offered as the main fare to people who barely understand Australian culture, although Border Security could cause some animosity to those Pacific people who are denied entry into Australia.

However, some of those critical of the move say the funds could have been better used to develop Pacific broadcasting capabilities, strengthen independent journalism in the region or showcase content more relevant to Pacific audiences.

READ MORE: ‘Neighbours is irrelevant to most Pacific Islanders’

At the 2018 Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) meeting in Nauru, New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced that New Zealand would spend $10 million on a Pasifika channel for the region over the next three years.

He said at the time that the plan would improve both the production of more Pacific content, including news and current affairs.

“The expansion of the Pasifika TV service will dramatically improve the way in which New Zealand content is delivered across the Pacific,” Peters said at the time.

“While the existing service has demonstrated its ability to lift broadcasting and journalism in the region, it is the natural next step to promote the production of more Pacific content, including news and current affairs.”

Australian contrast with NZ approach
In contrast, Australia intends broadcast hours of Australian-made content and bombard the Pacific Islands in a bid to combat China’s charm offensive in the Pacific.

Minister for International Development and the Pacific Alex Hawke said the “PacificAus TV initiative is a terrific demonstration of shared cultural ties and links between Australia and the Pacific”, while Australia’s Foreign Minister, Senator Marise Payne, said: “Having the opportunity to watch the same stories on our screens will only deepen the connection with our Pacific family,” as ABC reported.

However, Jemima Garrett, co-convenor of the Australia Asia Pacific Media Initiative and a former Pacific correspondent for the ABC, said the initiative was a welcome recognition that Australia should have a broadcasting voice in the Pacific, but it needed additional programmes to be fit for purpose.

“Australia needs to talk ‘with’ not ‘to’ our region and include the rich diversity of Australian voices and voices from the region,” Garrett said.

“Watching rich, white people renovate their homes will not ‘deepen the connection’ with the Pacific or overcome perceptions that Australia can be paternalistic. Nor will providing Border Security in a region in which visa access is a sore point.

“If the PacificAus TV initiative is about building relationships, then co-productions made by Australian and Pacific media companies working together are the way to go.

“Currently the initiative does not provide for the involvement of Australia’s Pacific communities or for the involvement of the ABC, SBS or National Indigenous Television or independent producers with an interest in the region,” she said.

‘Lukewarm’ reaction in Fiji
Meanwhile, Shailendra Singh, head of the journalism programme at the University of South Pacific in Fiji, said the reaction to the news in Fiji had been “lukewarm”.

“Money certainly would have been put to better use developing local content,” he said.

“Even if the strategy meets Australia’s geopolitical needs, does it meet the needs of Pacific Islanders? Is Australia putting its needs ahead of the Pacific? These are some of the questions that people are asking,” he said.

“There is already some grumbling about cultural imperialism through media. This on top of long held concerns about the ratio of local versus foreign content.

“Some feel media is already too commercialised. There is already too much sports and entertainment in comparison to news. In Fiji Rugby sevens had been called the opium of the people because of slavish coverage,” he said.

“So even if the strategy meets Australia’s geopolitical needs, does it meet the needs of Pacific Islanders? Is Australia putting its needs ahead of the Pacific?” he asked.

“Money certainly would have been put to better use developing local content. In developing local content one can also develop local journalists and journalism. The benefits are both visible and tangible.

‘Great local analysis’
“Some great analysis written by local journalists have been published. Why was this working model bypassed?” he asked.

“Soft power move? That seems the obvious explanation. What is the gain for Australia in getting Pacific populations hooked on Neighbours?

“It is a bit baffling but no doubt the Australian government has thought over this carefully before unleashing this grand plan on us.

“It is not clear how the Chinese feel about it. They have reserved comment so far,” the academic said.

Dan McGarry, the former media director at the Vanuatu Daily Post newspaper, wrote that the announcement seemed “silly, seen from here”.

“Pacific islanders want news, they want weather updates, especially during cyclone season. But language and cultural differences make shows like Neighbours irrelevant to most islanders. Entertainment wasn’t what we asked for (except for The Voice – everyone loves that).”

The question is whether Australia was trying to curry favour as China is seen to be pandering to the Pacific media.

China regularly pays for Pacific journalists to visit China on see-for-themselves excursions as evidenced by nearly a dozen journalists from print media organisations in the Pacific going on a 10-day tour in Beijing in mid-2016.

Pacific Media Watch  contributing editor Sri Krishnamurthi discusses a new book today on West Papua, The Road: Uprising in West Papua, reviewed by Professor David Robie, in his weekly 95bFM segment Southern Cross.

The book is authored by Australian investigative journalist John Martinkus who has covered wars and conflicts in Asia and the Middle East for many years, including the US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

David picks up on the author’s theme of “The Road” – the 4000-plus km Trans-Papua Highway – supposed to be for development in the Melanesian region.

But, as John Martinkus makes very clear in this damning book launched in Sydney this afternoon, it is more about repressing the West Papuans while exploiting the the rich natural resources such as the giant Freeport mine.

There is a section in the book paying tribute to the Pacific Media Watch coverage of West Papua.

Also discussed, is the Philippines with President Rodrigo Duterte’s government shutting down the largest television broadcasters, ABS-CBN with 42 channels across the country.

And, was NZME trying to pull a “fast one” over Stuff in a takeover bid?

• Presented by The Wire host Sherry Zhang and producer James Tapp 
• Pacific Media Centre’s Soundcloud channel 

From the second week of lockdown in New Zealand, to Covid-19 in the Pacific and an “authoritarianism creep” by governments in the Asia-Pacific region provided a fast-changing landscape on the Pacific Media Centre’s Southern Cross radio programme on 95bFM today.

New Zealand had crossed the 1000-case threshold on Sunday with 89 new cases and one death, reports Sri Krishnamurthi on the programme.

LISTEN: Southern Cross on PMC Soundcloud

However, the pandemic was starting to affect the Pacific with Guam being the worst-hit with 93 cases and four deaths and there was also the curiosity of an American aircraft carrier docked in Guam with 155 cases on board.

Ironically, captain Brett Crozier, 50, who was “relieved” after he sent a letter which ended up in hands of a San Francisco Chronicle reporter, saying that conditions were dire on board was himself reported now to be suffering from Covid-19

Meanwhile, people in Fiji were still not taking the threat seriously with 134 arrested on Saturday for flouting lockdown rules, with Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama threatening unleash the army if lockdown rules were not obeyed.

If that was not enough, some governments were using Covid-19 to clamp down on people and the media as authoritarianism began to raise its ugly head in the Philippines – where on person was shot on Saturday, Cambodia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu.

There was much angst too, over the way Bauer Media New Zealand toppled costing 237 jobs as the media continues its run of bad news.

And, as fate would have it, category 5 cyclone was bearing down on Vanuatu as well as on-track to hit Fiji, after devastating the Solomon Islands.

• Presented by The Wire host Sherry Zhang and producer James Tapp

During New Zealand’s national Covid-19 lockdown, educational institutions have been changing the way they function or have shut down during this period.

Auckland University (UOA) has moved its courses online as has neighbouring Auckland University of Technology (AUT). Many people are also working from home.

There has been a fair amount of discussion at the moment as to what constitutes  “essential workers”, particularly in the media.

LISTEN: Monday’s Southern Cross programme on 95bFM

95bFM radio station at UOA is still continuing, along with its Pacific Media Centre’s weekly Southern Cross programme as an essential service.

However, how is this affecting community newspapers? And other printed publications, specifically non-daily prints? Magazines?

“All community newspapers have been shut by decree of the government, but there have calls to reopen them because they serve an important function to keep the elderly informed,” said PMC’s Pacific Media Watch contributing editor Sri Krishnamurthi on the programme on Monday.

“As well as other print publications and magazines keep people informed and give people something to read and do in these times of lockdown.

“They play a vital role in keeping the community informed because in these times they might not be able to get The New Zealand Herald or the Dominion Post

“They can go online if they don’t print or use Facebook.”

Ironically, only a day later Prime Minister Jacinda Adern recanted and deemed them essential services for rural areas and far away communities, and also for communities where English is a second language.

However, that decision might have come too late for the Kaitaia-based three-day-a-week publication, The Northland Age which also announced yesterday it was to stop publication after publishing for 116 years.

• 95bFM’s presenter Sherry Zhang (University of Auckland) and producer James Tapp (AUT)

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called on Philippine parliamentarians to resist President Rodrigo Duterte’s threats and ensure the survival of ABS-CBN, the country’s leading TV and radio network, by renewing its franchise.

If its 25-year franchise is not renewed, as Parliament last did on 30 March 1995, all of ABS-CBN’s radio and TV stations will stop broadcasting at midnight on March 30, when the franchise is scheduled to expire.

The renewal is in doubt because the parliamentary majority usually heeds the president, and the quick-tempered Duterte has repeatedly insulted and threatened ABS-CBN ever since he became president in 2016, says an RSF statement.

READ MORE: NZ media academic warns shutting key TV channel would be step to ‘dictatorshp’

If it is not renewed, it will not be because ABS-CBN did not try well ahead of time, says  RSF.

The network filed its renewal request in 2014 and an initial legislative proposal to this effect, House Bill 4349, was submitted to the House of Representatives on 10 November 2016. Since then, eight other bills proposing its renewal have been presented without any coming to a vote.

“As the leading TV and radio network, offering independent, verified news and information free of charge to millions of citizens, ABS-CBN plays an absolutely fundamental democratic role in the Philippines,” said Daniel Bastard, head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.

“This is why we urge parliamentarians, starting with Franz Alvarez, the chair of the Committee on Legislative Franchises, to resist the pressure from the president’s office and to immediately put the renewal of this franchise on the parliament’s agenda.

“The credibility of Philippine democracy and the balance between the different powers is at stake.”

#NoToABSCBNShutdown
One of Duterte’s favourite targets, ABS-CBN has often broadcast critical reports on such subjects as his heavy-handed “war on drugs” and the many execution-style killings that have accompanied it.

He threatened to cancel its franchise in May 2016, almost as soon as he was elected. In the months that followed, he accused the network of “publishing trash” (30 March 2017), trying to “swindle” him (27 April 2017) and of being “sons of bitches” (19 May 2017).

He made this, no less veiled threat on 3 December: “If you expect that [the franchise] will be renewed, I’m sorry. I will see to it that you’re out.”

And then, on 30 December, exactly three months before the expiry date, he advised the network’s owners to “just sell”.

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines has launched an online petition for the renewal of ABS-CBN’s franchise and a campaign on social media with the hashtag #NoToABSCBNShutdown.

The Philippines is ranked 134th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2019 World Press Freedom Index.

• RSF statement condemning Duterte over ABS-CBN franchise

After five years and 1000 shows I’m switching off the 4am alarm.

This is my final week on Morning Report and I’d like to tell you why I’m leaving, what I’ve learned and what I won’t be apologising for.

I’ll leave the why question until the end but firstly, thank you. Thank you to the hundreds of thousands of people – 464,000 according to this week’s GfK radio survey – who listen to Susie Ferguson and I present the programme.

WATCH VIDEO: Guyon Espiner on his reo journey during last year’s Māori Language week

With Corin Dann joining Susie from next week and Indira Stewart presenting the First Up programme at 5am, leading into Morning Report, I’d expect those numbers to increase.

So thanks for sharing your mornings with me. I know I haven’t always made it easy for you.

Maybe we got off to a rocky start you and I. ‘Bring back Geoff Robinson’ was a constant refrain back in 2014, when I replaced the 39-year veteran of the programme. ‘Thugs on Radio’ read one headline in The Press, as Christchurch listeners mounted a letter writing campaign in response to some of the more robust exchanges. And that’s my home town, so they weren’t going easy on me.

And fair cop. Sometimes I got the tone wrong. Sometimes I headed down to the wrong path with a question line (although I have learned that when an interviewee responds with, “good question”, it rarely is).

Put anyone on the radio or TV and the audience will find things to like and dislike. That’s their right and I’ve always seen it as part of the contract. You get the platform, you take the hits.

But there are two major things people have complained about over the last five years and I am not sorry for either of them. I am not sorry for speaking te reo Māori on the radio and I am not sorry about interrupting politicians.

You might remember the backlash when about two years ago I started to use more te reo Māori on Morning Report. The messages streamed in. Diatribe, gibberish and rubbish were some of the less offensive descriptions. Listeners invited me on a daily basis to leave to a ‘Māori station’ and one texted to ask “when are you going to get a grass skirt and put shoe polish on your face”.

For a Pākehā from a privileged background it was a small insight into racism in New Zealand, a tiny sliver of what some people must put up with every day.

But slowly that receded and now the main complaint I get is that I speak te reo Māori too quickly. Slow down. We want to learn, they say. So thank you for that too.

I want to acknowledge the support I have had from te ao Māori. Broadcasters and te reo Māori champions Scotty and Stacey Morrison have been great mentors. Within RNZ, Shannon Haunui-Thompson, and before her Mihingarangi Forbes, have provided huge encouragement. Ngā mihi ki a koutou mō tō koutou tautoko.

While I had thousands of complaints from Pākehā, I’m not aware of one complaint from Māori. Not one. So to other Pākehā worried about how they’ll be received for using te reo Māori: from my experience, if you put the work in you will be rewarded and embraced. Karawhiua e hoa mā.

The other thing I am not sorry for is interrupting politicians. I know some of you swear at the radio and have even thrown things. Admit it.

I’ll make a deal with you. The day politicians give straight answers to legitimate questions I’ll hear them out and move on to the next question. Until then, they need to be dragged back on track or they’ll just read out the talking points in a non-answer to a question you never asked. They will run down the clock until they are saved by the pips.

So my time is up. Why? Some of you may have read that I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes about seven months ago. That is not the reason I am going. Well, that is not entirely true.

About 25,000 New Zealanders live with this incurable disease every day. If you manage it well and have good support there is almost nothing you can’t do. So it’s not a physical thing.

But lying in hospital last September I had one of those moments. What do I really want to be doing with my career?

The satisfaction I got from doing The 9th Floor series of interviews with former prime ministers came to mind (yes I was probably the only person in the ward thinking about Mike Moore and Geoffrey Palmer at 2am). I want to get back to long form and investigative journalism.

I’m staying at RNZ so you can judge here on the website and on the radio whether I’ve been successful or not.

But most of all I am leaving because I love it. I love Morning Report and I don’t want to lose that. I know for some of you I haven’t achieved this, but my aim is to never outstay my welcome. Mā te wa e hoa mā. Thanks for listening.

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

I grew up in the 1990s listening to NBC Radio – Radio Kundu – which was informative and always reaching out to the mass population of Papua New Guinea who can afford a transmitter radio.

From entertaining stringband tunes, toksave segments and nationwide news coverage to the ever popular school broadcasts in classrooms, NBC (National Broadcasting Corporation) has been the real voice of the nation.

It contributed immensely to the nation’s independence, growth and development and stood steadfastly to promote good governance and transparency in development issues the country faces.

READ MORE: NBC-PNG rebranding – but nothing to show in the provinces

For more than 40 years it has been the most effective communication medium for most ordinary citizens who benefited from its nationwide coverage.

I was a young kid back then and grew up inspired to take up a job in radio broadcasting, particularly with NBC.

Radio Morobe was the ultimate choice for listeners all over the province. It broadcast in medium, shortwave and FM frequencies and reached even the rural and isolated regions in Morobe and neigbouring provinces.

The Radio Morobe studio building was constructed and opened in October 1971 and since then its pioneer broadcasters have all aged with time into the 21st century.

Building condemned
The Morobe provincial government has neglected its upgrading and funding in the last 10 years or more and since then the building has crumbled and was condemned in October 2018.

I joined NBC in 2015 and worked among a new crop of officers and a few oldies up till now.

These are some of the notable areas the MPG has failed to assist NBC Morobe, despite provincial governments being given the task to upkeep NBC radio services to be operational.

• little or no funding annually for the station operations;
• a tranmission tower built for NBC Morobe being taken back and managed by MPA. It is making millions for the MPA with nothing from its revenue given to NBC Morobe;
• general maintenance and or replacement of studio utilities;
• NBC reception towers not functioning, thus transmission is NOT reaching the wider population in rural remote areas;
• district authorities NOT realising the power of communication to their people and funding its reach in their electorates;
• politicians and aspiring politicians making empty promises and using the radio to promote their agendas and gone into hiding when elected;
• now the radio station structure has been condemned by authorities as unsafe NBC Morobe is no longer broadcasting; and
• last but not the least, NBC Morobe management and staff are now being locked out of their temporary studio over non-payment of bills. The landlord is the MPG through its business arm Morobe Sustainable Development Ltd.

It has been almost 6 months since the NBC Morobe building was condemned by PNG Power as unsafe. Nothing concrete has been done to rebuilt it despite political promises.

NBC Morobe has been off-air for about 3 months now and staff are still on payroll without being physically at work. The same problem is being faced by majority of NBC radio stations nationwide.

Denied freedom
Our people have been denied their freedom to be informed on their government’s performance. Health, Education and disaster awarenesses are not reaching the people.

Land and resource owners are being denied their freedom of expression. The people can no longer send toksaves to their loved ones, but are forced to pay for and use expensive yet poor telecommunication methods to send messages.

The high cost of risky sea travel and road trips on deteriorating roads have cost so many lives, yet our government keeps promising the people that they will fix NBC services.

NBC radio services in Morobe have been going on and off. One cannot pick up its signal out of Lae City.

Multi-million kina resource extracting projects are sprouting all over Morobe and yet our people are NOT informed on the positive and negative impacts to their land, sea and rivers.

I hope our new Communication Minister Koni Iguan can fix this from the ministerial level. Minister Iguan’s Markham electorate cannot even receive NBC signal and its worse than you think.

Markham valley itself is an important economic hub of this country.

This blog is republished with permission.

Newstalk ZB broadcaster Heather du Plessis-Allan has been censured for Pacific Island slurs in a ruling that contains uncharacteristically strong language from the official broadcasting watchdog.

It may end up costing NZME more than the $3000 the company must cough up in costs.

On her Newstalk ZB show Wellington Mornings this week, Heather du Plessis-Allan praised Jacinda Ardern for paying the grocery bill of someone without a wallet.

READ AND LISTEN MORE ON RNZ MEDIAWATCH

But about an hour earlier, the Broadcasting Standards Authority upheld complaints about Heather du Plessis-Allan telling listeners the government shouldn’t pay the bills of other Pacific Island nations.

“The Pacific Islands don’t matter. They are nothing but leeches on us,” she said.

Unsurprisingly that upset a lot of people who heard it at the time – or later on RNZ’s Mediawatch.

Some people who called Newstalk ZB to complain were initially told they should complain to RNZ instead because that’s where they heard it.

Proper context
ZB’s owner NZME argued some complaints should not be considered from people who “saw other media reporting” of the comments without the proper context.

The context – by the way – was Heather du Plessis-Allan telling listeners the Pacific Islands did not deserve financial aid from New Zealand and Jacinda Ardern shouldn’t go to the Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru – which Heather du Plessis-Allan called “a hellhole”.

The BSA ruling said her comments breached the good taste and decency standards – and those for discrimination and denigration. ZB’s owner NZME has been ordered to pay $3000 in costs.

The comments were “inflammatory”, said the BSA, and “devalued the reputation of Pasifika people within New Zealand – including New Zealanders of Pacific origin”.

NZME had argued the host’s comments were not about specific individuals or organisations and the audience expect “a forthright manner” from a former political journalist.

“Her opinion is in line with the robust opinions offered in talkback … which has been recognised as a special category of radio by the Authority,” said NZME.

Indeed it is.

‘Went too far’
But the BSA decided that “even in the talkback context, these statements went too far”.

Things are said in the heat of the moment in talk radio to spark discussion – things callers and hosts alike may not say given more time for reflection.

But in this case, du Plessis-Allan re-affirmed them two days later.

“I will double down on this. I do not regret what I said because I was not talking about people living in this country or the people themselves. I was talking about the Pacific Islands and the people who run it [sic],” she told her listeners.

She also took a big swing at critics of her comments – including Privacy Commissioner John Edwards.

“Go back to university and do some more training. You are not good enough,” she said.

The Authority considered du Plessis-Allan was disingenuous in subsequently arguing that she had been referring to the Pacific Islands as leeches, not the people themselves.

“Countries are not just plots of land. They are the land and their people,” the Authority stated.

Deliberate choice
The BSA said she was deliberate in her choice of words and coupled with her “dismissive tone” it “reflected a high level of condemnation towards the Pacific Islands … with an element of malice and nastiness and went beyond responsible broadcasting.”

The authority is not usually so strong in its condemnation of a broadcaster.

Underlying all this was Heather du Plessis-Allan’s view that New Zealand aid to the Pacific Islands has not been well spent – something worth discussing in light of the Pacific Reset policy.

But du Plessis-Allan misled her listeners when she seized on Niue as an example.

She told her listeners pension portability for Niueans amounted to “welfare sponging”.

But she didn’t say Niue is a self-governing territory affiliated to New Zealand and Niueans are also New Zealand citizens.

Niueans – or other Pacific people for that matter – wouldn’t get a pension if they were not entitled to one by living here in New Zealand in the first place – and incentivising pensioners to relocate could help reduce economic dependence on New Zealand that she seemed so worried about.

Employers using temporary migration work visas and the New Zealand companies exporting roughly 13 times as much as New Zealand imports from Pacific Island countries would also disagree with her claim “we get nothing from them”.

What’s the punishment?
The award of $3000 in costs doesn’t sound a significant – but it is.

The BSA only awards costs up to a maximum of $5000 to signal serious breaches of standards.

“NZME is a large and experienced broadcaster, with staff who ought to be familiar with their obligations under broadcasting standards,” it said.

The BSA can order a broadcaster off the air for up to 24 hours, but only in exceptional circumstances. The last time it did that was 12 years ago.

NZME has instead been ordered to broadcast a statement summarising the decision on the Wellington Mornings programme – and an apology from its host.

The BSA and du Plessis-Allan’s employers at NZME agreed on one thing: she has already been subjected to heavy public criticism for what she said in September last year.

Recently she tweeted from a vigil in Wellington that she was “standing with our Muslim community” after the Christchurch attacks. Some followers replied to remind her she hurt Pacific Islands communities with her comments.

After the attacks, NZME head of talk radio Jason Winstanley told Stuff several previously-published items had been pulled from ZB’s websites because they were “upsetting people.”

“Our priority is to do the best we can for all New Zealanders, and honour those who have lost their lives,” he said.

It remains to be seen what that means on air at Newstalk ZB and the other ZB hosts who have a habit of provoking people to engage – and enrage – the audience because it’s good for business.

It’s also an issue for NZME stablemate The New Zealand Herald which is preparing to ask readers to pay for “premium content” online.

The Herald publishes the opinions of du Plessis-Allan and other ZB hosts each week and the cost of embarrassments like this BSA ruling may be greater than $3000 in costs to the Crown.

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

• More ‘Pacific leeches’ slur reports
• RNZ Mediawatch

For a Tolai girl growing up in Papua New Guinea between 1960 and 1970, career options were very limited. Forty years ago, that was part of the story for now veteran broadcaster Caroline Tiriman for the Australian public network ABC.

“My mother wanted me to get married,” Caroline says. “It was an arranged marriage. I didn’t know the guy. He was from the next village and I went to school with his sisters.”

Caroline Tiriman had just completed high school at the Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and her mother insisted that she ditch any plans for a job outside of the East New Britain Province.

LISTEN TO THE ABC: Caroline Tiriman talks to Tahlea Aualiitia on Pacific Mornings

While Tiriman was under a lot of pressure from her mother, her dad, George, was quietly supportive. George Tiriman was a cook who worked for the small community of foreign Catholic priests.

He encouraged his daughter to follow her heart.

“I was so unhappy and I ran away back to the school. I told the principal that my mother wanted me to get married and I didn’t want to do that.”

Through the school’s help, Caroline was assisted by a careers officer who found her a job with the old government Post and Telecommunications company as a clerk.

Found a job
George Tiriman was very happy when Caroline told him that she had found a job in Port Moresby.

“He helped me run away to Port Moresby. He took me to town and then to the airport and saw me off.”

It wasn’t long before another opportunity presented itself. Caroline Tiriman applied for another clerical job with the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), later corporation, which was set up by the ABC in 1973, two years before independence.

Her path towards broadcasting was largely due to a childhood fascination for radio broadcasting.

“I used to wonder: ‘Who were those people talking in the radio? When I was in grade eight or nine, the NBC had a programme called Ring for Record and it was wonderful. We also listened to news and current affairs in class.”

If there is one important lesson from Caroline’s life, it’s the willingness to seize opportunities even if the possibilities are seemingly impossible. While at the NBC in Port Moresby, her colleague and fellow veteran broadcaster, Kenya Kala, encouraged her to apply for a job with the ABC Tok Pisin service in Melbourne.

The job was advertised in The Age newspaper. She applied and within four months, her new boss, George Sivijs, called her up to welcome her to the ABC.

Tok Pisin translation
“During the interview, he gave me a 10 minute bulletin to translate into Tok Pisin. And in Rabaul, we didn’t speak Tok Pisin. I learned a bit of Tok Pisin in school but I didn’t speak much of it.

“Here, I was expected to translate English into Tok Pisin. It took me about an hour to translate the bulletin.”

Within the next few months, Tiriman prepared for the biggest transition in her life – her move to Australia permanently. As she was about to leave for Melbourne, she called her dad who was in Lae, ill with cancer.

“I said I got a job with the ABC and I am going to Australia. He said: ‘That’s alright. You can go.’”

But within weeks, her brother called and asked her to delay her travel to Australia because her dad, her greatest supporter, had passed away. Instead of traveling to Australia, Caroline Tiriman spent the next month being with her mother and her family.

Over the next 40 years, Caroline Tiriman became one of the most recognised Melanesian voices in PNG, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.

Along with the small family of Australian-based PNG broadcasters, Caroline Tiriman, was among several others who set the standards for PNG’s Tok Pisin broadcasters.

Now, when she is asked what she was going to do after 40 years, she says: “I just want to take it easy… listen to the birds, go to the bush and look for galip nuts and just talk with family late into the night.”

• Scott Waide’s EMTV News report
• More Scott Waide articles