Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and more than 60 environmental journalists of 34 different nationalities have appealed for respect for the right to cover environmental issues.

These journalists — who are from every part of the world and every kind of media, and who have all kinds of backgrounds and political views — have joined RSF in signing an unprecedented appeal coinciding with COP26 entitled “Climate emergency, journalism emergency”.

Men and women, some of them environmental experts and some of them more general reporters, some with a long history of covering “green” issues and some covering the environment more recently as it has become an increasingly alarming news story, they have denounced the obstacles that limit the right to provide information about these issues.

• READ MORE: Red alert for green journalism — 10 environmental reporters killed in 10 years
• Other COP26 climate reports

Climate change is crucial for all humankind.

The petitioners are asking governments to officially recognise that the right to information about these issues is inherent in the right to a healthy environment and the right to health.

The first journalists signing the appeal include Gaëlle Borgia, a 2020 Pulitzer Prize winner based in Madagascar, France’s Morgan Large, a food industry specialist, Russia’s Grigory Pasko, an RSF Press Freedom laureate who was awarded the Sakharov Prize in 2002, India’s Soulik Dutta, an expert in energy and land issues, South Africa’s Khadija Sharife, who investigates environmental crimes, and Lucien Kosha, a freelancer covering mining in the DRC.

Most of them have signed on an individual basis but the staff at some news organisations have wanted to sign collectively.

Environmental teams
This was the case with Afaq Environmental Magazine, a Palestinian media outlet, and Reporterre, a French news site covering environmental issues.

Crucially, the appeal points out that, although the right to cover environmental issues was established as a principle as early as the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, this right is still not being respected.

The signatories report that, in many countries, it is still very difficult to obtain information and scientific data about the environment, although such information is of paramount public interest. Their coverage can help change behaviour and help combat the unprecedented threat posed by global warming.

“Nearly 30 years after the right to cover environmental issues was proclaimed in the United Nations Earth Summit declaration in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, this right must finally become a reality, it must finally be applied and respected without exception, as something that is self-evident,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

“At the hour of the climate emergency, this is a journalistic emergency. Environmental coverage is now vital.”

The dangers linked to covering environmental issues in some parts of the world has led to the killing of at least 21 journalists in the past 20 years for investigating these sensitive issues.

RSF and the journalists signing the appeal have also called for concrete implementation of international law on the protection of journalists.

For more information, see RSF’s report on the persecution of environmental journalists.

Auckland-based Pacific Media Watch is a collaborating project with Reporters Without Borders.

• Sign the citizen petition in support of the appeal Climate emergency, information emergency!

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

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

He has been working as a journalist for more than 46 years and as an academic for more than 27 years.

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

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

Gallery: #PMC celebrates #Pacific ‘reset’ vision and farewells founding director @DavidRobie #cartoons #education #JournalismMatters #independentjournalism #MediaFreedom @RSF_en @AUTuni @ShailendraBSing @USPWansolwara https://t.co/56DNxlLOa8 pic.twitter.com/fQ6RKIYDDu

— Pacific Media Centre (@pacmedcentre) December 5, 2020

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

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

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

Future options
This brought his future options to a head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

End of an era … @PacificMediaCentre Annual Review 2020. #newsmedia #journalism #journalismeducation https://t.co/WB8N2wsL3c pic.twitter.com/CNPmAE6Pe0

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) December 21, 2020

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

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

He is currently the New Zealand representative of the Asian Media, Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) and a life member. He is also editor and publisher of Asia Pacific Report, and his books are listed at NZ Pen.

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

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

The novel coronavirus now sweeping the globe has left many countries struggling to cope with rising numbers of infections and journalists grappling with how to best cover this evolving public health crisis.

In addition to questions about how governments, health care systems and individuals are responding to immediate needs, many reporters are also asking how it all got started.

According to the World Health Organisation, there is a high likelihood that Covid-19 is caused by the virus SARS-CoV 2 found in bats. But it might have made the jump to an unknown animal group before infecting humans.

READ MORE: Al Jazeera coronavirus live updates: Italy deaths rise by 756 in one day

• Tonga now in lockdown
• Fiji suspends domestic flights
• First death in New Zealand

This intermediate host could be a wild animal or one whose meat is commonly consumed, the WHO added in a report on its website.

Inconclusive research that has yet to be peer-reviewed has pointed to the pangolin – a scaly, ant-eating mammal highly sought by poachers – as a potential vector, but the actual source has yet to be identified.

Given the lack of information surrounding Covid-19, and the potential for the spread of rumors, the media has an absolutely critical role to play in ensuring people are kept up to date with reliable information on what is a rapidly evolving situation, says Richard Thomas, global communications coordinator for the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC.

“These days, the world is awash with fake news and false claims, often circulated on social media, and it is down to the trusted media to be a source of accurate information,” he says.

Media development organisations around the world have rushed to combat disinformation around the virus by putting together tipsheets, guides and other resources journalists can turn to for the latest, most accurate information on Covid-19.

That includes Internews, which has partnered with BBC Media Action, Translators Without Borders and Evidence Aid to put together a weekly bulletin with tools to aid newsrooms, fact-check organizations and non-profits in Southeast Asia.

Read more about that effort here.

On March 21, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) in the Philippines issued a call for media solidarity on COVID-19, saying that journalists and media outlets should consolidate their efforts to verify and call out mis or disinformation, get behind the stories and investigate as necessary the misuse of funds and resources.

News coverage that provides timely information, guidelines and expert views should be shared by news organisations, giving credit as necessary, to extend the reach of these fact-based reports to a wider audience, CMFR said.

It should also do more than tallying the cases, describing patient profiles and travel histories.

Some stories it suggested:

• Scrutinise the use of funds put toward combating the pandemic. Is the production of test kits ongoing? How well will they be distributed?
• Moving forward, what is being done to prepare other regions, countries, localities to handle the same issues?

This issue calls for reporting through a public health lens, with a particular focus on epidemiology, CMFR said. The media must help the public understand the course of the epidemic and what approaches can help ease the crisis.

Here are a few other tips on how media can focus its coverage in a way that is relevant, accurate and informative.

1. Use clear language, facts to prevent panic
Since first being detected last December, Covid-19 has spread to more than 150 countries, killed more than 29,957 people and more than 634,835 cases have been confirmed, according to the latest data (as of March 29) from the WHO.

These numbers can provoke public anxiety as people watch them escalate, challenging reporters to provide accurate, informed information without generating fear.

“This is really a time to stick to the facts on the severeness of this disease while trying to calm down the public,” Germany-based global health journalist Martina Merten said in a webinar on March 19 about reporting on Covid-19.

“We need to convey to the public that we must not take this situation lightly but at the same time not creating panic.”

She suggests:

• Use relevant facts and figures: Updated tallies of people classified as under monitoring or investigation; cases confirmed by laboratory tests; number of fatalities, even those who recovered from the disease. Reporting this data fully and explaining what each number means is important to keep information in context.
• Keep the state of a country’s healthcare system and the strengths and flaws of the delivery of medicals services in mind when evaluating information and assessing primary health care facilities.
• While this crisis is unfolding at a rapid pace, Merten says, journalists must also
• Avoid using language that scares people, such as plague or apocalypse, or provokes hate or xenophobia, such as China virus.

2. Be precise, even if it takes time
The journalists covering this crisis have become health reporters and disaster reporters overnight, says Yvonne Chua, a veteran journalist and journalism professor at the University of the Philippines.

That makes journalists’ role as “verifiers and sense makers” all the more important, she adds, saying newsrooms need to quickly work to build the understanding of locals journalists so they can cover this crisis most effectively.

“Workshops will help. Watching webinars on COVID-19 helped me understand the virus more. If you don’t understand the topic, it shows. You’ll just end up confusing your reader,” says ABS-CBN News TV reporter Kristine Sabillo.

“I’ve been covering science topics for more than a year, and I realized that scientists have a certain way of speaking. You need to understand that.

“At some points, you need to respect their culture but other times you also need to challenge them. Being aware of the nuances of their industry is crucial in making the topic more understandable to the general public.”

TV journalist Atom Araullo of GMA News says it is important for journalists to have a basic understanding behind the spread of disease, for example, and to know how to interpret data properly.

He also says that when it comes to crisis reporting, accuracy over speed is crucial.

“Journalists have a couple of time-tested ways to verify facts, and this applies to health information as well,” Araullo says. “I think problems occur in the rush to be first, especially in the age of social media.”

Beyond just verifying facts, is ensuring that journalists understand and explain plainly health jargon and statistics, said Palawan News managing editor, Celeste Anna Formoso. Other important skills journalists should develop are knowing how to find reliable experts and humanising stories, she added.

“It is always good to upgrade journalism skills, especially in covering health crises,” says veteran journalist Ellen Tordesillas, president of online news organization VERA Files.” But what is more important is the basic requirement for journalists to be informed of the specific issue that [they are] writing about, with sobriety and sensitivity.”

To help journalists practice accurate, fair and responsible journalism, Internews supported the production of three short videos on disinformation surrounding Covid-19 based on the fact-checking research of VERA Files. It also produced a series of explainers debunking rumors and myths circulating around the pandemic.

Gaea Cabico, a reporter at the Philippine Star Online, says fact-checking is particularly important at a time when misinformation spreads almost as fast as the virus itself.

Her advice:

• Carefully explain why a claim or theory is false. If you find suspicious information, reach out to medical experts.
• Craft headlines with the understanding that people don’t read the actual story so make sure what you’re saying is as accurate as possible.

3. Collaborate
The International Center for Journalists earlier launched the ICFJ global health crisis reporting forum via Facebook with now over 1000 members from across the world. The forum is a space for journalists to connect with health experts, resources and to fellow journalists on all things regarding Covid-19.

In the Philippines, VERA Files and news organisations such as online news website Rappler are part of a collaborative project on debunking false information on Covid-19 run by the Poynter Institute’s International Fact-Checking Network, which includes 48 fact-checking organisations from 30 countries.

Chua, who initiated various journalism fact-checking projects in the Philippines, such as the Fact Raker project from the University of the Philippines’ Journalism Department, said now is also a good time for Philippine newsrooms to collaborate with one another by pooling their fact checks, fact sheets, and explainers in a go-to website, similar to Tsek.ph, a website used to fact-check claims during the 2019 elections.

Collaboration extends to awareness-raising efforts too.

“We believe it is important to streamline information online to make critical, verified updates more accessible,” said Gemma Mendoza, an editor from Rappler. One way they’re doing that is by using common hashtags across newsrooms to make information easier to find. Some of the common terms they’ve agreed up are #COVID19PH, #coronavirus, #COVID19Quarantine, #MMQuarantine, #ReliefPH, #CoronaVirusFacts.

4. Use social media to amplify the truth
One of the most effective ways to combat misinformation online is to amplify the truth across the same platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp and Viber groups, said Mariejo Ramos, a reporter at the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Journalists can use these platforms to dispute false claims, raise discourse and challenge falsehoods accompanied with links to accurate news articles and official sources of data. Including context in every story is also important, she said.

“Journalists should not use sensationalist language or speculative scenarios that could only elevate fear,” Ramos explains. “Sometimes even information from credible and official sources is unclear, so it’s best to make sure that the information we put out there are being corroborated, [and is] not just assumptions, rumors or unsubstantiated links.”

She says she always makes sure the information she receives is corroborated by local officials.

She and her colleagues have also put up a tracker of confirmed cases, deaths, statements from officials agencies and other trusted data relevant to the virus “so we can easily counter check false claims or inconsistencies from officials themselves,” Ramos says.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer as well released a news report documenting coverage experiences and tips in covering COVID-19 from some national journalists and media organisations.

On the other hand, Sabillo says reporters need to respond to fake news and continue posting relevant and helpful information instead of just promoting their own work.

“Utilization of social media is important at a time when authorities want to encourage social distancing. Turn platforms like Facebook and Twitter into educational channels. Use videos edited in [readers’] language [fun, meme-worthy but intelligent]. Don’t underestimate them,” she says. 

5. Think about packaging
To reach a wide audience, Professor Chua recommends creating more mobile-friendly materials, especially now that the use of smartphones is widespread across the Philippines. She also advises journalists to do more explainers in layman’s language, using visuals to explain complex topics, hosting webinars on Covid-19 and creating resource pages online.

“That’s why not only journalists but also newsrooms should learn how to tailor or package their stories for different platforms, says Ramos. Media outlets should think about how stories can gain the public’s attention on social media, how to make headlines clear and accurate, how to make stories more shareable and easier to consume.

To reach younger audiences, Araullo says his news organisation tries to deliver information where the youth is most likely to consume it and to interact with them on social media as well. He says GMA News’s daily digital newscast, Stand For Truth, is made up of young field reporters, which hopefully makes the stories more accessible.

Cabico says they are trying to incorporate more data visualisation in their reporting. Data can give context to stories and help journalists show the big picture, she says, it also makes Covid-19 stories more engaging and relevant.

6. Put safety first and foremost
While the media must respond to urgent and developing news, Formoso emphasises the importance of ensuring that reporters remain safe in doing so.

“We have provided alcohol, face masks and Vitamin Cs. We have sanitized our office and practice social distancing. All interviews are done via phone calls or through Viber, messenger or text,” Formoso says.

To ensure her safety while covering the coronavirus pandemic, Ramos says she always bring a mask and a bottle of alcohol everywhere she goes. She also assesses the situation on the ground, which includes the possibility of exposure to individuals who might have contracted the virus. Many interviews, she says, can be done through phone or video calls.

For local journalists who are covering their communities, distancing can be harder.

As advised by health experts, Formoso requires her team in the newsroom to wear face masks and staying at least a meter away from the interviewee and other journalists when out in the field.

“If possible, adopt teleconferencing and remote ways of gathering data instead of face-to-face engagements,” she says.

7. Let local journalism shine
Covering the unfolding pandemic can be even more challenging for local-level journalists, who have few resources and staff to adequately report on all the ways in which this pandemic will impact their communities.

“Community media, like radio stations, broadcast organizations, are known for sensationalism, blatant breaches of privacy, and inaccuracies in the bid to out-scoop rival stations,” says Lina Sagaral Reyes, a special correspondent from the Mindanao Gold Star Daily. “Reporters from these outfits must exercise caution in their reports, especially when they report live.”

Yet these reporters can also look out for solutions-focused stories by seeing how communities are responding and including the voices of the underprivileged, covering best practices and exploring how local governments are responding.

Restaurants are providing free food to health workers at the regional hospital, for example, or are providing an anchor to a boat that was refused entry elsewhere as community quarantine was enforced, says Reyes.

Carolyn Arguillas, editor of Mindanews in the southern Philippines, says they are working to organise a Covid-19 reporting seminar for provincial journalists to strengthen their health reporting skills.

8. The case of the Philippines
As of March 24, the Philippines has 1075 reported cases of patients found positive for Covid-19, with 68 reported deaths, according to WHO.

President Rodrigo Duterte declared a state of calamity in the Philippines to unlock funds the government could use to respond as cases continue to rise. The entire island of Luzon, where the capital Manila is located, was also put under “enhanced community quarantine” from March 17 to April 12 to stop the spread of infection.

That move restricts public movement to essential activities only, such as buying food, medicine and other essential items. Strict home quarantine is being implemented in all households, mass transportation (trains, buses, jeepneys, tricycles, taxis) is suspended, restaurants have moved to take out only, essential health services are regulated, and there is a heightened presence of uniformed personnel to enforce quarantine procedures.

Jonathan Mayuga, a reporter for the national daily Business Mirror, says that a week before Manila was placed under “community quarantine,” his editor had already issued guidelines discouraging unnecessary field coverage to avoid the risk of being infected.

“Personally, it is a big boost to every reporter’s morale as it is really challenging to go on a field work with the situation at hand, even media are given a special pass to move around the quarantine areas in Metro Manila. We have to adapt our ways of doing journalism looking for ways to reach our sources through online interviews and using other social media networks while working from home,” Mayuga says.

In addition to providing reporters with protective gear, soap and disinfectant, Kathyrine Cortez, a reporter with online news website Davao Today, says media organisations have a responsibility to provide their reporters with hazard pay and should extend free covid-testing for journalists.

They should also ensure that reports have time to rest, re-charge and stay on top of the latest developments, Cortez says.

Imelda Abano is the Earth Journalism Network (EJN) content coordinator for the Philippines and president of the Philippines Network of Environmental Journalists. She is also collaborating with the Pacific Media Centre. This article is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

Pacific Media Watch

Tuwhera, the open access repository and publisher of Auckland University of Technology, has added 16 years of back copy editions of Pacific Journalism Review to the digital resource.

The full text articles from a further 24 editions have been added, including all the original issues published by the University of Papua New Guinea and the University of the South Pacific.

Some of the research includes the Sandline mercenary crisis in Papua New Guinea, the 10-year Bougainville conflict and the Fiji military coups.

READ MORE: Pacific Journalism Review – Twenty years special edition

PJR now has 964 research articles and reviews on its Tuwhera open access database – the largest single collection of Pacific media research, scholarship and analysis.

Many of the articles also feature research in Asia, Australia and New Zealand, with contributing authors and editors who are members of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC), Asian Media and Communication Congress (ACMC), Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA), Journalism Education Association of New Zealand (JEANZ) and Media Educators Pacific (MEP) prominent.

Writing a reflective article marking the journal’s achievements on the 20th anniversary of publication in 2014, Brisbane media educator Dr Lee Duffield wrote:

“Pacific Journalism Review since its inception has always emphasised its regional identity, adopting its own ‘Pacific’ style of discourse and inquiry.”

26th year
The journal, founded at UPNG in 1994 and now published by AUT, is in its 26th year of publication.

All the articles added to the archives here were published prior to 2011.

Five editions were published at UPNG and four at USP while the rest of 41 editions are from AUT, beginning in 2003,.

Many global issues such as media freedom and journalist safety, media accountability systems, communication in development, conflict reporting, climate change journalism, human rights and social media, gender and indigeneity have been examined.

Welcoming the launch of PJR, Dr Margaret Obi, then head of UPNG’s South Pacific Centre for Communication and Information in Development (SPCenCIID), wrote in the first edition: “The issue that is most prevalent in PJR is that of professional ethics, responsibility and accountability by journalists and media agencies and their role in informing and being informed without fear or favour.”

Founding editor Professor David Robie, director of the Pacific Media Centre at AUT, says PJR is more than a research journal. He believes it has developed a unique character of engaged “critical inquiry”, as represented by its Frontline section encouraging journalism-as-research methodology.

“As an independent publication, PJR has given strong support to investigative journalism, socio-political journalism, political economy of the media, photojournalism and political cartooning in its almost three decades of publishing,” he adds.

Associate editor Philip Cass says that as PJR is the only journal covering journalism in the Pacific and Asia, the archives would prove to be an invaluable resource for academics and journalists.

“PJR provides a unique record of issues, viewpoints and research from academic and media practitioners,” he says.

The journal’s current editorial team is editor David Robie, associate editor Philip Cass, Frontline editor Wendy Bacon, assistant editors Khairiah Rahman and Nicole Gooch, and designer Del Abcede.

• PJR: two decades of critical inquiry
• Pacific Journalism Review
• PJR at AUT Shop online
• Tuwhera open access depository

In 1886, a year before American journalist Nellie Bly feigned insanity to enter an asylum in New York and became a household name, Catherine Hay Thomson arrived at the entrance of Kew Asylum in Melbourne on “a hot grey morning with a lowering sky”.

Hay Thomson’s two-part article, The Female Side of Kew Asylum for The Argus newspaper revealed the conditions women endured in Melbourne’s public institutions.

Her articles were controversial, engaging, empathetic, and most likely the first known by an Australian female undercover journalist.

READ MORE: 10 days in a madhouse, by Nellie Bly

A ‘female vagabond’
Hay Thomson was accused of being a spy by Kew Asylum’s supervising doctor. The Bulletin called her “the female vagabond”, a reference to Melbourne’s famed undercover reporter of a decade earlier, Julian Thomas.

But she was not after notoriety.

Unlike Bly and her ambitious contemporaries who turned to “stunt journalism” to escape the boredom of the women’s pages – one of the few avenues open to women newspaper writers – Hay Thomson was initially a teacher and ran schools with her mother in Melbourne and Ballarat.

In 1876, she became one of the first female students to sit for the matriculation exam at Melbourne University, though women weren’t allowed to study at the university until 1880.

Going undercover
Hay Thomson’s series for The Argus began in March 1886 with a piece entitled The Inner Life of the Melbourne Hospital. She secured work as an assistant nurse at Melbourne Hospital (now The Royal Melbourne Hospital) which was under scrutiny for high running costs and an abnormally high patient death rate.

Her articles increased the pressure. She observed that the assistant nurses were untrained, worked largely as cleaners for poor pay in unsanitary conditions, slept in overcrowded dormitories and survived on the same food as the patients, which she described in stomach-turning detail.

The hospital linen was dirty, she reported, dinner tins and jugs were washed in the patients’ bathroom where poultices were also made, doctors did not wash their hands between patients.

Writing about a young woman caring for her dying friend, a 21-year-old impoverished single mother, Hay Thomson observed them “clinging together through all fortunes” and added that “no man can say that friendship between women is an impossibility”.

The Argus editorial called for the setting up of a “ladies’ committee” to oversee the cooking and cleaning. Formal nursing training was introduced in Victoria three years later.

Kew Asylum
Hay Thomson’s next series, about women’s treatment in the Kew Asylum, was published in March and April 1886.

Her articles predate Ten Days in a Madhouse written by Nellie Bly (born Elizabeth Cochran) for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World.

While working in the asylum for a fortnight, Hay Thomson witnessed overcrowding, understaffing, a lack of training, and a need for woman physicians. Most of all, the reporter saw that many in the asylum suffered from institutionalisation rather than illness.

She described “the girl with the lovely hair” who endured chronic ear pain and was believed to be delusional. The writer countered “her pain is most probably real”.

Observing another patient, Hay Thomson wrote:

She requires to be guarded – saved from herself; but at the same time, she requires treatment … I have no hesitation in saying that the kind of treatment she needs is unattainable in Kew Asylum.

The day before the first asylum article was published, Hay Thomson gave evidence to the final sitting of Victoria’s Royal Commission on Asylums for the Insane and Inebriate, pre-empting what was to come in The Argus. Among the Commission’s final recommendations was that a new governing board should supervise appointments and training and appoint “lady physicians” for the female wards.

Suffer the little children
In May 1886, An Infant Asylum written “by a Visitor” was published. The institution was a place where mothers – unwed and impoverished – could reside until their babies were weaned and later adopted out.

Hay Thomson reserved her harshest criticism for the absent fathers:

These women … have to bear the burden unaided, all the weight of shame, remorse, and toil, [while] the other partner in the sin goes scot free.

For another article, Among the Blind: Victorian Asylum and School, she worked as an assistant needlewoman and called for talented music students at the school to be allowed to sit exams.

In A Penitent’s Life in the Magdalen Asylum, Hay Thomson supported nuns’ efforts to help women at the Abbotsford Convent, most of whom were not residents because they were “fallen”, she explained, but for reasons including alcoholism, old age and destitution.

Suffrage and leadership
Hay Thomson helped found the Austral Salon of Women, Literature and the Arts in January 1890 and the National Council of Women of Victoria. Both organisations are still celebrating and campaigning for women.

Throughout, she continued writing, becoming Table Talk magazine’s music and social critic.

In 1899 she became editor of The Sun: An Australian Journal for the Home and Society, which she bought with Evelyn Gough. Hay Thomson also gave a series of lectures titled Women in Politics.

A Melbourne hotel maintains that Hay Thomson’s private residence was secretly on the fourth floor of Collins Street’s Rialto building around this time.

Home and back
After selling The Sun, Hay Thomson returned to her birth city, Glasgow, Scotland, and to a precarious freelance career for English magazines such as Cassell’s.

Despite her own declining fortunes, she brought attention to writer and friend Grace Jennings Carmichael’s three young sons, who had been stranded in a Northampton poorhouse for six years following their mother’s death from pneumonia.

After Hay Thomson’s article in The Argus, the Victorian government granted them free passage home.

Hay Thomson eschewed the conformity of marriage but tied the knot back in Melbourne in 1918, aged 72. The wedding at the Women Writer’s Club to Thomas Floyd Legge, culminated “a romance of 40 years ago”. Mrs Legge, as she became, died in Cheltenham in 1928, only nine years later.

Dr Kerrie Davies is a lecturer in the School of the Arts & Media, UNSW, and Dr Willa McDonald is a senior lecturer at Macquarie University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie condemned the Australian and New Zealand governments and mainstream media for their “deafening silence” over the West Papua crisis last night.

Speaking in the pre-conference keynote for next month’s Melanesian Media Freedom Forum (MMFF) at Griffith University’s South Bank campus in Brisbane, Dr Robie said Canberra and Wellington needed to get behind the Vanuatu-led Pacific initiatives on West Papuan self-determination or face growing insecurity in the region.

He told the audience – which included experienced “Pacific hands” Dr Tess Newton Cain, Lee Duffield, Sean Dorney, Bob Howarth and Stefan Armbruster – that the 1969 UN-mandated plebiscite on the future of West Papua was a sham and that a fresh vote was needed.

READ MORE: Veronica Koman wins prize for West Papua work

While praising public broadcasters ABC and RNZ Pacific for their coverage of West Papua, Dr Robie described the mainstream commercial media’s reporting of recent protests in Papua as “shameful.”

Dozens of people have been killed and many thousands forced to flee over the past three months as Indonesian military and police clashed with Papuan demonstrators protesting against racism.

Dr Robie said some Pacific media were doing a better job of covering the crisis than mainstream Australian and NZ news organisations.

Dr Robie also said it was embarrassing that international news agencies were doing a better job of covering something “right on our own doorstep”.

“West Papua has generally been poorly covered by New Zealand mainstream media – and only slightly better in Australia – apart from RNZ Pacific and a handful of specialist websites such as the Pacific Media Centre’s Asia Pacific Report,” he said.

Dr Robie spoke about the principles of “human rights journalism” as a guiding framework for covering conflicts in the region.

Journalists with ‘guts’
He commended specific journalists and media practitioners who have incorporated this into their work and “stuck their necks out in defence of a free press.”

“It takes serious guts to do so in the Pacific.”

Scott Waide, Neville Choi and Sincha Dimara from Papua New Guinea’s EMTV were praised as was the Vanuatu Daily Post’s Dan McGarry and the Post Vila-based independent journalist Ben Bohane.

“Fiji’s Simpson @ Eight – Stan Simpson is doing an excellent job on the University of the South Pacific expose at the moment – and Alex Rheeney and Mata’afa Keni Lesa at the Samoa Observer are examples,” he said.

“West Papua Media is one of the networks of citizen journalists which has also played a key role. And Stefan Armbruster of SBS News and Johnny Blades of RNZ Pacific are key contributors too.”

“But there are many more journalists who deserve credit.”

MMMF conference
A select group of Pacific journalists will be gathering for the MMFF conference at Griffith University on November 11-12 to map out a media freedom strategy for Melanesia.

Some of their presentations are expected to be published in a special edition of Pacific Journalism Review research journal.

During his keynote, Dr Robie presented a “wish list” for journalist action, including pressing for an impartial investigation into cases of arbitrary arrest and impunity in West Papua; open access to news workers, diplomats and human rights advocates; and a new independent plebiscite on West Papuan self-determination.

After his speech, Dr Robie unfurled the West Papuan flag of independence – the Morning Star – and wrapped it around himself, saying: “Journalists really need to decide where they stand in relation to the issue.”

The whole room of journalists, academics and activists then came up to the front and joined Dr Robie around the flag.

• The Melanesia Media Freedom Forum
• Wamena riot death toll remains shrouded in mystery

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

An internationally acclaimed investigative documentary about Paga Hill community’s fight for justice from the illegal eviction and demolition of their homes in Papua New Guinea’s capital of Port Moresby has been banned from screening today at the PNG Human Rights Festival.

“The ban highlights the lingering limits on free speech in our country and the continued attempts to censor our story of resistance against gross human rights violations,” claimed Paga Hill community leader and lawyer Joe Moses, the main character in The Opposition film who had to seek exile in the United Kingdom after fighting for his community’s rights.

“This censorship comes as a deep disappointment for my community who have suffered greatly over the past six years.”

READ MORE: Paga Hill resettlement mothers plead for help from Governor Parkop

The Opposition tells the David-and-Goliath battles of a community evicted, displaced, abandoned – their homes completely demolished at the hands of two Australian-run companies, Curtain Brothers and Paga Hill Development Company, and the PNG state.

What was once home to 3000 people of up to four generations, Paga Hill is now part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit “AELM Precinct” which will take place this November.

Moses said: “We appreciate the PNG Human Rights Film Festival for choosing to screen The Opposition film at their Madang and Port Moresby screenings.

“It is shameful that our government continues to limit free speech and put such pressure on our country’s only annual arts and human rights event. How does this make us look to the world leaders who will be coming here for the APEC meeting in November?”

‘Speak up today’
Under the theme “Tokautnau long senisim tumora” (Speak up today to change tomorrow), the mission of the PNG Human Rights Film Festival includes: “We are all born free and equal in dignity and rights”.

The international and local human rights films screened “promote increased respect, protection and fulfillment of human rights in Papua New Guinea”.

Paga Hill youth leader Allan Mogerema, who also features in the film said: “The right to freedom of speech and freedom of press is provided for under Section 46 of the PNG Constitution. By banning our story, the PNG government is in breach of our Constitution and our rights as Papua New Guinean citizens.”

The Opposition trailer.

As a human rights defender, Mogerema has been invited to the 2018 Annual Human Rights and People’s Diplomacy Training Programme for Human Rights Defenders from the Asia-Pacific Region and Indigenous Australia organised by the Diplomacy Training Programme (DTP) and the Judicial System Monitoring Programme (JSMP) to share his story of the illegal land grab, eviction and demolition of his community.

“The film has already been screened in settlements across PNG and at the Human Rights Film Festival’s Madang screenings. No matter how hard they try to censor us, our story continues to live, and our fight for justice continues to thrive,” added Mogerema.

“No matter how long it takes, our community will get justice.”

Dame Carol Kidu is also featured in The Opposition.

Initially an advocate for the Paga Hill community, Dame Carol turned her back on them by setting up a consultancy to be hired by the Paga Hill Development Corporation, on a contract of $178,000 for three months’ work.

In 2017, she launched a legal action in the Supreme Court of NSW to censor the film.

In June that year, the court ruled against Dame Carol’s application.

• ‘I was scared for my life’: Paga Hill activist seeks asylum in the UK
• Port Moresby settlers evicted to make way for Australian-backed development abandoned
• ‘The battle of Paga Hill’ – controversial PNG doco finally on NZ screens
• PNG Human Rights Film Festival on Facebook
• O’Neill government ban rocks film festival

#Justice4Paga

By Michelle Winowatan

Dozens of Indonesian military and police personnel raided a student dormitory in Surabaya on July 6 to stop the screening of a documentary about security force atrocities in Papua.

It is the latest example of the government’s determination not to deal with past abuses in the country’s easternmost province.

Security forces carried out the raid following social media postings about the planned screening of the documentary Bloody Biak (Biak Berdarah).

READ MORE: Police claim raid on Papuan students to block ‘Bloody Biak’ film screening

The film documents Indonesian security forces opening fire on a peaceful pro-Papuan independence flag-raising ceremony in the town of Biak in July 1998, killing dozens.

Security forces said the dorm raid was necessary to prevent unspecified “hidden activities” by Papuan students.

The raid is emblematic of both the Indonesian government’s failure to deliver on promises of accountability for past human rights abuses in Papua and its willingness to take heavy-handed measures to stifle public discussion about those violations.

The government of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has not fulfilled a commitment made in 2016 to seek resolution of longstanding human rights abuses, including the Biak massacre and the military crackdown on Papuans in Wasior in 2001 and Wamena in 2003 that killed dozens and displaced thousands.

Killing with impunity
Meanwhile, police and other security forces that kill Papuans do so with impunity.

Media coverage of rights abuses in Papua are hobbled by the Indonesian government’s decades-old access restrictions to the region, despite Jokowi’s 2015 pledge to lift them.

Domestic journalists are vulnerable to intimidation and harassment from officials, local mobs, and security forces.

The government is also hostile to foreign human rights observers seeking access to Papua.

Last month, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, said he was “concerned that despite positive engagement by the authorities in many respects, the government’s invitation to my Office to visit Papua – which was made during my visit in February – has still not been honoured”.

The raid in Surabaya signals the government’s determination to maintain its chokehold on public discussion of human rights violations across Indonesia.

This suggests that the government’s objective is to maintain Papua as a ”forbidden island” rather than provide transparency and accountability for human rights abuses there.

Michelle Winowatan is a Human Rights Watch intern. The Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch freedom project monitors Asia-Pacific rights issues.

• West Papuans tortured, killed and dumped at sea, citizens’ tribunal hears

New Zealand journalist Yasmine Ryan, credited with being the first reporter writing in English about the Arab Spring from her base in Tunisia, has been farewelled at a funeral held in Auckland today, reports Stuff.

Ryan died in Turkey at the age of 35 after reportedly falling from the fifth storey of a friend’s apartment building in Istanbul on November 30.

Friends and family gathered at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Auckland to farewell the much-loved and respected journalist.

Yasmine’s mother, Deborah, spoke during the service of her daughter’s goodwill in the field of journalism.

“She believed in journalism, she believed in good journalism,” she said. “She did everything for women in journalism, did everything for everybody.

“She [Yasmine] died doing what she loved most.”

The freelancer previously worked for Al Jazeera when she was covering the Arab Spring, and was later a fellow of the World Press Institute visiting the United States in 2016.

International award
She won an International Award for Excellence in Journalism in 2010 for a story about Algerian boat migrants.

She also worked as an online producer and video journalist for the International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, and in New Zealand with independent news agency Scoop.

She also contributed to Pacific Scoop and Pacific Journalism Review.

Friends and colleagues described her as a “selfless human” and “a fearless woman”.

Investigative journalist Selwyn Manning, who worked with Ryan at Scoop, said “the world is a better place because of her”.

He said: “It takes a lot to sink in. You see someone who has got such youth, zest and professionalism, who has so much to offer, and it is just a significant loss from so many angles,” he said.

Ryan was co-author with Manning and Katie Small of I Almost Forgot About the Moon, a book about the human rights campaign in support of Algerian asylum seeker Ahmed Zaoui and his family’s right to stay in New Zealand.

Theologian Zaoui was at the ecumenical funeral today where he said prayers in Arabic for Ryan.

Te Reo Māori and Hebrew prayers were also given at the funeral with Monsignor Bernard Kiely as celebrant.

A GiveALittle page set up by Jacinta Forde, who works at the University of Waikato with Ryan’s father, said her dad had “left on the first plane to Turkey … to bring her back home to New Zealand”.

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