The world has lost a giant with the passing of Australian media legend Bob Howarth. He was 81.

He was a passionate advocate for journalism who changed many lives with his extraordinary kindness and generosity coupled with wisdom, experience and an uncanny ability to make things happen.

Howarth worked for major daily newspapers in his native Australia and around the world, having a particularly powerful impact on the Asia Pacific region.

• READ MORE: Bob Howarth: Role of journalism in developing and protecting democracy
• Tribute to Bob Howarth: He touched the Pacific in ways words can barely capture
• East Timor’s Independente champions genuine ‘free press’

I first met Bob Howarth in 2001 in Timor-Leste during the nation’s first election campaign after the hard-won independence vote.

We met in the newsroom of the Timor Post, a daily newspaper he had been instrumental in setting up.

I was doing my journalism training there when Howarth was asked to tell the trainees about his considerable experience. It was only a short conversation, but his words and body language captivated me.

He was a born storyteller.

Role in the Timor-Post
I later found out about his role in the birth of the Timor Post, the newly independent nation’s first daily newspaper.

In early 2000, after hearing Timorese journalists lacked even the most basic equipment needed to do their jobs, he hatched a plan to get non-Y2K-compliant PCs, laptops and laser printers from Queensland Newspapers over to Dili.

And, despite considerable hurdles, he got it done. Then his bosses sent Howarth himself over to help a team of 14 Timorese journalists set up the Post.

The first publication of the Timor Post occurred during the historic visit of Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid to Timor-Leste in February 2000.

A media mass for Bob Howarth in Timor-Leste          Video: Timor Post

In that first edition, Bob Howarth wrote an editorial in English, entitled “Welcome Mr Wahid”, accompanied by photos of President Wahid and Timorese national hero Xanana Gusmão. That article was framed and proudly hangs on the wall at the Timor Post offices to this day.

After Bob Howarth left Timor-Leste, he delivered some life-changing news to the Timor Post — he wanted to sponsor a journalist from the newspaper to study in Papua New Guinea. The owners chose me.

In 2002, I went with another Timorese student sponsored by Howarth to study journalism at Divine Word University in Madang on PNG’s north coast.

Work experience at the Post-Courier
During our time in PNG, we began to see the true extent of Howarth’s kindness. During every university holiday we would fly to Port Moresby to stay with him and get work experience at the Post-Courier, where Bob was managing director and publisher.

Our relationship became stronger and stronger. Sometimes we would sit down, have some drinks and I’d ask him questions about journalism and he would generously answer them in his wise and entertaining way.

In 2005, I went back to Timor-Leste and I went back to the Timor Post as political reporter.

When the owners of the Post appointed me editor-in chief in the middle of 2007, at the age of 28, I contacted Bob for advice and training support, with the backing of the Post’s new director, Jose Ximenes. That year I went to Melbourne to attend journalism training organised by the Asia Pacific Journalism Centre.

I then flew to the Gold Coast and stayed for two days with Bob Howarth and Di at their beautiful Miami home.

“Congratulations, Mouzy, for becoming the new editor-in-chief of the Post,” said Bob Howarth as he shook my hand, looking so proud. But I replied: “Bob, I need your help.”

He said, “Beer first, mate” — one of his favourite sayings — and then we discussed how he could help. He said he would try his best to bring some used laptops for Timor Post when he came to Dili to provide some training.

Arrival of laptops
True to his word, in early 2008 he and one of his long-time friends, veteran journalist Gary Evans, arrived in Dili with said laptops, delivered the training and helped set up business plans.

After I left the Post in 2010, I planned with some friends to set up a new daily newspaper called the Independente. Of course, I went to Bob for ideas and advice.

On a personal note, without Bob Howarth I may never have met my wife Jen, an Aussie Queensland University of Technology student who travelled to Madang in 2004 on a research trip. Bob and Di represented my family in Timor-Leste at our engagement party on the Gold Coast in 2010.

Jen moved to Dili at the end of that year and was part of the launch of Independente in 2011.

In the paper’s early days Howarth and Evans came back to Dili to train our journalists. He then also worked with the Timor-Leste Press Council and UNDP to provide training to many journalists in Dili.

Before he got sick, the owners and founders of the Timor Post paid tribute to Bob Howarth as “the father of the Timor Post” at the paper’s 20th anniversary celebrations in 2020 because of his contributions.

He and the Timor Post’s former director, Aderito Hugo Da Costa, had a special friendship. Bob Howarth was the godfather for Da Costa’s daughter, Stefania Howarth Da Costa.

30 visits to Timor-Leste
During his lifetime Bob Howarth visited Timor-Leste more than 30 times. He said many times that Timor-Leste was his second home after Australia.

After the news of his passing after a three-and-a-half-year battle with cancer was received by his friends at the Independente and the Timor Post on November 13, the Facebook walls of many in the Timorese media were adorned with words of sadness.

Both the Timor Post and the Independente organised a special mass in Bob Howarth’s honour.

He has left us forever but his legacy will be always with us.

May your soul rest in peace, Bob Howarth.

Mouzinho Lopes de Araujo is former editor-in-chief of the Timor Post and editorial director of the Independente in Timor-Leste, and is currently living in Brisbane with his wife Jen and their two boys, Enzo and Rafael.

UPDATES: By Cole Martin in Occupied Bethlehem

Fifty six Palestinians were killed by Israel in Gaza today, 38 of them while seeking aid, while five were killed and 20 wounded in an Israeli attack on aid workers northwest of Gaza City.

Al-Qassam Brigades reportedly blew up a house in southern Gaza where a number of Israeli soldiers were operating from.

Israel’s forced starvation and indiscriminate targeting of civilians continues.

• READ MORE: Attack on Iran’s state media – Israel bombs IRIB building in new war crime
• Why Israel’s ‘humane’ propaganda is such a sinister facade
• Other Israeli war on Iran reports

Israeli media report that Iranian missile strikes on Haifa oil refinery yesterday killed 3 people and closed down the installation.

The Israeli death toll has risen to 24, with 400 injured and more than 2700 people displaced.

Israeli authorities report 370 missiles fired by Iran in total, 30 reaching their targets. Iranian military report they have carried out 550 drone operations.

224 killed in Iran
Two hundred and twenty four people have been killed by Israeli attacks on Iran, with 1277 hospitalised.

The state radio and television building was targeted by Israeli strikes twice — while broadcasting live — with the broadcast back online within 5 minutes despite the attack.

In response, Iran has issued a warning to evacuate the central offices of Israeli television channels 12 and 14.

An Israeli attack on a Red Crescent ambulance in Tehran resulted in the deaths of two relief workers.

Israel’s Finance Minister Belazel Smotrich, who is accused of being a war criminal and the target of sanctions by five countries including New Zealand, claims they have hit 800 targets in Iran, with aircraft flying freely in the nation’s airspace.

In the West Bank, the tension continues, with business continuing at a subdued level, everyone waiting to see how the situation will unfold.

Israel’s illegal siege continues, cutting off cities and villages from one another, while blocking ambulances and urgent medical access in several locations today.

Israeli and Iranian strikes are expected to continue, and potentially escalate, over the coming days.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza continues.

Cole Martin is an independent New Zealand photojournalist based in the Middle East and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

Asia Pacific Report editor David Robie was honoured with Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) at the weekend by the Governor-General, Dame Cindy Kiro, in an investiture ceremony at Government House Tāmaki Makaurau.

He was one of eight recipients for various honours, which included Joycelyn Armstrong, who was presented with Companion of the King’s Service Order (KSO) for services to interfaith communities.

Dr Robie’s award, which came in the King’s Birthday Honours in 2024 but was presented on Saturday, was for “services to journalism and Asia-Pacific media education”.

• READ MORE: Decolonisation, the climate crisis, and improving media education in the Pacific — Global Voices
• Investiture ceremony – video link, 24 May 2025

His citation reads:

Dr David Robie has contributed to journalism in New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region for more than 50 years.

Dr Robie began his career with The Dominion in 1965 and worked as an international journalist and correspondent for agencies from Johannesburg to Paris. He has won several journalism awards, including the 1985 Media Peace Prize for his coverage of the Rainbow Warrior bombing.

He was Head of Journalism at the University of Papua New Guinea from 1993 to 1997 and the University of the South Pacific in Suva from 1998 to 2002. He founded the Pacific Media Centre in 2007 while professor of journalism and communications at Auckland University of Technology.

He developed four award-winning community publications as student training outlets. He pioneered special internships for Pacific students in partnership with media and the University of the South Pacific. He has organised scholarships with the Asia New Zealand Foundation for student journalists to China, Indonesia and the Philippines.

He was founding editor of Pacific Journalism Review journal in 1994 and in 1996 he established the Pacific Media Watch, working as convenor with students to campaign for media freedom in the Pacific.

He has authored 10 books on Asia-Pacific media and politics. Dr Robie co-founded and is deputy chair of the Asia Pacific Media Network/Te Koakoa NGO. 

In an interview with Global Voices last year, Dr Robie praised the support from colleagues and student journalists and said:

“There should be more international reporting about the ‘hidden stories’ of the Pacific such as the unresolved decolonisation issues — Kanaky New Caledonia, ‘French’ Polynesia (Mā’ohi Nui), both from France; and West Papua from Indonesia.

“West Papua, in particular, is virtually ignored by Western media in spite of the ongoing serious human rights violations. This is unconscionable.”

Dr David Robie’s investiture.       Video: Governor-General’s blog

The Media Council of Papua New Guinea (MCPNG) has called on Prime Minister James Marape to stop Telikom PNG silencing and suppressing media personnel.

Telikom PNG, which is 100 percent government-owned, has two key outlets: FM100 radio and EMTV.

Recently, it sacked FM100 talkback host Culligan Tanda after he featured opposition East Sepik Governor Allan Bird on his show, following the most recent vote of no confidence.

• READ MORE: Other PNG media freedom reports

Local media report that Tanda was initially suspended for three weeks without pay on April 22, and subsequently terminated.

MCPNG president Neville Choi said this was just the latest example of media suppression by Telikom PNG going back to 2018.

He said that he himself was sacked in 2019 after EMTV had run a story quoting the former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern saying she would not be riding in one of the PNG government’s luxury Maseratis during an APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting in Port Moresby.

Choi said the story, though correct, was perceived as painting the government of the day in a “negative light”.

‘Free, robust media essential’
He said a “free, robust, and independent media is an essential pillar of democracy”.

“It is the cornerstone of allowing freedom of speech, and freedom of expression.

“Being in a position of power and authority gives no one, especially brown-nosing public servants wanting to score brownie points with the sitting government administration, the right to suppress media workers who are only doing their jobs, and doing it well,” he said.

The council also reminded the management’s of state-owned media organisations, that the Organic Law on the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) defined corrupt conduct by public officials and the dishonest exercising and abuse of official functions.

According to a PNG Haus Bung report, Marape has directed his chief of staff to get to the bottom of the issue.

He has also denied government interference, according to a report by Exeprenuer.

“We don’t get down that low as to editorial content,” Marape was quoted as saying by the the online magazine.

In December, Marape gave “full assurance that my government will not dilute the media’s role.”

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

Reporters Without Borders

The 2025 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has revealed the dire state of the news economy and how it severely threatens newsrooms’ editorial independence and media pluralism.

In light of this alarming situation, RSF has called on public authorities, private actors and regional institutions to commit to a “New Deal for Journalism” by following 11 key recommendations.

The media’s economic fragility has emerged as one of the foremost threats to press freedom.

• READ MORE:  Rabuka salutes Fiji media but warns against taking freedom for granted
• NZ fares well in latest RSF press freedom index as authoritarian regimes stifle Asia-Pacific media
• RSF 2025 World Press Freedom rankings
• RSF World Press Freedom Index 2025: economic fragility a leading threat to press freedom

According to the findings of the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, the overall conditions for practising journalism are poor (categorised as “difficult” or “very serious”) in half of the world’s countries.

When looking at the economic conditions alone, that figure becomes three-quarters.

Concrete commitments are urgently needed to preserve press freedom, uphold the right to reliable information, and lift the media out of the destructive economic spiral endangering their independence and survival.

That is where a New Deal for Journalism comes in.

The 11 RSF recommendations for a New Deal for Journalism:

1. Protect media pluralism through economic regulation
Media outlets are not like other businesses and journalism does not provide services like other industries.

Although most news outlets are private entities, they serve the public interest by ensuring citizens’ access to reliable information, a fundamental pillar of democracy.

Media pluralism must therefore be guaranteed, both at market level and by ensuring individual newsrooms reflect a variety of ideas and viewpoints, regardless of who owns them.

In France (25th), debates around media ownership consolidation — particularly involving the Bolloré Group — have highlighted the risks to media pluralism.

In South Africa (27th), the Competition Commission is considering solutions to mitigate the threats posed by giant online platforms to the pluralism of the digital information space.

RSF 2025 World Press Freedom Index summary.   Video: RSF

2. Adopt the JTI as a common standard
News outlets, tech giants, and governments should embrace the Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI), an international standard for journalism.

More than 2000 media outlets in 119 countries are already engaged in the JTI certification process. Launched by RSF, the JTI acts as a common professional reference that does not judge an outlet’s content but evaluates the processes in its production of information, improving transparency around media ownership and editorial procedures, and promoting trustworthy outlets.

This certification provides a foundation to guide public funding, inform indexing and ranking policies, and enable online platforms and search engines to highlight reliable information while protecting themselves against disinformation campaigns.

3. Establish advertisers’ democratic responsibility
Governments should introduce the principle that companies have a responsibility to help uphold democracy, similar to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Advertisers should be the first to adopt this concept as a priority, as their decision to shift their budgets to online platforms — or, worse, websites that fuel disinformation — makes them partially responsible for the economic decline of journalism.

Advertisers should be encouraged to link their advertising investments to criteria on reliability and journalistic ethics. Aligning advertising strategies with the public interest is vital for fostering a healthy media ecosystem and maintaining democracies.

This notion of a democratic responsibility for companies has notably been promoted by the steering committee of the French General Assembly of Information (États généraux de l’information) and may be included in the bill that will be examined in 2025 by the French National Assembly.

4. Regulate the gatekeepers of online information
Democratic states must require digital platforms to ensure that reliable sources of information are visible to the public and remunerated.

The European Union’s Copyright Directive and Australia’s (29th) News Media Bargaining Code in — the first legislation regulating Google and Facebook — are two examples of legally requiring major platforms to pay for online journalistic content.

Canada (ranked 21st) has undertaken similar reforms but has faced strong resistance, particularly from Meta, which has retaliated by removing news content from its platforms.

To ensure the economic value generated by online journalistic content is fairly distributed, these types of laws must be broadly adopted and their effective implementation must be guaranteed.

Public authorities must also ensure fair negotiations so that media outlets are not crushed by the current imbalance of power between economically fragile news companies and global tech giants.

Lastly, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has made the need for fair remuneration for content creators all the more urgent, as their work is now used to train or feed AI models. This is simply the latest example of why regulation is necessary to protect journalistic content from new forms of technological exploitation.

5. Introduce a tax on tech giants to fund quality information
The goal of introducing such a tax should be to redistribute all or part of the revenue unfairly captured by digital giants to the detriment of the media. The proceeds would be redirected to news media outlets and would finance the production of reliable information.

Several countries have already committed to reforms that tax major digital platforms, but almost none are specifically aimed at supporting the production of quality information from independent sources. 

Indonesia (127th) implemented a tax on foreign digital services, while also requiring platforms to remunerate media outlets for the use of their content starting in 2024. France also established a specific tax on digital companies’ revenues in 2019.

6. Use public development aid to combat news deserts and strengthen reliable information from independent sources
As crises, conflicts and authoritarian regimes multiply, supporting reliable information from independent sources and countering emerging news deserts has never been more important.

Official Development Assistance (ODA) must incorporate support for independent journalism, recognising that it is indispensable not only for economic development but also for strengthening democratic governance and promoting peace.

At least 1 percent of ODA should be allocated to financing independent media outlets in order to guarantee their sustainability.

At a time when certain support mechanisms — such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) — are under threat, commitments from donor states are more crucial than ever.

Australia (ranked 29th) and New Zealand (ranked 16th) are positive examples of this commitment, showing support through regional media development programmes, notably in the Pacific Islands.

7. Encourage the development of hybrid and other innovative funding models
It is essential to develop support mechanisms that combine public funding with private contributions (donations, investments, and loans), such as the IFRUM, a fund proposed by RSF to reconstruct the media in Ukraine (62nd).

To diversify funding sources, states could strengthen tax incentives for investors and broaden the call for donors beyond their own residents and taxpayers.

8. Guarantee transparency and independence in the allocation of media aid
Granting public or private subsidies to the media must be based on objective and transparent criteria that are subject to oversight by civil society. Only clear, equitable aid distribution can safeguard editorial independence and protect media outlets from political interference.

One such legislative solution is the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), which will come into force in 2025 across all European Union member states. It includes transparency requirements for aid distribution, obliges member states to guarantee the editorial independence of newsrooms, and mandates safeguards against political pressure.

Other countries have also established exemplary frameworks, such as Canada (21st), which has implemented a transparent system combining tax credits and subsidies while ensuring editorial independence.

9. Combat the erosion of public service media
Public service media are not state media: they are independent actors, funded by citizens to fulfil a public interest mission. Their role is to guarantee universal access to reliable, diverse information from independent sources, serving social cohesion and democracy.

Financial and political attacks against these outlets — seen in many countries — threaten the public’s access to trustworthy information.

10. Strengthen media literacy and journalism training
Supporting reliable information means that everyone should be trained from an early age to recognise trustworthy information and be involved in media education initiatives. University and higher education programmes in journalism must also be supported, on the condition that they are independent.

Finland (5th) is recognised worldwide for its media education, with media literacy programmes starting in primary school, contributing to greater resilience against disinformation.

11. Encourage nations to join and implement international initiatives, such as the Partnership for Information and Democracy
The International Partnership for Information and Democracy, which promotes a global communication and information space that is free, pluralistic and reliable, already counts more than fifty signatory countries.

RSF stresses that journalism is a vital common good at a time when democracies are faltering.

This New Deal is a call to collectively rebuild the foundations of a free, trustworthy, and pluralistic public space.

Republished by Pacific Media Watch in collaboration with Reporters Without Borders.

After a successful beta-launch this month, PodTalk.live has now called for people to register as foundation members — it’s free to join the post and podcast social platform.

The foundation membership soft-launch is a great opportunity for founders to help shape a brand new, vibrant, algorithm-free, info discussion and debate social platform.

“PodTalk.live has been put to test by selected individuals and we’re pleased to report that it has performed fabulously,” said the the platform developer Selwyn Manning.

• READ MORE: About PodTalk.live

Manning is founder and managing director of the company that custom-developed PodTalk.live — Multimedia Investments Ltd.

MIL is based in Aotearoa New Zealand, where PodTalk.live was developed and is served from.

And now, PodTalk.live has emerged from its beta stage and is ready for foundation members to shape the next phase of its development.

An alternative platform
PodTalk.live was designed to be an alternative platform to other social media platforms.

PodTalk has all the functions that most social media platforms have but has placed the user-experience at the centre of its backend design and engineering.

PodTalk.live has been custom-designed, created and is served from New Zealand.

“We ourselves became annoyed at how social media giants use algorithms to drive what content their users see and experience,” Manning said.

“And, we also were appalled at how some social media companies trade user data, and were unresponsive to user-concerns.

“So we decided to create a platform that focuses on ‘discussion and debate’ communities, and we have engineered PodTalk to ensure the content that users see is what they choose — rather than some obscure algorithm making that decision for them.

“PodTalk.live is independent from other social media platforms, and at best will become an alternative choice for people who seek a community where they are the centre of a platform’s core purpose.

Sign-up invitation
““And today, we invite people to sign up now and become foundation members of this new and ethically-based social community platform,” Manning said.

What PodTalk.live provides includes:

• user profiles with full interactivities with other users and friends;
• user created groups, posts, video, images, polls, and file sharing;
• private and secure one-on-one (and group) messages;
• availability of all the above for entry users with a free membership;
• premium membership for podcasters and event publishers requiring easy to use podcast publication and syndication services; and next-level community engagement tools that users have all on the one platform.

Manning said PodTalk.live was founded on the belief that for social, political and economical progress to occur people needed to discuss issues in a safe environment and embark on robust debate.

• Go to https://PodTalk.Live for more information and to register

President Donald Trump has frozen billions of dollars around the world in aid projects, including more than $268 million allocated by Congress to support independent media and the free flow of information.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has denounced this decision, which has plunged NGOs, media outlets, and journalists doing vital work into chaotic uncertainty — including in the Pacific.

In a statement published on its website, RSF has called for international public and private support to commit to the “sustainability of independent media”.

• READ MORE: What will US aid cuts mean for the Pacific?
• Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze leaves organisations in the Asia-Pacific region scrambling
• Other Pacific media freedom reports

Since the new American president announced the freeze of US foreign aid on January 20, USAID (United States Agency for International Development) has been in turmoil — its website is inaccessible, its X account has been suspended, the agency’s headquarters was closed and employees told to stay home.

South African-born American billionaire Elon Musk, an unelected official, whom Trump chose to lead the quasi-official Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has called USAID a “criminal organisation” and declared: “We’re shutting [it] down.”

Later that day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he was named acting director of the agency, suggesting its operations were being moved to the State Department.

Almost immediately after the freeze went into effect, journalistic organisations around the world — including media groups in the Pacific — that receive American aid funding started reaching out to RSF expressing confusion, chaos, and uncertainty.

Large and smaller media NGOs affected
The affected organisations include large international NGOs that support independent media like the International Fund for Public Interest Media and smaller, individual media outlets serving audiences living under repressive conditions in countries like Iran and Russia.

“The American aid funding freeze is sowing chaos around the world, including in journalism. The programmes that have been frozen provide vital support to projects that strengthen media, transparency, and democracy,” said Clayton Weimers, executive director of RSF USA.

“President Trump justified this order by charging — without evidence — that a so-called ‘foreign aid industry’ is not aligned with US interests.

“The tragic irony is that this measure will create a vacuum that plays into the hands of propagandists and authoritarian states. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appealing to the international public and private funders to commit to the sustainability of independent media.”

USAID programmes support independent media in more than 30 countries, but it is difficult to assess the full extent of the harm done to the global media.

Many organisations are hesitant to draw attention for fear of risking long-term funding or coming under political attacks.

According to a USAID fact sheet which has since been taken offline, in 2023 the agency funded training and support for 6200 journalists, assisted 707 non-state news outlets, and supported 279 media-sector civil society organisations dedicated to strengthening independent media.

Activities halted overnight
The 2025 foreign aid budget included $268,376,000 allocated by Congress to support “independent media and the free flow of information”.

All over the world, media outlets and organisations have had to halt some of their activities overnight.

“We have articles scheduled until the end of January, but after that, if we haven’t found solutions, we won’t be able to publish anymore,” explains a journalist from a Belarusian exiled media outlet who wished to remain anonymous.

In Cameroon, the funding freeze forced DataCameroon, a public interest media outlet based in the economic capital Douala, to put several projects on hold, including one focused on journalist safety and another covering the upcoming presidential election.

An exiled Iranian media outlet that preferred to remain anonymous was forced to suspend collaboration with its staff for three months and slash salaries to a bare minimum to survive.

An exiled Iranian journalist interviewed by RSF warns that the impact of the funding freeze could silence some of the last remaining free voices, creating a vacuum that Iranian state propaganda would inevitably fill.

“Shutting us off will mean that they’ll have more power,” she says.

USAID: the main donor for Ukrainian media
In Ukraine, where 9 out of 10 outlets rely on subsidies and USAID is the primary donor, several local media have already announced the suspension of their activities and are searching for alternative solutions.

“At Slidstvo.Info, 80 percent of our budget is affected,” said Anna Babinets, CEO and co-founder of this independent investigative media outlet based in Kyiv.

The risk of this suspension is that it could open the door to other sources of funding that may seek to alter the editorial line and independence of these media.

“Some media might be shut down or bought by businessmen or oligarchs. I think Russian money will enter the market. And government propaganda will, of course, intensify,” Babinets said.

RSF has already witnessed the direct effects of such propaganda — a fabricated video, falsely branded with the organisation’s logo, claimed that RSF welcomed the suspension of USAID funding for Ukrainian media — a stance RSF has never endorsed.

This is not the first instance of such disinformation.

Finding alternatives quickly
This situation highlights the financial fragility of the sector.

According to Oleh Dereniuha, editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian local media outlet NikVesti, based in Mykolaiv, a city in southeast Ukraine, “The suspension of US funding is just the tip of the iceberg — a key case that illustrates the severity of the situation.”

Since 2024, independent Ukrainian media outlets have found securing financial sustainability nearly impossible due to the decline in donors.

As a result, even minor budget cuts could put these media outlets in a precarious position.

A recent RSF report stressed the need to focus on the economic recovery of the independent Ukrainian media landscape, weakened by the large-scale Russian invasion of February 24, 2022, which RSF’s study estimated to be at least $96 million over three years.

Moreover, beyond the decline in donor support in Ukraine, media outlets are also facing growing threats to their funding and economic models in other countries.

Georgia’s Transparency of Foreign Influence Law — modelled after Russia’s legislation — has put numerous media organisations at risk. The Georgian Prime Minister welcomed the US president’s decision with approval.

This suspension is officially expected to last only 90 days, according to the US government.

However, some, like Katerina Abramova, communications director for leading exiled Russian media outlet Meduza, fear that the reviews of funding contracts could take much longer.

Abramova is anticipating the risk that these funds may be permanently cut off.

“Exiled media are even in a more fragile position than others, as we can’t monetise our audience and the crowdfunding has its limits — especially when donating to Meduza is a crime in Russia,” Abramova stressed.

By abruptly suspending American aid, the United States has made many media outlets and journalists vulnerable, dealing a significant blow to press freedom.

For all the media outlets interviewed by RSF, the priority is to recover and urgently find alternative funding.

Fiji, Pacific media, aid groups reel shocked by cuts
In Suva, Fiji, as Pacific media groups have been reeling from the shock of the aid cuts, Fijivillage News reports that hundreds of local jobs and assistance to marginalised communities are being impacted because Fiji is an AUSAID hub.

According to an USAID staff member speaking on the condition of anonymity, Trump’s decision has affected hundreds of Fijian jobs due to USAID believing in building local capacity.

The staff member said millions of dollars in grants for strengthening climate resilience, the healthcare system, economic growth, and digital connectivity in rural communities were now on hold.

The staff member also said civil society organisations, especially grantees in rural areas that rely on their aid, were at risk.

Pacific Media Watch and Asia Pacific Report collaborate with Reporters Without Borders.

Pacific media commentator and Asia Pacific Report editor David Robie has criticised New Zealand media coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, describing it as “lopsided” in favour of Tel Aviv.

He said New Zealand media was too dependent on American and British news services, which were based in two of the countries most committed to Israel and in denial of the genocide that was happening.

New Zealand media were tending to treat the conflict as “just another war” instead of the reality of a “horrendous” series of massacres with a long-lasting impact on Western credibility and commitment to a global rules-based order.

• READ MORE: Israel’s war on Gaza live: Israel accused of ‘AI-assisted genocide’ in Gaza
• Norman Finkelstein and Chris Hedges discuss Israel, Gaza and the West
• David Robie’s Earthwise interview on the Pacific

Dr Robie was interviewed on Plains FM 96.9 community radio by Earthwise hosts Lois and Martin Griffiths.

Lois asked: “What is happening to Gaza now is a nightmare, very disturbing, or should be, and yet are we, the public, in New Zealand and other countries, are we getting the true picture from journalists?”

Dr Robie replied, “No, we are getting a very sanitised version through our media, particularly in New Zealand, less so in Australia, but it’s pretty bad there . . .”

He explained the reasons for his criticism.

Praise for AJ and TRT coverage
During the half-hour interview, Dr Robie praised television coverage of the “real war” by independent news services such as the Qatar-based Al Jazeera and Turkey-based TRT World News, which have had Arabic-speaking Palestinian journalists on the ground in Gaza throughout the six-month-old war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Al Jazeera this week with closure of the network’s operations in Israel — under the powers of a new law — because of its graphic and uncensored coverage from the besieged enclave.

Al Jazeera called Netanyahu’s attack “slanderous” and managing editor Mohamed Moawad said: “What we are doing is trying to give voice to the voiceless and try and make sure that the suffering of civilians on the ground is heard by the entire world.”

Almost 33,000 Palestinians and more than 75,000 others have been wounded as outrage grows globally following Israel’s strike and killing of seven aid workers in Gaza this week.

Dr Robie is the founding director of the Pacific Media Centre and is pioneering editor of Pacific Journalism Review.

• The earlier Earthwise interview with David Robie on the Pacific is here

Plains FM’s Earthwise talks to journalist David Robie.   Video/Audio: Plains FM

Acclaimed journalist Mehdi Hasan joins Democracy Now! to discuss US media coverage of the Israeli war on Gaza and how the war is a genocide being abetted by the United States.

Hasan says US media is overwhelmingly pro-Israel and fails to convey the truth to audiences.

“Palestinian voices not being on American television or in American print is one of the biggest problems when it comes to our coverage of this conflict,” he says.

• READ MORE: Is­rael army plan to in­vade Gaza’s Rafah ap­proved as Qatar talks to re­sume
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Hasan has just launched a new media company, Zeteo, which he started after the end of his weekly news programme on MSNBC earlier this year.

Hasan’s interviews routinely led to viral segments, including his tough questioning of Israeli government spokesperson Mark Regev, but the cable network announced it was canceling his show in November.

The move drew considerable outrage, with critics slamming MSNBC for effectively silencing one of the most prominent Muslim voices in US media.

Rafah invasion threat
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to threaten a ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza, which human rights groups warn would be a massacre.

President Biden has said such an escalation is a “red line” for him, but Netanyahu has vowed to push ahead anyway.

“Where is the outcry here in the West?” asks Hasan of reports of Israeli war crimes, including the killing of more than 100 journalists in the past five months in Gaza and the blockade of aid from the region.

“It’s a stain on [Biden’s] record, on America’s conscience.”

Transcript:

NERMEEN SHAIKH: The death toll in Gaza has topped 31,300. At least five people were killed on Wednesday when Israel bombed an UNRWA aid distribution center in Rafah — one of the UN agency’s last remaining aid sites in Gaza. The head of UNRWA called the attack a “blatant disregard [of] international humanitarian law”.

This comes as much of Gaza is on the brink of famine as Israel continues to limit the amount of aid allowed into the besieged territory. At least 27 Palestinians have died of starvation, including 23 children.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera has reported six Palestinians were killed in Gaza City when Israeli forces opened fire again on crowds waiting for food aid. More than 80 people were injured.

In other news from Gaza, Politico reports the Biden administration has privately told Israel that the US would support Israel attacking Rafah as long as it did not carry out a large-scale invasion.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we begin today’s show looking at how the US media is covering Israel’s assault on Gaza with the acclaimed TV broadcaster Mehdi Hasan. In January, he announced he was leaving MSNBC after his shows were cancelled. Mehdi was one of the most prominent Muslim voices on American television.

In October, the news outlet Semafor reported MSNBC had reduced the roles of Hasan and two other Muslim broadcasters on the network, Ayman Mohyeldin and Ali Velshi, following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

US Media fails on Gaza, fascism.       Video: Democracy Now!

Then, in November, MSNBC announced it was cancelling Hasan’s show shortly after he conducted this interview with Mark Regev, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This is an excerpt:

MEHDI HASAN: You say Hamas’s numbers — I should point out, just pull up on the screen, in the last two major Gaza conflicts, 2009 and 2014, the Israeli military’s death tolls matched Hamas’s Health Ministry death tolls, so — and the UN, human rights groups all agree that those numbers are credible. But look, your wider point is true.

MARK REGEV: Can I challenge that?

MEHDI HASAN: We shouldn’t —

MARK REGEV: Will you allow me —

MEHDI HASAN: We shouldn’t —

MARK REGEV: — to challenge that, please? Can I just challenge that?

MEHDI HASAN: Briefly, if you can.

MARK REGEV: I’d like to challenge that.

MEHDI HASAN: Briefly.

MARK REGEV: I’ll try to be as brief as you are, sir. Those numbers are provided by Hamas. There’s no independent verification. And secondly, more importantly, you have no idea how many of them are Hamas terrorists, combatants, and how many are civilians. Hamas would have you believe that they’re all civilians, that they’re all children.

And here we have to say something that isn’t said enough. Hamas, until now, we’re destroying their military machine, and with that, we’re eroding their control.

But up until now, they’ve been in control of the Gaza Strip. And as a result, they control all the images coming out of Gaza. Have you seen one picture of a single dead Hamas terrorist in the fighting in Gaza? Not one.

MEHDI HASAN: Yeah, but I have —

MARK REGEV: Is that by accident, or is that —

MEHDI HASAN: But I have, Mark —

MARK REGEV: — because Hamas can control — Hamas can control the information coming out of Gaza?

MEHDI HASAN: Mark, but you asked me a question, and you said you would be brief. I haven’t. You’re right. But I have seen lots of children with my own lying eyes being pulled from the rubble. So —

MARK REGEV: Now, because they’re the pictures Hamas wants you to see. Exactly my point, Mehdi.

MEHDI HASAN: And also because they’re dead, Mark. Also —

MARK REGEV: They’re the pictures Hamas wants — no.

MEHDI HASAN: But they’re also people your government has killed. You accept that, right? You’ve killed children? Or do you deny that?

MARK REGEV: No, I do not. I do not. I do not. First of all, you don’t know how those people died, those children.

MEHDI HASAN: Oh wow.

AMY GOODMAN: “Oh wow,” Mehdi Hasan responded, interviewing Netanyahu adviser Mark Regev on MSNBC. Soon after, MSNBC announced that he was losing his shows. Since leaving the network, Mehdi Hasan has launched a new digital media company named Zeteo.

Mehdi, welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. I want to start with that interview you did with Regev. After, you lost your two shows, soon after. Do you think that’s the reason those shows were cancelled? Interviews like that?

MEHDI HASAN: You would have to ask MSNBC, Amy. And, Amy and Nermeen, thank you for having me on. It’s great to be back here after a few years away. Look, the advantage of not being at MSNBC anymore is I get to come on shows like this and talk to you all. You should get someone from MSNBC on and ask them why they cancelled the shows, because I can’t answer that question. I wish I knew. But there we go.

The shows were cancelled at the end of November. I quit at the beginning of January, because I wanted to have a platform of my own. I couldn’t really spend 2024, one of the most important news years of our lives — genocide in Gaza, fascism at the door here in America with elections — couldn’t really spend that being a guest anchor and a political analyst, which is what I was offered at MSNBC while I was staying there. I wanted to leave. I wanted to get my voice back.

And that’s why I launched my own media company, as you mentioned, called Zeteo, which we’ve done a soft launch on and we’re going to launch properly next month. But I’m excited about all the opportunities ahead, the opportunity to do more interviews like the one I did with Mark Regev.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Mehdi, could you explain Zeteo? First of all, what does it mean? And what is the gap in the US media landscape that you hope to fill? You’ve been extremely critical of the US media’s coverage of Gaza, saying, quite correctly, that the coverage has not been as consistent or clear as the last time we saw an invasion of this kind, though far less brutal, which was the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

MEHDI HASAN: Yeah, it’s a great question. So, on Zeteo, it’s an ancient Greek word, going back to Socrates and Plato, which means to seek out, to search, to inquire for the truth. And at a time when we live in a, some would say, post-truth society — or people on the right are attempting to turn it into a post-truth society — I thought that was an important endeavor to embark upon as a journalist, to go back to our roots.

In terms of why I launch it and the media space, look, there is a gap in the market, first of all, on the left for a company like this one. Not many progressives have pulled off a for-profit, subscription-based business, media business. We’ve seen it on the right, Nermeen, with, you know, Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire and Bari Weiss’s The Free Press, and even Tucker Carlson has launched his own subscription-based platform since leaving Fox.

And on the progressive space, we haven’t really done it. Now, of course, there are wonderful shows like Democracy Now! which are doing important, invaluable journalism on subjects like Gaza, on subjects like the climate. But across the media industry as a whole, sadly, in the US, the massive gap is there are not enough — I don’t know how to put it — bluntly, truth tellers, people who are willing to say — and when I say “truth tellers,” I don’t just mean, you know, truth in a conventional sense of saying what is true and what is false; I’m saying the language in which we talk about what is happening in the world today.

Too many of my colleagues in the media, unfortunately, hide behind lazy euphemisms, a both-sides journalism, the idea that you can’t say Donald Trump is racist because you don’t know what’s in his heart; you can’t say the Republican Party is going full fascist, even as they proclaim that they don’t believe in democracy as we conventionally understand it; we can’t say there’s a genocide in Gaza, even though the International Court of Justice says such a thing is plausible.

You know, we run away from very blunt terms which help us understand world. And I want to treat American consumers of news, global consumers of news — it’s a global news organisation which I’m founding — with some respect. Stop patronising them. Tell them what is happening in the world, in a blunt way.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Mehdi, talk about this. I mean, in your criticism of the US media’s coverage, in particular, of Israel’s assault on Gaza — I mean, of course, you have condemned what happened, the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7. You’ve also situated the attack in a broader historical frame, and you’ve received criticism for doing that.

And in response, you’ve said, “Context is not causation,” and “Context is not justification.” So, could you explain why you think context, history, is so important, and the way in which this question is kind of elided in US media coverage, not just of the Gaza crisis, but especially so now?

MEHDI HASAN: So, I did an interview with Piers Morgan this week. And if you watch Piers Morgan’s shows, he always asks his pro-Palestinian guests or anyone criticising Israel, you know, “Condemn what happened on October 7.” It’s all about October the 7th. And what happened on October 7 was barbarism. It was a tragedy. It was a terror attack. Civilians were killed. War crimes were carried out. Hostages were taken. And we should condemn it. Of course we should, as human beings, if nothing else.

But the world did not begin on October 7. The idea that the entire Middle East conflict, Israel-Palestine, the occupation, apartheid, can be reduced to October 7 is madness. And it’s not just me saying that.

You talk to, you know, leading Israeli peace campaigners, even some leading Israeli generals, people like Shlomo Brom, who talk about having to understand the root causes of a people under occupation fighting for freedom. And it’s absurd to me that in our media industry people should try and run away from context.

My former colleagues Ali Velshi and Ayman Mohyeldin, who Amy mentioned in the introduction, they were on air on October 7 as news was coming in of the attacks, and they provided context, because they’re two anchors who really understand that part of the world.

Ayman Mohyeldin is perhaps the only US anchor who’s ever lived in Gaza. And they came under attack online from certain pro-Israel people for providing context. This idea that we should be embarrassed or ashamed or apologetic as journalists for providing context on one of the biggest stories in the world is madness.

You cannot understand what is happening in the world unless we, unless you and I, unless journalists, broadcasters, are explaining to our viewers and our listeners and our readers why things are happening, where forces are coming from, why people are behaving the way they do. And I know America is a country of amnesiacs, but we cannot keep acting as if the world just began yesterday.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about a piece in The Intercept — you also used to report for The Intercept — the headline, “In internal meeting, Christiane Amanpour confronts CNN brass about ‘double standards’ on Israel coverage”. It’s a really interesting piece. They were confronting the executives, and “One issue that came up,” says The Intercept, “repeatedly is CNN’s longtime process for routing almost all coverage relating to Israel and Palestine through the network’s Jerusalem bureau.

As The Interceptreported in January, “the protocol — which has existed for years but was expanded and rebranded as SecondEyes last summer — slows down reporting on Gaza and filters news about the war through journalists in Jerusalem who operate under the shadow of Israel’s military censor.”

And then it quotes Christiane Amanpour, identified in a recording of that meeting. She said, “You’ve heard from me, you’ve heard my, you know, real distress with SecondEyes — changing copy, double standards, and all the rest,” Amanpour said. The significance of this and what we see, Mehdi? You know, I’m not talking Fox right now. On MSNBC . . .

MEHDI HASAN: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: . . . and on CNN, you rarely see Palestinians interviewed in extended discussions.

MEHDI HASAN: So, I think there’s a few issues there, Amy. Number one, first of all, we should recognise that Christiane Amanpour has done some very excellent coverage of Gaza for CNN in this conflict. She’s had some very powerful interviews and very important guests on. So, credit to Christiane during this conflict. Number two . . .

AMY GOODMAN: International . . .

MEHDI HASAN: . . .  I think US media organisations . . .

AMY GOODMAN: . . .  I just wanted to say, particularly on CNN International, which is often not seen . . .

MEHDI HASAN: Very good point.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: On CNN domestic.

MEHDI HASAN: Very good — very good point, Amy. Touché.

The second point, I would say, is US media organisations, as a whole, are engaging in journalistic malpractice by not informing viewers, listeners, readers that a lot of their coverage out of Israel and the Occupied Territories is coming under the shadow of an Israeli military censor.

How many Americans understand or even know about the Israeli military censor, about how much information is controlled? We barely understand that Western journalists are kept out of Gaza, or if when they go in, they’re embedded with Israeli military forces and limited to what they can say and do.

So I think we should talk about that in a country which kind of prides itself on the First Amendment and free speech and a free press. We should understand the way in which information comes out of the Occupied Territories, in particular from Gaza.

And the third point, I would say, is, yeah, Palestinian voices not being on American television or in American print is one of the biggest problems when it comes to our coverage of this conflict. When we talk about why the media is structurally biased towards one party in this conflict, the more powerful party, the occupier, we have to remember that this is one of the reasons.

Why are Palestinians dehumanised in our media? This is one of the reasons. We don’t let people speak. That’s what leads to dehumanisation. That’s what leads to bias.

We understand it at home when it comes to, for example, Black voices. In recent years, media organisations have tried to take steps to improve diversity on air, when it comes to on-air talent, when it comes to on-air guests, when it comes to balancing panels. We get that we need underrepresented communities to be able to speak. But when it comes to foreign conflicts, we still don’t seem to have made that calculation.

There was a study done a few years ago of op-eds in The New York Times and The Washington Post on the subject of Israel-Palestine from 1970 to, I think it was, 2000-and-something, and it was like 2 percent of all op-eds in the Times and 1 percent in the Post were written by Palestinians, which is a shocking statistic.

We deny these people a voice, and then we wonder why people don’t sympathise with their plight or don’t — aren’t, you know, marching in the street — well, they are marching in the streets — but in bigger numbers. Why America is OK and kind of, you know, blind to the fact that we are complicit in a genocide of these people? Because we don’t hear from these people.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Mehdi, I mean, explain why that’s especially relevant in this instance, because journalists have not been permitted access to Gaza, so there is no reporting going on on the ground that’s being shown here. I mean, dozens and dozens of journalists have signed a letter asking Israel and Egypt to allow journalists access into Gaza. So, if you could talk about that, why it’s especially important to hear from Palestinian voices here?

MEHDI HASAN: Well, for a start, Nermeen, much of the imagery we see on our screens here or in our newspapers are sanitised images. We don’t see the full level of the destruction. And when we try and understand, well, why are young people — why is there such a generational gap when it comes to the polling on Gaza, on ceasefire, why are young people so much more antiwar than their elder peers, part of the reason is that young people are on TikTok or Instagram and seeing a much less sanitised version of this war, of Israel’s bombardment.

They are seeing babies being pulled from the rubble, limbs missing. They are seeing hospitals being — you know, hospitals carrying out procedures without anesthetic. They are seeing just absolute brutality, the kind of stuff that UN humanitarian chiefs are saying we haven’t seen in this world for 50 years.

And that’s the problem, right? If we’re sanitising the coverage, Americans aren’t being told, really, aren’t being informed, are, again, missing context on what is happening on the ground. And, of course, Israel, by keeping Western journalists out, makes it even easier for those images to be blocked, and therefore you have Palestinian — brave Palestinian journalists on the ground trying to film, trying to document their own genocide, streaming it to our phones.

And we’ve seen over a hundred of them killed over the last five months. That is not an accident. That is not a coincidence. Israel wants to stamp out independent voices, stamp out any kind of coverage of its own genocidal behavior.

And therefore, again, you’re able to have a debate in this country where the political debate is completely disconnected to the public debate, and the public debate is completely misinformed. I’m amazed, Nermeen, when you look at the polling, that there’s a majority in favor of a ceasefire, that half of all Democrats say this is a genocide. Americans are saying that to pollsters despite not even getting the full picture. Can you imagine what those numbers would look like if they actually saw what was happening on the ground?

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I want to go to what is unfolding right now in Gaza. You said in a recent interview that in the past Israel was, quote, “mowing the lawn,” but now the Netanyahu government’s intention is to erase the population of Gaza. So let’s go to what Prime Minister Netanyahu said about the invasion of Rafah, saying it would go ahead and would last weeks, not months. He was speaking to Politico on Sunday.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: We’re not going to leave them. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That October 7th doesn’t happen again, never happens again. And to do that, we have to complete the destruction of the Hamas terrorist army. … We’re very close to victory. It’s close at hand.

We’ve destroyed three-quarters of Hamas fighting terrorist battalions, and we’re close to finishing the last part in Rafah, and we’re not going to give it up. … Once we begin the intense action of eradicating the Hamas terrorist battalions in Rafah, it’s a matter of weeks and not months.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Mehdi, your response to what Netanyahu said and what the Israelis have proposed as a safe place for Gazans to go — namely, humanitarian islands?

MEHDI HASAN: So, number one, when you hear Netanyahu speak, Nermeen, doesn’t it remind you of George Bush in kind of 2002, 2003? It’s very — you know, invoking 9/11 to justify every atrocity, claiming that you’re trying to protect the country, when you, yourself, your idiocy and your incompetency, is what led to the attacks. You know, George Bush was unable to prevent 9/11, and then used 9/11 to justify every atrocity, even though his incompetence helped allow 9/11 to happen.

And I feel the same way: Netanyahu allowed the worst terror attack, the worst massacre in Israel to happen on his watch. Many of his own, you know, generals, many of his own people blame him for this. And so, it’s rich to hear him saying, “My aim is to stop this from happening again.” Well, you couldn’t stop it from happening the first time, and now you’re killing innocent Palestinians under the pretence that this is national security.

Number two, again George Bush-like, claiming that the war is nearly done, mission is nearly accomplished, that’s nonsense. No serious observer believes that Hamas is finished or that Israel has won some total victory. A member of Netanyahu’s own war cabinet said recently, “Anyone who says you can absolutely defeat Hamas is telling tall tales, is lying.” That was a colleague of Netanyahu’s, in government, who said that.

And number three, the red line on Rafah that Biden suppposedly set down and that Netanyahu is now mocking, saying, “My own red line is to do the opposite,” what on Earth is Joe Biden doing in allowing Benjamin Netanyahu to humiliate him in this way with this invasion of Rafah, even after he said he opposes it? I mean, it’s one thing to leak stuff . . .

AMY GOODMAN: Mehdi . . .

MEHDI HASAN: . . . over a few months . . .

AMY GOODMAN: . . . let’s go to Biden speaking on MSNBC. He’s being interviewed by your former colleague Jonathan Capehart, as he was being questioned about Benjamin Netanyahu and saying he’s hurting Israel more than helping Israel.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: He has a right to defend Israel, a right to continue to pursue Hamas. But he must, he must, he must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken.

He’s hurting — in my view, he’s hurting Israel more than helping Israel by making the rest of the world — it’s contrary to what Israel stands for. And I think it’s a big mistake. So I want to see a ceasefire.

AMY GOODMAN: And he talked about a, well, kind of a red line. If you can address what Biden is saying and what he proposed in the State of the Union, this pier, to get more aid in, and also the dropping — the airdropping of food, which recently killed five Palestinians because it crushed them to death, and the humanitarian groups, United Nations saying these airdrops, the pier come nowhere near being able to provide the aid that’s needed, at the same time, and the reason they’re doing all of this, is because Israel is using US bombs and artillery to attack the Palestinians and these aid trucks?

MEHDI HASAN: Yeah, it’s just so bizarre, the idea that you could drop bombs, on the one hand, and then drop aid, on the other, and you’re paying for both, and then your aid ends up killing people, too. It’s like some kind of dark Onion headline. It’s just beyond parody. It’s beyond belief.

And as for the pier, as you say, it does not come anywhere near to adequately addressing the needs of the Palestinian people, in terms of the sheer scale of the suffering, half a million people on the brink of famine, over a million people displaced. Four out of five of the hungriest people in the world, according to the World Food Programme, are in Gaza right now.

The idea that this pier would, A, address the scale of the suffering, and, B, in time — I mean, it’s going to take time to do this. What happens to the Palestinians who literally starve to death, including children, while this pier is being built?

Finally, I would say, there’s reporting in the Israeli press, Amy, that I’ve seen that suggests that the pier idea comes from Netanyahu, that the Israeli government are totally fine with this pier, because it allows them still to control land and air access into Gaza, which is what they’ve always controlled and which in this war they’ve monopolised.

The idea that the United States of America, the world’s only superpower, cannot tell its ally, “You know what? We’re going to put aid into Gaza because we want to, and you’re not going to stop us, especially since we’re the ones arming you,” is bizarre.

It’s something I think Biden will never be able to get past or live down. It’s a stain on his record, on America’s conscience. The idea that we’re arming a country that’s engaged in a “plausible genocide,” to quote the ICJ, is bad enough. That we can’t even get our own aid in, while they’re bombing with our bombs, is just madness.

And by the way, it’s also illegal. Under US law, you cannot provide weaponry to a country which is blocking US aid. And by the way, it’s not me saying they’re blocking US aid. US government officials have said, “Yes, the Israeli government blocked us from sending flour in,” for example.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Mehdi, let’s go to the regional response to this assault on Gaza that’s been unfolding with the kind of violence and tens of thousands of deaths of Palestinians, as we’ve reported. Now, what has — how has the Arab and Muslim world responded to what’s going on? Egypt, of course, has repeatedly said that it does not want displaced Palestinians crossing its border. The most powerful Muslim countries, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Emirates, if you can talk about how they’ve responded? And then the Axis — the so-called Axis of Resistance —  Houthis, Hezbollah, etc. — how they have been trying to disrupt this war, or at least make the backers of Israel pay a price for it?

MEHDI HASAN: So, I hear people saying, “Oh, we’re disappointed in the response from the Arab countries.” The problem with the word “disappointment” is it implies you had any expectations to begin with. I certainly didn’t. Arab countries have never had the Palestinians’ backs.

The Arab — quote-unquote, “Arab street” has always been very pro-Palestinian. But the autocratic, the despotic, the dictatorial rulers of much of the Arab world have never really had the interests of the Palestinian people at their heart, going back right to 1948, when, you know, Arab countries attacked Israel to push it into the sea, but, actually, as we know from historians like Avi Shlaim, were not doing that at all, and that some of them, like Jordan, had done deals with Israel behind the scenes.

So, look, Arab countries have never really prioritised the Palestinian people or their needs or their freedom. And so, when you see some of these statements that come out of the Arab world at times like this, you know, you have to take them with a shovel of salt, not just a grain.

Also, I would point out the hypocrisy here on all sides in the region. You have countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which were involved in a brutal assault on Yemen for many years, carried out very similar acts to Israel in Gaza in terms of blockades, starvation, malnourishment of the Yemeni children, in terms of bombing of refugee camps and hospitals and kids and school buses. That all happened in Yemen.

Arab countries did that, let’s just be clear about that, things that they criticise Israel for doing now. And, of course, Iran, which sets itself up as a champion of the Palestinan people, when Bashar al-Assad was killing many of his own people, including Palestinian refugees, in places like the al-Yarmouk refugee camp, Iran and Russia, by the way, were both perfectly happy to help arm and support Assad as he did that.

So, you know, spare me some of the grandiose statements from Middle East countries, from Arab nations to Iran, on all of it. There’s a lot of hypocrisy to go around.

Very few countries in the world, especially in that region, actually have Palestinian interests at heart. If they did, we would have a very different geopolitical scene. There is reporting, Nermeen, that a lot of these governments, like Saudi Arabia, privately are telling Israel, “Finish the job. Get rid of them. We don’t like Hamas, either. Get rid of them,” and that Saudis actually want to do a deal with Israel once this war is over, just as they were on course to do, apparently, according to the Biden administration.

We know that other Arab countries already signed the, quote-unquote, “Abraham Accords” with Israel on Trump’s watch.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about the number of dead Palestinian journalists and also the new UN investigation that just accused Israel of breaking international law over the killing of the Reuters video journalist Issam Abdallah in southern Lebanon. On October 13, an Israeli tank opened fire on him and a group of other journalists. He had just set up a live stream on the border in southern Lebanon, so that all his colleagues at Reuters and others saw him blown up.

The report stated, quote, “The firing at civilians, in this instance clearly identifiable journalists, constitutes a violation of . . .  international law.” And it’s not just Issam in southern Lebanon. Well over 100 Palestinian journalists in Gaza have died. We’ve never seen anything like the concentration of numbers of journalists killed in any other conflict or conflicts combined recently. Can you talk about the lack of outrage of other major news organisations and what Israel is doing here? Do you think they’re being directly targeted, one after another, wearing those well-known “press” flak jackets? It looks like we just lost audio to Mehdi Hasan.

MEHDI HASAN: Amy, I can — I can hear you, Amy, very faintly.

AMY GOODMAN: Oh, OK. So . . .

MEHDI HASAN: I’m going to answer your question, if you can still hear me.

AMY GOODMAN: Great. We can hear you perfectly.

MEHDI HASAN: So, you’re very faint to me. So, while I speak, if someone wants to fix the volume in my ear. Let me answer your question about journalists.

It is an absolute tragedy and a scandal, what has happened to journalists in Gaza, that we have seen so many deaths in Gaza. And the real scandal, Amy, is that Western media, a lot of my colleagues here in the US media, have not sounded the alarm, have not called out Israel for what it’s done. It’s outrageous that so many of our fellow colleagues can be killed in Gaza while reporting, while at home, losing family members, and yet there’s not a huge global outcry.

When Wael al-Dahdouh, who we just saw on the screen, from Al Jazeera, loses his immediate family members and carries on reporting for Al Jazeera Arabic, why is he not on every front page in the world? Why is he not a hero? Why is he not sitting down with Oprah Winfrey?

I feel like, you know, when Evan Gershkovich from The Wall Street Journal is wrongly imprisoned in Russia, we all campaign for Evan to be released. When Ukrainian journalists are killed, we all speak out and are angry about it. But when Palestinian journalists are killed on a level we’ve never seen before, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, where is the outcry here in the West over the killing of them?

We claim to care about a free press. We claim to oppose countries that crack down on a free press, on journalism. We say journalism is not a crime. But then I don’t hear the outrage from my colleagues here at this barbarism in Gaza, where journalists are being killed in record numbers.

This is republished from Democracy Now! under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

The Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA) has joined media freedom groups supporting Julian Assange, an Australian citizen whose unjust prosecution continues to undermine press freedoms and human rights.

In light of recent developments and mounting concerns over Assange’s deteriorating health, JERAA said in a statement it had urged the United States to drop all charges against Assange and facilitate his immediate return to Australia.

Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has been the subject of relentless persecution by the US government for his efforts to expose war crimes and government misconduct.

• READ MORE: Other Julian Assange reports

Assange received a Walkley Award in 2011 for outstanding contribution to journalism through Wikileaks, which included the release of the 2010 “collateral murder” video and the publication of classified US diplomatic cables, shedding light on atrocities committed by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“It is concerning that Assange faces up to 175 years in jail if found guilty of espionage charges — a sentence that would effectively silence whistle-blowers and journalists worldwide,” JERAA said.

The association said it believed that Assange’s indictment set a dangerous precedent and posed a grave threat to the fundamental principles of press freedom and freedom of expression.

‘Enough is enough’
JERAA commended Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for his support in calling for Assange’s release and said it echoed his sentiment that “enough is enough.”

PM Albanese’s recent vote in the federal Parliament for a motion demanding Assange’s return to Australia underscores the legitimacy of our demand. The motion, which received overwhelming support, leaves no room for ambiguity — it is time to bring Assange home.

The WikiLeaks 2010 “collateral damage” video.         Video: Al Jazeera

As the UK High Court prepares to rule on Assange’s appeal against extradition in a two-day hearing next week (February 20-21), and with Prime Minister Albanese’s continued efforts to advocate for Assange’s release, JERAA has urged the US to heed the calls for justice and drop all charges against Assange.

It is imperative that Assange’s rights as an Australian citizen be respected, and that he be afforded the opportunity to return home.

JERAA president Associate Professor Alexandra Wake said that while some members might not agree with all Assange has done in his life, it was clear that his work was central to our “understanding of press freedoms and human rights”.

“JERAA upholds the principles of a free and independent press. It is time to end the trial of global media freedom,” she said.

The Fiji government has announced it will repeal the controversial Media Industry Development Act 2010.

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka said cabinet had approved the tabling of a bill to repeal the Act “as a whole.”

“The decision is pursuant to the People’s Coalition Government’s commitment to the growth and development of a strong and independent news media in the country,” said Rabuka in his post-cabinet meeting update.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji media freedom reports

“It has been said that ‘media freedom and freedom of expression is the oxygen of democracy’,” he said.

“These fundamental freedoms are integral to enable the people to hold their government accountable.

“I am proud to stand here today to make this announcement, which was key to our electoral platform, and a demand that I heard echoed in all parts of the country that I visited,” he added.

The announcement comes just days after Rabuka’s government introduced a new draft legislation to replace the act.

Strongly opposed
The move to replace the 2010 media law with a new one was strongly opposed during public consultations by local journalists and media organisations.

They said there was no need for new legislation to control the media and called for a “total repeal” of the existing regulation.

The country’s Deputy Prime Minister, Manoa Kamikamica, told RNZ Pacific last Friday that there were areas of concern that local stakeholders had raised during the consultation session of the proposed new bill.

“We hear what the industry is saying, we will make some assessments and then make a final decision,” he said.

But Rabuka’s announcement today means that the decision has been made.

RNZ Pacific has contacted the Fijian Media Association for comment.

‘Good decision’ but investment needed
University of the South Pacific head of journalism programme Associate Professor Shailendra Singh said the announcement was expected.

Dr Singh said repealing the punitive legislation was a core election platform promise of the three challenger parties which are now in power.

“This is a good decision because the Fijian media and other stakeholders were not sufficiently consulted when the decree was promulgated in June 2010.”

But he said while getting rid of the media act was welcomed, the coalition was working on a new legislation and “we have to wait and see what that looks like”.

“The media act was dead in the water or redundant before the change in government. The new government could not have implemented it after coming to power, having criticised it and campaigned against it in their election campaign,” he said.

“Repealing the act removes the fear factor prevalent in the sector for nearly 13 years now.”

Dr Singh said the government had committed to the growth and development of a strong news media.

Public good investment
But that, he said, would require more than the repeal of the act.

“[Improving standards] will require some financial investments by the state since media organisations are struggling financially due to the digital disruption followed by covid.”

He said among the many challenges, the media industry was struggling to retain staff.

“So incentives like government scholarships specifically in the media sector could be one way of helping out.

“Media is a public good and like any public good government should invest in it for the benefit of the public.”

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

Papua New Guinea’s draft National Media Development Policy is not intended to give the government power to control the media or to infringe constitutional rights of freedom of expression, an official says.

Department of Information and Communications Technology Secretary Steven Matainaho made this known after saying the government’s intentions were “misinterpreted” by media critics in Papua New Guinea and overseas.

“The draft media policy aims to provide a legislative framework to strengthen the work of the PNG Media Council and enable structural and budget reforms to fund development programmes for the council and universities,” Matainaho said in a statement yesterday.

• READ MORE: PNG government must withdraw ‘media control’ policy, says RSF
• Other PNG draft media policy reports

Matainaho added that the draft policy sought to promote the media industry and “unlock several benefits”, including improving the conditions surrounding the media profession.

He said the council would continue to operate independently of the government, similar to other professions such as law (PNG Law Society), medical (PNG Institute of Doctors), and engineering (Institute of Engineers) professions.

Matainaho said the government was focused on working towards one of its pillars in Vision 2050 on having a “knowledgeable society” and the media policy could help stakeholders work together to achieve that goal.

He said the government through the policy would support the development of a diverse media ecosystem, with a range of independent media outlets that were free to report and disseminate informative contents.

‘Diversity of voices’
“This can help ensure that a diversity of voices and perspectives are represented in the media landscape, which is essential for promoting an informed and engaged citizen,” he said.

“By the government’s input in investing in education and training, promoting media literacy, and supporting a diverse media ecosystem, it can further add value to the creation of a knowledgeable society where citizens are well-informed and engaged in the public sphere,” he said.

Matainaho said the department acknowledged concerns raised by the Community Coalition of Corruption in its press statement last week regarding certain functions proposed to be established in the Department of ICT.

He said the department was currently working to address the concerns in the next draft (second version) and welcomed input from stakeholders to improve the draft policy.

• The draft policy has been strongly condemned by independent Papua New Guinean journalists, the Community Coalition Against Corruption and global media freedom watchdogs such as the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists and the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders.

Republished with permission.

It has been a decade since The Daily Blog (TDB) came into being informing all and sundry of the political machinations in New Zealand.

Run by the Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury it serves the left of politics.

It had almost five million page views in 2022.

• READ MORE:  How NZ’s Public Interest Journalism Fund can help ‘normalise’ diversity
• Other Daily Blog reports

“We had just under five million page views last year,” Bradbury told Asia Pacific Report.

“We have professor Wayne Hope from the AUT School of Communications; we have associate professor Susan St John from Auckland University, who is a poverty campaigner; John Minto who is a well-known political activist; and we have Mike Treen, a union boss.”

And they also have one of the country’s leading left analysts, Chris Trotter.

“We have anywhere between 10 to 20 bloggers,” Bradbury said.

TBD has been one of the go to blogsites for the political left.

“I think the idea when we set it up in 2013 was to provide an alternative commentary on the leftwing of opinion shapers,” he said.

Bradbury, who studied English at Auckland University and became a journalist on the job, believes debate is essential when discussing politics.

“I think we enjoy robust debate,” he said.

Nor does he blindly carry a candle for the leftwing government of the day even though he professes to belongs to the left.

“I think you have to be critical of everyone in power regardless of whether they are on your side or not,” said Bradbury, who was given his moniker “Bomber” by the Auckland University student newspaper Craccum.

“If you are writing commentary about the politics of the day you have to equally scathing for when the left are in, or the right are in, or you don’t have any credibility.

“We (TBD) are able to talk about things that are going on in politics and that is happening 24-48 hours ahead of the mainstream media; so I think people that are hungry to find out what is going on and have better oversight into the New Zealand political system can? So they come to us before you see it turn up in the mainstream media.”

He believes that journalism must be held to account.

“We have an obligation if you are the Fourth Estate to hold the powerful to account and the most powerful is the government of the day,” said Bradbury.

Public Interest Journalism
He said the government must provide for more investment in Public Interest Journalism (PIJ).

PIJ, a programme which started three years ago and is set to be concluded this year, needed to be continued, Bradbury said.

“I think it is a good start for the problem we have always had in New Zealand which is the market driven model, which is audience based advertising. We have always had too small a population to be able to support good journalism.

“But, there needs to be a lot more investment in public journalism for it to work.”

Nor does he see it, as many perceive it, as the government attempting to purchase favours from the media.

“I don’t see it as the government buying the media, I know that is a common critique that is used and brought up, but I don’t see it as black and white as that,” Bradbury said.

“We need to have public money go into journalism and there needs to be better checks and balances as to how that money is getting out there.

“There is a problem there, but overall I think that you can’t get a well-funded Fourth Estate that critiques the government of the day without having the state invested in that.”

He is advocating for a campaign to promote the benefits of better public interest journalism.

“We need a public service campaign similar to the one we have on our beaches where we have the ‘swim between the flags’ mantra.

“There has to be more public journalism funding to a vastly different group of media players and, by getting that funding they are able to show a little flag and we have a public campaign where we talk about ‘reading between the flags,’ so they know what they are reading is accurate and true.”

TVNZ-RNZ merger
Although the government has now shelved the TVNZ-RNZ merger after five years of work and many millions of dollars, Bradbury said it was only needed to see what was happening out in the public to realise people did not trust mainstream media.

“I think that the reason why we should have the merger is because we need to have a baseline public broadcasting that people can trust,” Bradbury said.

“We have all seen with real horror what happens when a large chunk of your population no longer believes certain agreed truths and we saw that on Parliament lawns last year.

“It is important to have public broadcasting that is trusted and believed because if we don’t have that it is very difficult to find common ground.

The emergence of rightwing radio — The Platform
“What we are seeing is the fracturing of the media world in New Zealand, and there are people who don’t believe in mainstream media anymore; people who have moved away from it and are searching out their own news,” Bradbury said.

“That’s fine as long as those media that are operating adhere to the basic values of journalism and stick to them.”

Jacinda Ardern
In the TBD Bradbury shared an excerpt from a podcast from TDB’s The Working Group which was rated as the best podcast in New Zealand in August last year by the Sunday Star-Times.

Bradbury related a story from January 24 the week that former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had to endure:

“Matt McCarten tells us a story of how at the end of last year, Jacinda and [her preschool daughter] Neve went out for a coffee with a friend of theirs at a cafe just in their private capacity. The way any mum with their daughter does every weekend.

“However, when Jacinda and their friend and Neve had settled down at a table, two people walked into the cafe after learning of Jacinda being in there, and started screaming at Jacinda and Neve telling them how they intended to hurt and kill Neve and Jacinda.”

“No mother should have feral lunatics screaming death threats at them and their child in a cafe.”

— TDB’s The Working Group

The TDB Working Group of 24 January 2023, Matt McCarten at 41m 46s.

“No doubt there was a tsunami of vileness that I don’t think I have seen in my political life that hit Jacinda,” said Bradbury.

“There was danger with forcing her out the way the angry right activists did, but the danger for them was that it was going create a backlash from the political swing voters who are 50+ female, tertiary educated.

“They would have seen the way Jacinda was forced out and they would have been quite angry with that; and we saw that in the first polls which saw Labour jump back up into the lead was a result of a political backlash.”

Radical social media
With the fracturing of media there has now developed radicalism on social media.
“Now we have a level of radicalism at play within social media,” Bradbury said.

“There are some strident leftwing voices and we’ve certainly seen some middle class identity politics and their de-platforming campaign; and we also have very extreme rightwing bloggers who are taking the debate in a very conspiratorial place which is very dangerous and polarising to the political debate in this country.

“We need healthy debate, but is it healthy when people in that debate have nothing but malice and spite to trade and are actually creating problems and not providing any solutions.”

Journalism
Bradbury believes journalism is at a crossroads but its principles must be upheld.

“Journalism is one of the most important careers in a democracy right now, and I bring it back to the misinformation and disinformation we have seen on so many online formats,” Bradbury said of the covid-19 pandemic years.

“If you can’t trust the material you’re reading, and if you have a citizenship that doesn’t know what is true anymore, then the basic standard of your democracy, the entire foundation that we are built on crumbles.

“So journalism is as important now than ever before.

“This is why we need a strong public service, this is no longer a nice-to-have, because I believe journalism is under so much threat because the alternative is voters who don’t know what is real and what is not.”

Roll on the election on October 14 and once again TBD will be at the forefront.

As a postscript, Bradbury was asked how was TBD faring financially.

He laughed before offering: “We get by, we are here for this election, we’ve been around for 10 years and I am always surprised that there is still a need for it.

“I’ll keep blogging as long as there is a readership for it.”

Sri Krishnamuthi is an independent journalist, former editor of the Pacific Media Watch project at the Pacific Media Centre and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

The first media freedom advocacy group has formed in the Marshall Islands. Organisers this week were in the initial phase of outreach to launch the Pacific Media Institute, which was incorporated last month as a non-profit organisation.

Despite a small but robust independent news media in the Marshall Islands, there has never been an advocacy group for media freedom in this nation.

“If ever there was a ‘right time’ to form an advocacy organisation for freedom of expression and transparency in government, now is it,” said Marshall Islands Journal editor Giff Johnson, one of the founding members of the institute.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific media freedom reports

“Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine is a prime example of a violation of a sovereign, independent democracy that undermines the rule of law.

“Moreover, we watch as Russia suppresses access to independent media at home to prevent its citizens from knowing what is happening in the Ukraine and the world’s reaction to the invasion.”

Founders of PMI said closer to home, there were indications of democracy and media freedoms eroding in island nations that banned visits by foreign independent media and attempted to restrict their own media and freedom of expression by their citizens.

“We are fortunate in the Marshall Islands to have clear free speech rights enshrined in the Constitution and to have had governments for decades that respect this essential element of democracy,” Johnson added.

Freedoms ‘cannot be taken for granted’
“But these freedoms here and in the region should not be taken for granted. We need to celebrate them where they exist, strengthen them where we can, and advocate for them where they don’t.”

A growing concern is the increasingly active presence in the islands of governments outside the region that do not support media freedom and transparency in government operations at home and bring this philosophy with them into the region, he said.

The PMI is a joint effort of three people in independent media in the Marshall Islands.

Joining Johnson as co-founders of PMI are Daniel Kramer, CEO of Six9Too Productions and Power 103.5FM, and Fred J. Pedro, a long-time broadcaster and talk show host.

They said PMI hoped to promote independent media and transparency in government in the Marshall Islands as well as neighbouring nations.

The purpose of the new non-profit organisation is to:

• Advocate for and engage in media freedom and freedom of expression;

• Promote transparency and accountability in government;

• Support expansion of independent, non-government media; and

• Promote training and other initiatives to increase the number and skills of people working in media and the quality of reporting in the Marshall Islands and regionally.

‘Watershed moment’
Veteran Pacific islands journalist Floyd K. Takeuchi said: “This is a watershed moment in the history of independent journalism in the Western Pacific.

“And what better country to see a media freedom group organized than the Marshall Islands, which for more than half a century has shown how democratic values, chiefly and cultural traditions, and a free press can comfortably coexist.”

PMI has already reached out to Takeuchi and other journalists with extensive experience in the region to collaborate on proposed training for media and outreach dialogues with top-level government authorities in the initial phase of the organisation.

“We want to see more young people take up careers in media in the future,” said Kramer.

“We hope that PMI can help interest young people in media careers through training and other opportunities that our new group plans to offer for journalists here and in the island region.”

Kramer’s Six9Too Productions has established an ongoing record of collaboration among musicians from the Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands and Polynesian countries that have produced hit songs and music videos.

He said PMI hoped to see this type of collaboration among working journalists here and in the region to bolster reporting skills and media freedom in general.

The PMI founders said they were hopeful that countries internationally that supported media freedom, democracy and transparency in government would be supportive of PMI training and other initiatives.

“We want to start tapping opportunities for synergy among working journalists in the Marshall Islands and in other Pacific islands through collaborative training programs and reporting initiatives,” said Johnson.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor about Russian strikes on four radio and TV towers in Ukraine since March 1 that constitute a war crime.

The strikes have prevented Ukrainian media from broadcasting. At least 32 TV channels and several dozen radio stations have been affected, reports the Paris-based global media freedom watchdog.

Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, it has deliberately targeted TV antennae throughout the country.

• READ MORE: Other reports on the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Under international law, antennae used for broadcasting radio and TV signals cannot be regarded as legitimate military targets unless they are used by the armed forces, or are temporarily assigned to military use, or are used for both civilian and military purposes at the same time.

RSF’s complaint demonstrates that the TV towers were civilian in nature, and that Russia deliberately targeted Ukrainian media installations because, Russia said, these installations were participating in “information attacks”.

The complaint filed by RSF emphasises the intentional nature of these attacks, and the fact that they are being carried out on a large scale, which shows that they are part of a deliberate plan.

“Deliberately bombarding many media installations such as television antennae constitutes a war crime and demonstrates the scale of the offensive launched by Putin against the right to news and information,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

Plea on crimes against media
“These crimes are all the more serious for clearly being part of a plan, part of a policy, and for being carried out on a large scale. We call on the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor to put crimes against media and journalists at the heart of the investigation he opened on February 28.”

The ICC’s chief prosecutor announced on February 28 that he was opening an investigation into the situation in Ukraine.

On March 2, 39 countries that are parties to the Rome Statute (the treaty establishing the ICC) formally referred the situation in Ukraine to the prosecutor.

These referrals allow him to begin his investigations at once, without having to seek authorisation from the court’s judges first.

After Kyiv being fired on by the Russian armed forces for the previous week, the city’s TV tower was hit by a precision strike on March 1 that abruptly terminated broadcasting by 32 TV channels and several dozen national radio stations.

This deliberate strike had been announced in advance by the Russian Defence Ministry. Under the guise of protecting civilians, the Defence Ministry issued a signed confession to its crimes.

The Kyiv TV tower — which had an adjoining technical building that was destroyed by the bombardment — had no military use and was used only by civilian TV and radio stations, such as the public TV channel UA Pershiy, the privately-owned TV channel 1+1 and the TV news channel Ukraine 24.

Broadcasts were cut short
The viewers and listeners of these media outlets, whose broadcasts were cut short by the Russian strike, had to switch to satellite operators or go online to access their programming until broadcasting was reinstated later in the day.

The Russian strike killed Evgeny Sakun, a cameraman working for the Kyiv Live local TV channel who was at the TV tower, and four other people.

Since that first major attack on an essential installation for accessing news and information, Russia has attacked other TV towers.

According to the information obtained by RSF and its local partner IMI, at least three other radio and TV towers, in Korosten, Lysychansk and Kharkiv, have been the targets of Russian strikes, and two radio antennae, in Melitopol and Kherson, stopped broadcasting after Russian soldiers took control of those cities.

Strikes targeted the TV tower in the city of Lysychansk (in the Luhansk region, whose independence Russia has recognised) late in the morning of March 2. The radio and TV tower in the northeastern city Kharkiv was targeted by two Russian missiles shortly before 1 pm, causing its broadcast to be suspended.

Later the same day, another strike destroyed the TV tower in the norther city of Korosten.

These strikes against telecommunications antennae show a clear intention by the Russian armed forces to prevent the dissemination of news and information. The warning issued shortly before the attacks makes it clear that Russian military want to end what they call “information attacks”.

This desire is confirmed by the fact that the Russian army has cut Ukrainian TV and radio signals in several cities after taking control of them. In the southern region that Russia has invaded from Crimea, the occupation forces have blocked Ukrainian TV and radio broadcasts from the telecommunication towers in the cities of Melitopol and Kherson.

Russian ‘fake news’ law cripples media
The equipment on these towers has been changed and they are now broadcasting the pro-Kremlin propaganda channel Russia 24.

The satellite signal of UA Pershiy, a TV channel owned by the Ukrainian public broadcasting corporation Suspline, is meanwhile being subjected to jamming attempts by Russia, and its website was hacked on March 1.

Meanwhile, RSF has called on the Russian authorities to immediately repeal a draconian law adopted on March 4 that makes the publication of “false” or “mendacious” information about the Russian armed forces punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

It leaves little hope for the future of the country’s few remaining independent media outlets.

• Читать на русском / Read in Russian

Many leading foreign media — including the BBC, CNN, Bloomberg News, ABC, CBS News and Canada’s CBC/Radio-Canada — have decided to temporarily suspend broadcasting or news gathering in Russia since the amendment, which applies to foreign as well as Russian citizens, was signed into law by President Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine is ranked 97th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index, while Russia is ranked 150th.

Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

October 2021 was a horror month for Facebook as the headlines screamed “Facebook under fire” which started with the social media behemoth suffering an outage for several hours.

Then it had a whistleblower — American data scientist Francis Haugen — who accused the company of:

• prioritising growth over user safety;
• bowing to the will of state censors in some countries;
• allowing hate speech to burgeon in other countries;
• ignoring fake accounts that may influence voters and undermine elections;
• allowing the antivaccine message to proliferate; and
• having algorithms that fuel noxious behaviour online.

Add to that, a major impending problem of capturing a young audience who are flocking elsewhere and turning their backs on the oldest social media platform which was founded in 2004 by Harvard students Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.

• READ MORE: Facebook profits top $9bn amid whistleblower revelations
• Other Pacific Newsroom reports
• The Pacific Newsroom

Even so, its success as the leading platform is undeniable with it announcing a $9 billion quarterly profit in October with a massive 3 billion users.

It was the access to smartphones when they were offered in the Pacific and technology that drove Facebook’s popularity to largely receptive devotees. The uptake of the social media platform in French Polynesia (72.1 percent penetration by 2020), Fiji (68.2 percent, Guam (87.8 percent), Niue (91.7 percent), Samoa (67.2 percent) and Tonga (62.3 percent) made it a no-brainer for Sue Ahearn, founder of the highly credible The Pacific Newsroom page to use the platform.

Measured success
The success of The Pacific Newsroom page can be measured by the site garnering in excess of 40,500 members most of who can participate actively by contributing to the page.

Ahearn is no stranger to the Asia-Pacific region. An Australian journalist for more than 40 years, 25 at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), who originally hails from Martinborough in New Zealand, she was drawn to set up the page primarily because of misinformation that tends to flourish in the Pacific news.

“It came to me about four years ago when the ABC cut back on all of its coverage of the Pacific, and I could see there was a big gap there,” she says.

“The ABC was only providing a small service and there was a lack of interest in most of the Australian media. You could see the technology was changing, how the information was flowing from the region was changing.’’

The apathy for a thirst for Pacific knowledge has had a profound effect on insularity in the media, especially in Australia and New Zealand, although the Public Interest Journalism Fund is attempting to address that in some way in New Zealand.

“I wish I knew, Sean Dorney, Jemima Garrett and all of the Pacific journalists just can’t fathom why is there so little interest in our region among the Australian media,’’ says Ahearn.

“It doesn’t make sense. There tends to be three or four journalists that cover the region and try to convince news outlets to run their stories or send reporters, and that has become very difficult.”

Only Pacific correspondent based in Pacific
Natalie Whiting of the ABC and the recipient of the Dorney-Walkley Foundation grant 2021 is the only journalist from Australasia who is based in the Pacific. She is stationed in the Papua New Guinean capital of Port Moresby.

“In New Zealand, that’s not a problem and New Zealand does good coverage of the Pacific. New Zealand has a much closer relationship with the Pacific,” Ahearn says.

However, Michael Field in Auckland, a page administrator and a veteran of the Pacific who went to journalism school with Ahearn, had qualms about the coverage out of New Zealand.

“The thing that really bugs me is that only Radio New Zealand (RNZ) seems to be doing Pacific news. For example, you’d pick up the (New) Herald and see who’s covering the hurricane out in Fiji only to see it is a re-run of a RNZ story,” says Field.

“It bothers me. The Herald should have had a different angle on the story, RNZ a different angle, The Dominion Post would be different and there would be work for stringers in the Pacific. Now that is not the case because RNZ takes up everybody else’s work and runs it that way,

“I guess that is the reality of it now, but it seems the voice of the Pacific these days is state radio.

“Call me old fashioned, but I’d be too embarrassed to run a story quoting another media organisation, and if you had to do it you’d do it grudgingly. We are starting to fail in the coverage of the region,” he says.

Success stirs amazement
The success and growth of The Pacific Newsroom as an organic, quasi news agency akin to Reuters, Agence France Press (AFP) or Australian Associated Press (AAP) in a tiny way, has caught Ahearn by amazement.

“I am surprised because we have a lot of engagement, some stories get 80,000 or 90,000 engagements so there is a lot of interest in it, and I think it fills a huge niche.

She speaks about the talanoa concept of The Pacific Newsroom.

“It’s like a town square where people can meet, share stories and talk about what is happening. Michael (Field) and I spend an enormous time on this project and we’re basically volunteers, we’re not being paid or making any money from it,” she says.

Nor would she entertain the thought of applying for funding either in New Zealand or Australia, preferring instead to maintain their editorial independence.

“Mike and I have discussed this, and we think one of the main attractions of our site is it is not monetised, that it is a voluntary site, there are no advertisements on it, we try and keep it independent, and we are both at the stage in our lives where we’re not working fulltime in the media,” Ahearn says.

“We’ve got time to spend doing this as a public interest, we really enjoy doing it too, it’s a lot of fun.

Many great stories
“There are so many great stories in the Pacific that need to be amplified to the world.

“Things are happening with technology and it’s giving a much stronger voice to the Pacific whether it’s on climate change or fishing or other important issues and that is why it is going to get stronger and stronger,” Ahearn says.

Among the stories that gained the site momentum was the University of the South Pacific (USP) having its vice-chancellor and president Professor Pal Ahluwalia at the centre of controversy during his first term when Fiji government and educational officials tried to oust him from office in the so-called USP saga, eventually unceremoniously deporting him in a move widely condemned around the Pacific.

“The big story which moved us along was the USP saga last year, for quite political reasons which had to do with the players, we were leaked all the reports and people could see if it got a certain amount of information on Pacific Newsroom that things might happen, and it did,” Field says.

“More recently we’ve had the same with the Samoan elections where a number of players wanted to be interviewed directly; the former Prime Minister (Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi) seemed to have some misinformed view that we are more powerful than we are. We cope with that so it is constantly moving thing.”

Another worrying development were the libel laws in Australia where last month the court ruled publishers to be liable for defamatory comments.

“The libel laws, it’s another tension and another thing we’ve got to watch. We watch it like a hawk (as moderators) and that is not to characterise the particular audience we’ve got,” Field says.

‘Shooting your mouth off’
“Shooting your mouth off seems to be regarded in much of the Pacific as a God-given right — ‘why you trying to stop me from saying this’, we just delete people now. We tried saying to people right at the beginning we didn’t need expletives, swear words and all that stuff, and we were going to take them down.

“It is learning experience, moderating a site like Pacific Newsroom can be hard, depressing work and sometimes there’s a lot of people that sort of feel they have to say something even though it is a complete nonsense, and it is hard yakka that sort of stuff,’’ Field says.

On the flip side of it were the tangible rewards that make it all worthwhile.

“I can remember one particular point where we were tracking a superyacht that was tripping around Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga; there were people from quite remote village areas of these countries that would send us pictures saying, ‘here is a picture of the yacht that has just passed my village ‘. Whereas back in the day you tried to get a shortwave radio operator to tell you what happened three weeks after the event.

“The Pacific is now full of people with smartphones and with good connections so we can cover everything in the Pacific,” Field says.

As for the credibility of the site, Field declined an approach from a major mainstream New Zealand media company that sought copyright and permission to use the material that was published.

Then there was the young journalist from another mainstream media company who asked Field for a contact in relation to a Vanuatu story, telling Field that they all shared their contacts in the newsroom. Needless to say, he went away disappointed and empty-handed.

Ancient settler societies
Just how well The Pacific Newsroom is regarded in the Pacific is summed up eloquently by history associate professor Morgan Tuimaleali’ifano of the USP who tells it with a Pacific panache.

“Apart from Australia, New Zealand, Tokelau, Hawai’i, Guam, American Samoa, West Papua, Rapanui, and the French territories (New Caledonia, Uvea and Futuna, Tahiti), the nature of independent and self-governing Pacific societies is that they are ancient settler societies steeped in conservatism,” Tuimaleali’ifano says.

“While their constitutions have absorbed Western influences, imperial laws, Christianity, fundamental freedoms/rights, monetary capitalism, they remain steeped in ancient systems of governance based largely on hereditary hierarchies.

“Two worlds co-exist with the constitutional democratic model heavily influenced by kinship patterns of thought and behaviour. Within kinship hierarchies, there exists diverse governance structures and no two villages share the exact governing structure,” he says.

“Equally important are the constitutions and parliamentary legislation. These law-making institutions together with the judiciary are constantly evolving as they must with changing circumstances and best practices.

“It is within these social dynamics that journalism provides the Fourth or Fifth Estate to maintain an even keel on the Pacific’s growth as a viable region of nation-states.

“The Pacific Newsroom plays a vital role, of mirroring the changing Pasifika people needs and commenting on sensitive matters that many may find unsavoury difficult and overwhelming to articulate within ultra-conservative societies.

‘Without fear or favour’
“Without fear or favour, The Pacific Newsroom and its sister networks provide a critical service for a multi-faceted Pasifika struggling to reconcile and reshape a new consciousness for Pasifika.

“These include the enduring issues of regional identity and solidarity and unity within the context of relentless ideological and geopolitical power plays.”

As associate professor and head of journalism at USP Shailendra Singh in Suva, who continues to strive to keep his students well abreast in journalism under draconian media laws in Fiji, says:

“It is indeed a success story, due to a large following, because of media restrictions in Fiji. Users from Fiji especially feel more comfortable expressing themselves on this page.

“The page is prudently and professionally moderated, so it is respectable. The page uses information from credible news sources. (Independent sources like Bob Howarth on Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste; former Vanuatu Daily Post publisher Dan McGarry; current Pacific Island Times publisher Mar-Vic Cagurangan; and photojournalist Ben Bohane, until he returned to Australia from Vanuatu; as well as David Robie‘s Asia-Pacific Report which is a huge contributor to the page).

“I promote USP journalism students’ work on Pacific Newsroom. It is exemplary of how Facebook can support democracy.”

A vital source of information in the covid era. You get a cross-section of news and views on one platform. It is definitely the most popular virtual “kava bar” in the Pacific.

• Browse The Pacific Newsroom

The Pacific Newsroom – the virtual ‘kava bar’ news success story #ThePacificNewsroom #AsiaPacificReport @shrek45 #mediafreedom #independentmedia @RSF_inter @RSF_AsiaPacific @sueahearn @MichaelFieldNZ @ShailendraBSing @wansolwara @USPWansolwara https://t.co/9m7DJ0DUq6 pic.twitter.com/QIJUlvsbFu

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) November 5, 2021

• READ MORE: How NZ’s Public Interest Journalism Fund can help ‘normalise’ diversity (Part 1)
• Perceptions over NZ’s public interest journalism project – saint or sinner? (Part 2)
• Public Interest Journalism Fund

Goal 3: The PIJF says: “Actively promote the principles of Partnership, Participation and Active Protection under Te Tiriti o Waitangi acknowledging Māori as a Te Tiriti partner.”

The military’s brutality is a daily reality for all the people of Myanmar. As Myanmar’s army prepares to deploy and reinforce its bases with hundreds of extra troops, the country’s media workers remain exposed to Covid-19 and under extreme threat, writes Phil Thornton.

Myanmar’s military leaders used its armed forces to launch its coup and take control of the country from its elected government on 1 February 2021. In protest, millions of people took to the streets.

The military responded to these protests by sending armed soldiers and police into residential areas to arrest defiant civilians, workers, students, doctors and nurses.

In March, martial law was enforced in Yangon, snipers were used, and protesters were shot on sight.

• READ MORE: Other Myanmar coup articles

To restrict news coverage of their crimes and to impede the organisatiojn of protests, the military ordered telecommunication companies to restrict internet and mobile phone coverage. Independent media outlets had their licences withdrawn, offices were raided and trashed.

Journalists were targeted and hunted by soldiers and police. Obscure laws were added to the penal code and used to restrict freedom of speech and expression. State-controlled media published pages of arrest warrants and photographs of the wanted, including journalists.

To avoid arrest, independent journalists went underground or sought refuge with border based ethnic armed organisations.

Myanmar journalists are well aware that being “arrested” and held in detention by the military doesn’t come with respect for their legal or human rights. The military uses a wide range of obscure laws, some dating back to colonial times, to detain, intimidate and silence its critics — academics, medics, journalists, students and workers.

95 journalists arrested
Independent website, Reporting ASEAN, recorded that, as of August 18, 95 journalists had been arrested and 42 were being held in detention.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) estimated by August 29 that the military has now killed at least 1026 people, arrested 7627, issued warrants for 1984 and are still holding 6025 in detention.

They want names
Those arrested are taken to interrogation centres and held indefinitely without contact with family or legal representation. Torture is used to extort names and contacts from the detained to be added to the military’s long list of those to be hunted down and suppressed into silence.

One of those names on the military’s wanted list is that of journalist Nyan Linn Htet, now in hiding, after a warrant under Section 505 (a) was issued for his arrest.

Nyan Linn Htet, managing editor of Mekong News, in an interview with the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) explains the impact of being hunted has had on both him and his family.

“If I’m arrested it means I lose everything. When we had to run and go into hiding, we lost our home and our possessions. You lose your income. Your equipment. You never feel safe when hiding. Living like this affects all of us. If the military does not find me, they will pressure and threaten my family with arrest.”

Nyan Linn Htet said he is still working despite the risk of arrest.

“Losing a journalist is a big loss for our struggle for democracy. We’re only doing our job as reporters, but our news coverage exposes the military and its abuses – this is why we’re the enemy.”

Despite the danger to him and his family, Nyan Linn Htet worries about the safety of those who helped him avoid arrest.

‘Caught in hiding’
“If I’m caught in hiding, the SAC (military-appointed State Administration Council) will persecute the people who gave me a place to live. I’m afraid they [the military] will arrest those who helped me.”

His fears are well founded.

Journalist and political analyst Sithu Aung Myint was high on the military’s wanted list for his political commentary and published opposition to the coup.

On Sunday, August 15, the military raided the home of his colleague, BBC freelance producer, Htet Htet Khine, and arrested both of them.

A week later, in its Sunday, August 21, edition, the military-run newspaper, Global New Light of Myanmar, said Sithu Aung Myint had been charged with sedition, spreading “fake news” and being critical of the military coup leaders and its State Administration Council under Sections 505 (a) and 124 (a) of the Penal Code.

He could be sentenced to life in jail under Section 124 (a) of the penal code.

Htet Htet Khine was arrested for giving shelter to Sithu Aung Myint, and charged under section 17(1) of the Unlawful Association Act for working with the recently formed National Union Government’s radio station, Federal FM.

Held in interrogation centre
Friends and colleagues of Sithu Aung Myint and Htet Htet Khine told IFJ they are concerned both journalists were held at an interrogation centre for more than a week before having access to either legal help or contact with colleagues or family.

Nyan Linn Htet told IFJ he is aware his legal and human rights will not be respected if he is arrested.

“They will not let us get legal help until they’ve got what they want from us. The military amended 505 (a) of the Penal Code to prevent giving us bail. We know they will jail us even if we have legal representation.

“We know SAC is torturing journalists because of the work we do.”

Reports by local and international humanitarian groups have detailed the severe beatings — hours of maintaining stressed positions, use of sexual violence — and killing of people while held in detention.

Nyan Linn Htet said if arrested, he knows it will come with beatings. He admits that the thought of being tortured keeps him awake at night.

“They will jail me, but only after they torture me. I will not be released until I sign a statement that I will never criticise them. I’m not afraid of being arrested, but torture scares me. There are nights when I’m too afraid to sleep.”

International media drop Myanmar
He and other local journalists told the IFJ it was disappointing that international media has dropped Myanmar from its news agenda and moved on to cover other stories.

Nyan Linn Htets said despite access difficulties, the international media can use local reporters who are willing to help.

“We know the difficulties media has getting ground access to Myanmar. Covid-19 restrictions also make it impossible to legally cross borders from neighboring countries, but we are already here in the country and are capable of doing the job.”

Despite the fear of arrest and torture, he is still reporting and urged local journalists to keep doing the same.

“It’s important we use what we can to still work and report news events of interest to people. People are accessing news and information in many different ways now.”

The military, while trashing local and international laws and ignoring its constitution, is quick to use and amend laws to jail its opponents for being critical of the coup and for reporting military violence, abuse and corruption.

We have no rights
Nan Paw Gay, editor-in-chief at the Karen Information Center, says the military council has no respect for journalists or their right to publish information in the public interest.

“There is no freedom of the press. If journalists try to report news or seek information from the military’s opponents — CRPH, NUG, CDM, G-Z and PDF — the State Administration Council prosecutes them under Section 17/1 of the Illegal Association Act.

“Since the military launched its coup, sources we use have had their freedom of speech and expression made illegal and they now risk arrest for talking to us and… we can be arrested for speaking with them.

“Independent media groups have been outlawed and totally lost their right to speak freely or write about news events.”

Nan Paw Gay points out if journalists are “critical of the military, its appointed State Administration Council or its lack of a public health plan to tackle the covid-19 pandemic now ravaging the country, section 505 (a) is used to arrest journalists for spreading false news.”

Essentially torture is used to terrorise journalists, he says.

“When the military council arrests and detains journalists, the torture is both physical and psychological. Even before being detained threats are issued and then during the arrest the violence becomes real – shootings, people being kicked and dragged from homes by their hair and beaten.”

Women journalists tortured
Nan Paw Gay says women journalists are more likely to be “tortured using psychological abuse – kept in a dark room and constantly told that they will be killed tomorrow – to mess and generate fear with their thoughts. You can see the effects of the tortured on some journalists when they appear in court – shaking hands and body spasms.”

Military brutality is a daily reality for Myanmar’s people. At the time of writing, the army is preparing to deploy and reinforce its bases with hundreds of extra troops into areas of the Karen National Union-controlled territory and where anti-coup protesters, striking doctors and politicians have been offered refuge and safety.

A senior ethnic Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) soldier told the IFJ that army drones and helicopters have been surveying the area in recent months.

“We know they’ve sent munitions and large troop numbers to our area… last time we had drones flying over our area, they later attacked villages and our positions with airstrikes. They’re already fighting in our Brigade 5 and 1 and have started in 6 and 2.”

Since the military launched its coup on February 1, there has been at least 500 armed battles between the KNU and the military regime and 70,000 Karen civilians have been displaced and are hiding in makeshift camps as a direct result of these attacks.

Fighter jets have flown into Karen National Union-controlled areas 27 times and dropped at least 47 bombs, killing 14 civilians and wounding 28.

Naw K’nyaw Paw, general secretary of the Karen Women Organisation, in an interview with Karen News, said villagers displaced by the Myanmar Army attacks are now in desperate need of humanitarian aid.

‘Shoot at villagers’
“They shoot at villagers if they see them on their farms, burning down their rice barns and killing the livestock left behind. The Burma Army also arrests people when they see them and use them as human shields to protect them when attacked by Karen soldiers.”

Naw K’nyaw Paw said accessing the displaced villagers is difficult, especially during the wet season.

“The only accessible way in is on foot, supplies have to be carried through jungle. Given the restrictions due to covid-19 as well as the increasing Burma Army military operations, villagers are unable to return to their homes and they will need food, clothing and medicine, especially the young and old.”

Nan Paw Gay says the military’s strategy to muzzle the media is a familiar tactic that has been used before.

“Stop international media getting access to conflict areas, shut down independent media, hunt local journalists and when there’s no one to left to report, launch attacks in ethnic regions, displacing thousands of villagers.”

Phil Thornton is a journalist and senior adviser to the International Federation of Journalists in South East Asia. This article was first published by the IFJ Asia-Pacific blog and is republished with the author’s permission. Thornton is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

Professor David Robie, founding director of the AUT Pacific Media Centre, has relaunched Asia Pacific Report as an independent Pacific affairs and analysis portal with many students or recent graduates around the region among the contributors.

Partnering with Selwyn Manning, publisher of Evening Report.nz, he is nurturing young Pacific journalists following the tradition that they started as an industry partnership with Pacific Scoop in 2009.

Asia Pacific Report has a growing audience in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea and also in other Pacific nations.

“There is a continuing need for an independent portal of this kind given the dearth of Pacific outlets in the mainstream New Zealand media,” Dr Robie said.

“Apart from RNZ Pacific, Tagata Pasifika, and the Pacific Media Network, which do a fine job, there is little else.”

Asia Pacific Report, a non-profit publication, has community partnerships with the Asia Media Centre, RNZ, In-Depth News, Earth Journalism Network, University of the South Pacific, The Pacific Newsroom, Wansolwara and others.

Dr Robie retired from AUT in December after 18 years at the university – 13 of them as director of the PMC. He was the first journalism PhD (2004) at AUT and also the first associate professor and then professor in journalism (2012), specialising in Asia-Pacific and development media studies.

Previously he had been head of journalism at both the University of Papua New Guinea and the University of the South Pacific for a decade.

He was awarded the AUT Vice-Chancellor’s teaching award in 2011 and the AMIC Asian Communications award in Dubai in 2015 and has authored or edited 10 books.

He founded Pacific Journalism Review (PJR) research journal at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1994 and the publication is continuing independently with the current editorial team. However, Dr Robie has swapped editorial roles with former associate editor Dr Philip Cass who has become editor.

• Dr David Robie retires at AUT University
• Asia Pacific Report on Facebook
• Pacific Journalism Review on Facebook

It has indeed been a few strange days for Australian news media. Apparently, monopolies are bad if they are not NewsCorp.

This week, Facebook came through on its threat to ban all news from its service, in retaliation against the Australian Federal government’s proposed new media code, that could see the tech giant paying news producers for content they willingly share on the Facebook platform.

Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp rather predictably ran a story accusing Facebooks’ messenger platform of aiding and abetting paedophiles. A remarkable display of mutual chestbeating.

• READ MORE: Why Google is now funnelling millions into media outlets, as Facebook pulls news for Australia
• Facebook under fire over move to ‘bully democracy’ in Australia
• Google’s and Facebook’s loud appeal to users over the news media bargaining code shows a lack of political power
• Facebook has pulled the trigger on news content — and possibly shot itself in the foot
• Facebook back at negotiating table with Australia
• Facebook move reinforces need for a News Media Bargaining Code
• JERAA demands Facebook stop blocking Australians from receiving news

But it is news media diversity and independent journalism routinely pillaged by Murdoch that will be the real victims of ScoMo trying to extort one billionaire at the behest of another.

Queensland’s independent press, for example, is just beginning to lift its head after Rupert ruthlessly destroyed a whole swathe of rural and regional newspapers of record. I wonder how this posturing between two billionaires will affect those independent newspapers that are slowly beginning to show promise in that desolate landscape.

Sure, there needs to be funding for good journalism, and the tech-giants should pitch in, but this is just the tip of the iceberg, of a rather long “to do list” to ensure a robust and independent news media that includes ensuring media diversity and the public’s access to fact-verified public interest journalism irrespective of petty party politics.

In this respect it’s hard to see this whole fiasco as anything but a half-baked idea built on a NewsCorp orchestrated lie.

Holding readers hostage
News organisations could have easily blocked Google searches listing their content. They could also have stopped putting their content on Facebook pages, explored micro-payments or some such innovative solution, instead of holding readers hostage with archaic subscription models.

Is Australian journalism suffering because of Google and Facebook? What of the media monopolies that have systematically destroyed diversity and independence of the press through concentration of ownership unparalleled in the Western world?

What of the three-decade long devaluing of journalism, and training an entire generation to get free news on vanity websites while simultaneously selling the same content in printed papers, only to then retreat behind paywalls?

What about forcing journalists to pimp their stories by linking KPIs to journalists’ capacity to secure subscriptions and assessing the value of stories on the basis of clicks?

What of the ruthless stripping of journalists’ rights that has created a precariat work force?

And what of the armies of media pundits who jumped on the citizen journalism bandwagon and vigorously claimed we didn’t need professional journalists because we were now all citizen journalists?

What of the media educators who have conflated journalism with media, normalised native advertising and created a grey slurry of content where fact and fiction is indistinguishable and ethics non-existent?

Championed social media
And then there are the media theorists who have championed social media as a great equaliser.

A “town square” where ideas flow freely, or as Mark Zuckerberg calls it a “digital living room” instead of seeing it for what it really is – a privately owned advertising platform hell bent on creating a global monopoly.

Let’s say we manage to force Facebook to pay for content. I wonder exactly how the dollars Zuckerberg doles out to Newscorp will flow onto the journalists and the gutted newsrooms who everyone is suddenly concerned for.

Shouldn’t the money be directly invested in public interest journalism instead of becoming just another version of that wonderfully Liberal idea of trickle-down economics filtered through Rupert’s pockets.

Dr Kasun Ubayasiri is a senior lecturer and journalism programme director at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. An earlier version of this piece was originally a Facebook posting and this been revised and contributed to Asia Pacific Report as a column.

Pacific Media Watch newsdesk

Nine Entertainment and News Corporation are wrong to say Google and Facebook have destroyed their business models by stealing content, according to news publisher Eric Beecher, reports The New Daily.

Giving evidence before the Australian Senate hearing on the government’s proposed media bargaining code on Monday, Beecher said representatives from Nine, News Corp and The Guardian had wrongly accused Facebook and Google during previous hearings of “stealing both their content and their advertising revenue”.

Beecher, the chairman of Solstice Media and owner of Private Media, publisher of the independent Crikey!, said the multibillion-dollar organisations clearly gained more than they lost from sharing their journalism on Facebook and Google, writes Euan Black in his New Daily report.

• READ MORE: The Conversation’s submission to the Australian Senate media code inquiry
• Nine’s statement to the media bargaining code inquiry
• The proposed Australian media bargaining code

“Those media companies actively provide snippets or their full journalism to the platforms for one blindingly obvious reason: They gain huge benefit from the exposure – and clicks – their content attracts on Google and Facebook,” he told the senate committee.

“If they didn’t, they wouldn’t allow it to be ‘stolen’.”

Beecher, who also chairs Motion Publishing, publisher of The New Daily, disputed claims that the internet giants had siphoned off advertising revenue from the news organisations.

He said that before Google and Facebook most of this revenue came from newspaper classifieds that have since moved online.

Money ‘ended up in pockets’
Beecher said this money had “ended up in the pockets” of realestate.com.au (owned by News Corp), Domain (owned by Nine) and other classified advertising websites like Seek and Carsales.

“As has been meticulously researched, the vast bulk of Google and Facebook’s advertising revenue has not come from news publishers,” he told the hearing.

In an earlier submission to the senate inquiry, Facebook said it had generated 4.7 billion referrals to Australian media publishers and shared A$5.4 million in revenue with them between January and November.

It also claimed “the commercial value we derive from news content in Australia is virtually zero”, while Google has threatened to remove its search engine from Australia if the current version of the code is passed into law.

Despite disagreeing with key arguments used to defend the media bargaining code, Beecher said the internet giants were “almost certainly too powerful” and should be legally required to “pay full Australian tax on all their Australian profits that stem from all their Australian revenue”.

“I’m not here to defend Google and Facebook,” he said.

‘Their behaviour is scary’
“Their market dominance and the information they collect about their users’ online behaviour is scary.”

Beecher said the huge market share and tax minimisation strategies of the internet giants provided enough justification to ask them to pay a “social licence” fee to support public interest journalism.

“For those reasons — not because of spurious arguments about stealing content and advertising revenue — I believe they should pay what is, in effect, a social licence to support the public interest journalism that has been severely affected by the invention of the commercial internet, which Google and Facebook dominate,” he said.

Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who is the Greens’ media spokesperson and sits on the committee tasked with interrogating the proposed new laws, also called for the code to explicitly support public interest journalism.

She said in a statement that the Greens would seek amendments to the bill that:

• “Require news organisations to spend the revenue from the Code on resourcing public interest journalism, and
• “Require the 12-month review of the Code to report on the impact that the Code is having on small, independent and start up publications.”

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) demands the immediate and unconditional release of Lady Ann Salem, a Manila-based alternative journalist who was arrested on a firearms charge at the end of a raid on her home in which the police planted the evidence.

The co-founder of the alternative media network Altermidya and editor of the Manila Today news site, Salem – also known as “Icy” Salem – is now facing up to 20 years in prison on a trumped-up charge of illegal possession of firearms and explosives, a charge that does not allow release on bail.

When the police arrived at her home in a Manila suburb at around 9 am on December 10, they refused to let her contact her lawyer and made her turn her face to the wall while they carried out a search.

• READ MORE: Philippines media freedom stories

“While I was forced to turn my back for an hour, they planted the evidence,” she managed to tell another journalist as she was being led away to a police vehicle.

The police claim they found four .45 pistols and four grenades during the search.

“The police clearly planted the evidence to incriminate ‘Icy’ Salem in an utterly shameless manner,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.

“In view of their shocking methods, we demand this journalist’s immediate and unconditional release. This latest attack on independent media by the Philippine authorities just discredits President Rodrigo Duterte’s government on the international stage.”

‘Red-tagging’
The police used exactly the same method when they arrested Frenchie Mae Cumpio, the editor of the Eastern Vista news website in the eastern city of Tacloban on February 7. Police officers planted firearms in her home when carrying out her arrest.

Like Manila Today, Eastern Vista is part of the Altermidya network of alternative media outlets that are committed to independent journalism and to defending the most marginalised sectors of Philippine society.

As a result, they are routinely branded as communist by the authorities, a process known as “red-tagging.”

A hangover from the Cold War and, before that, from when the country was a US colony, “red-tagging” is a typically Philippine practice under which dissenting individuals or groups, including journalists and media outlets, are identified to the police and paramilitaries as legitimate targets for arbitrary arrest or, worse still, summary execution.

Relentless war
During a parliamentary hearing on December 1, the government-run National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) formally labelled members of the Altermidya network as violent communist activists without presenting a “shred of evidence” in support of this claim.

Altermidya is the latest victim of the Duterte administration’s relentless war against independent media. Its targets include Maria Ressa, the founder and CEO of the independent news website Rappler, who had to post bail and appear in court on December 4 as a result of a new warrant for her arrest on a charge of online criminal defamation.

Ressa is currently the subject of at least eight different cases by various government agencies.

Last July, the irascible and authoritarian president’s supporters in congress drove the final nails into the coffin of the country’s biggest radio and TV network, ABS-CBN, by refusing to give it a new franchise, after previously refusing to extend its 25-year franchise when it expired in May.

The Philippines is ranked 136th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2020 World Press Freedom Index.

Pacific journalism and media researchers have gathered “live” in Auckland and “virtually” from Australia, Indonesia, and the region to showcase their projects and initiatives – and they spoke of the key challenges ahead.

Presentations at the AUT Pacific Media Centre-organised event yesterday included cross-cultural documentaries, an industry panel on “transition”, Pasifika “brown table” initiatives, a forthcoming Asia-Pacific conference, and an Internews project on climate and coronavirus reportage.

The showcase, hosted by MC John Pulu of Tagata Pasifika, also launched the latest edition of Pacific Journalism Review, which is themed on a range of climate crisis and pandemic papers.

• READ MORE: A watershed year for journalism as research
• PMC celebrates Pacific ‘reset’ vision and farewells founding director
• ‘Empowerment is really important. Journalism isn’t just about writing a good story … but empowering people with information in a democracy’

The recent new fields of research (FoR) classifications adopted by the Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC) were described by Sydney journalism professor and author Dr Chris Nash as “a huge victory”.

Speaking by video link, Dr Nash, a retired foundation journalism professor at Monash University and author of the ground-breaking book What is Journalism? The Art and Politics of a Rupture, told the symposium: “We have retained our positive in creative arts and there is a whole new field of journalism that fits within indigenous studies FoR codes”.

“This is a huge opportunity for journalism in universities in many ways,” he said.
While as a former journalist and documentary maker he had come to research through cultural studies, he had realised that “in the end it had become a bit of a strait jacket”.

Journalism research advocates
He cited journalism research advocates such as the late James Carey of the United States who argued that “journalism had to break out of that”.

However, it was not going to be easy “by a long shot” given the contest over positions, money and income that flowed from the large numbers of journalism students in universities.

Dr Nash said the opportunity was there for journalism to “branch out and be its own self”.

He praised the latest edition of Pacific Journalism Review and the role of founding editor David Robie, designer Del Abcede and associate editors Philip Cass, Wendy Bacon, Nicole Gooch and Khairiah Rahman.

“It’s a fantastic achievement to take the journal to the position it is in now – two consecutive editions of over 300 pages is a massive, massive achievement.”

He said this gave the journal a firm foundation to go forward.

Stepping down as editor
It was announced that founding editor Professor David Robie, who started the journal at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1994, had decided to step down from the role and associate editor Dr Philip Cass was taking over.

Dr Robie is also retiring from the PMC at the end of the year, although he will retain an advisory role on the journal, and colleagues paid tribute to both his work and the contribution of Del Abcede to the university.

Pacific Media Centre advisory board chair Associate Professor Camille Nakhid and board member Khairiah Rahman praised his contribution to the media research and publication landscape and for building up the centre from scratch in 2007.

The announcement of his retirement had caught them by surprise and was “bittersweet as it celebrates and farewells our dear friend, colleague and mentor”, said Rahman.

Following news of Dr Robie’s retirement, tributes had “poured in from PMC’s immediate networks”, among them:

Dr Shailendra Singh, Senior Lecturer and coordinator of journalism at the University of the South Pacific, in Suva, Fiji: “Credits David for introducing him to academia 19 years ago along with his three colleagues, and the major impact that David has made through his mentorship in Pacific journalism.”

Nicole Gooch from the University of Technology in Sydney: “Describes David as ‘a giant of journalism and journalism education in the region’ for having built ‘a solid pathway for future journalists whilst leaving a huge, indelible mark on the journalism-social-political landscape through David’s astonishing work’.

Professor Wendy Bacon, an Australian academic, investigative journalist, and political activist: “She congratulates David and … Del, for her amazing contribution without which many projects would not have been possible.”

‘Fearless, unwavering hero’
“For many of us, David is the fearless, unwavering hero that speaks truth to power,” added Rahman.

Deputy dean Professor Fiona Peterson launched the PJR by untying the edition ribbon and incoming editor Dr Philip Cass, who was born in Papua New Guinea and has contributed to the journal since the beginning, discussed the challenges ahead.

He has the support of Dr Robie and the other core editorial board members.

The industry panel featured journalists who had recently made the transition from media schools to journalism with successful careers and, in one case, a postgraduate student from a developing nation in crisis who carried the weight of expectations of his indigenous community.

Corazon Miller, a political reporter of Newshub Nation, spoke of her dual Filipino-New Zealand heritage and her change from a nursing career into journalism that took her to BBC World News and other opportunities; Blessen Tom, an Indian-New Zealand video producer talked of how his 2018 documentary work on a PMC Bearing Witness project prepared him for work with TVNZ Fair Go; and West Papuan postgraduate student Laurens Ikinia discussed the challenges he faced in a region facing repression and real dangers.

AUT documentary maker and lecturer Jim Marbrook and Fetaui Iosefo of Auckland University reflected on their collaboration over the 2020 NZ International Film Festival’s featured documentary Loimata: The Sweetest Tears and their “returning” narratives in their current projects.

Lecturer Dr Janet Tupou discussed her Tongan community work and affiliations and new strategies about diversity at AUT, including a “brown table” to encourage research collaboration.

Strong Asian connection
Khairiah Rahman spoke of the university’s collaboration with the Taipei-based Asian Congress for Media and Communication (ACMC) conference next year on November 25-27.

The conference had originally been scheduled for last month, but New Zealand’s covid-19 lockdowns and global uncertainties forced the postponement.

Rahman is also spearheading a seven-year collaboration with the Centre for Southeast Asian Social Studies at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. AUT and UGM have published collaborative research on climate change and have a partnership between the two journals PJR and Ikat: The Indonesian Journal of Southeast Asian Studies.

A group of West Papuan students also participated in the symposium and staff, students and media people staged a separate Morning Star flag ceremony during the event.

• More information

Filipinos under 48 today were not yet born when Martial Law was imposed on the Philippines by the late and unlamented dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos in 1972. But even to senior citizens like me, the memories are still crystal clear.

I was living in the province at that time, teaching journalism at Silliman University, Dumaguete City, the first journalism school outside Metro Manila.

I recall vividly that historic day Martial Law was announced – September 23, 1972, a Saturday. Dumaguete City woke up early as usual, expecting another of those unruffled, unhurried mornings that this “City of Gentle People” was famous for.

READ MORE: Breaking the news: Silencing the media under Martial Law

Then the six o’clock newscast over DYSR, the popular local radio station at that time located on campus, that hit like a thunderbolt: Martial Law Declared!

This was also the headline that Saturday morning of the local newspaper which my journalism faculty and I published, The Negros Express.

In the face of “anarchy and dissident threat to the existence of the Republic,” according to the newscast, President Ferdinand Marcos had declared martial law on September 21, for the first time in history. But Marcos had delayed the announcement by two days to give him time to round up the opposition leaders and prominent journalists.

Silliman University, thanks to DYSR, got the news ahead of the people in Manila and most parts of the country. DYSR was able to monitor Radio Australia which got its information from one of the international wire agencies in Manila before they were closed down by the military and before DYSR itself was closed down later that day.

Manila mass media were silent
On the morning DYSR monitored the Radio Australia newscast on martial law, the Manila mass media were silent. It was only towards noon that the government radio and television stations in Manila—the Voice of the Philippines (VOP, operated by the National Media Production Centre) and the stations of the Philippine Broadcasting Service—went on air with President Marcos’ Proclamation 1081, read by then Information Secretary Francisco Tatad.

The country was in a state of shock that day, ears glued to radio sets. Shock and disbelief later gave way to fear, as people heard over DZPI and VOP that hundreds of political leaders—led by Liberal Party Senators Benigno Aquino and Jose Diokno, Manila Times publisher Joaquin “Chino” Roces, Manila Chronicle publisher Eugenio Lopez Jr., and Philippines Free Press publisher Teodoro M. Locsin Jr.—were arrested.

When Martial Law was announced on September 23, some faculty members and many students of Dumaguete schools, majority from Silliman, were rounded up by the local Philippine Constabulary (PC) for interrogation and detention. Silliman University offices, like the School of Journalism and Communications and the office of the student paper, the Weekly Sillimanian, were raided by the Philippine Constabulary.

I remember that day very well. Shortly after the announcement, a group of PC officers came to my office, the School of Journalism. My secretary, face ashen white, came to my inner office to say, “Sir, the PC are here.”

I asked the officers what they were looking for. They did not look like they knew, but they were polite, opened a couple of cabinets and left promptly.

The following day, Sunday, the military knocked at the door of the Negros Express editor, Roberto Pontenila. They brought him to the PC stockade. Aside from Pontenila, two faculty and staff members and some 40 students (one of them Dionisio Baseleres, editor of the student paper, ended up in detention for one to six months, no charges filed.

All schools, including Silliman, were closed effective September 23, 1972, and nobody knew when they were going to reopen, if at all. The next few days were tense. No one in Silliman felt safe as the PC continued to pick up people for questioning, and to raid offices for presence of alleged subversive literature.

Students went into hiding
Students went into hiding and faculty and staff were burning whatever books and materials they had that only faintly smelled of subversion. The campus and the city were deathly quiet.

On October 14, President Marcos authorised all schools to reopen except the now infamous four—University of the Philippines units (including its Institute of Mass Communication), the Philippine College of Commerce, the Philippine Science High School and Silliman University.

UP was the centre of student activism in the Philippines. At the height of student activism, the UP activists barricaded the campus and set up a “Diliman Republic” that defied the Metropolitan Police for days.

The president of Philippine College of Commerce (PCC), Dr Nemesio Prudente, was noted for his staunchly nationalistic and radical political views and himself led student activism in his school. The Philippine Science High School was an acknowledged hotbed of activism.

Silliman campus activism had caught the attention of Malacanang Palace no less. President Ferdinand Marcos himself “scolded the university during a speech in Dumaguete, noting that members of the opposition, including Senator Jovito Salonga, Juan Liwag and Benigno Aquino Jr. were invited to speak on campus.”

He warned Silliman University, “do not engage in partisan politics because you are supposed to be an academic institution. You may regret it.”

Did we ever regret it.

‘The plunder of the nation’
“The plunder of the nation began the moment martial law was declared. Unprecedented looting of the country’s natural resources and wealth ensued. Marcos and his cronies exerted a vise over the national economy until it came under their total control. . . Every major economic activity was controlled by the First Family, their relatives, or cronies. This was the start of crony capitalism,” according to Ricardo Manapat in his meticulously researched 615-page book, Some Are Smarter Than Others (1991).

Award-winning American journalist Sterling Seagrave in another well researched 485-page book in 1988, The Marcos Dynasty, added: “Under Martial Law, the Philippines entered a grim period of human rights abuses. A new term, salvaging, came into use to cover the torture, disappearance, and death of ordinary citizens …

“Many of the horror stories were independently corroborated by diplomats, journalists, priests, scholars and international organisations such as Amnesty International. They are a litany of sadism, of dead rats being stuffed in mouths, of electric cattle prods jammed into vaginas, of mashed testicles, and prisoners being forced to eat their own ears.”

So on September 21, we celebrate the 48th anniversary of Martial Law, which the Marcoses would rather forget. But I cannot forget and I hope that the Filipino people will not forget, because he who does not remember his past is condemned to repeat it.

Dr Crispin Maslog is a former journalist with Agence France-Presse and retired journalism professor from Silliman University and UP Los Baños. He is also chair of the board of the Asian Media and Information Centre (AMIC), a research associate of the Pacific Media Centre and on the editorial board of Pacific Journalism Review.

Sixty press freedom groups and civil society organisations, journalism institutions, filmmakers, and other supporters have formed a coalition in support of Maria Ressa and independent media in the Philippines, united around the call to #HoldTheLine.

Today the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) announced the launch of the #HoldTheLine campaign in support of journalist Ressa and independent media under attack in the Philippines.

Acting in coordination with Ressa and her legal team, representatives from the three groups form the steering committee, working alongside dozens of partners on the global campaign and reporting initiatives.

READ MORE: Rappler challenges president’s ‘media powers’ in democracy fight back

The campaign takes its name from Ressa’s commitment to “hold the line” in response to sustained state harassment and prolific online violence.

An internationally celebrated Filipino-American journalist, Ressa is best known for two decades covering South East Asia for CNN and founding the multi-award winning Philippines news website Rappler.

On 15 June 2020, she was convicted of “cyber-libel,” alongside former Rappler colleague Reynaldo Santos Jr – a criminal charge for which they face up to six years in prison.

The conviction relates to a story about corruption from 2012 – before the law was even enacted – and hung on the correction of a typo.

Pair may be imprisoned
Ressa and Santos both posted bail, but could be imprisoned if the case is not overturned on appeal.

Ressa is facing at least six other cases and charges. Guilty verdicts in all of them could result in her spending nearly a century in jail.

Rappler is also implicated in most of these cases, with several involving criminal charges related to libel, foreign ownership, and taxes.

The convictions are the latest offence in the Duterte government’s wider campaign to stifle independent reporting, including the recent shutdown of the main national broadcaster ABS-CBN.

“I am moved by the incredible outpouring of support we’ve received from around the globe for our campaign to #HoldTheLine against tyranny – even as President Duterte continues his public attacks on me, the legal harassment escalates, and the state-licensed and Facebook-fuelled online violence rages on,” Ressa said.

“We can’t stay silent because silence is consent. We need to be outraged, to fight back with journalism. If we don’t use our rights, we will lose them. Please stand with us!”

What you can do
Those interested in showing support and helping to #HoldTheLine can take two immediate steps in the run-up to Ressa’s next hearing scheduled on July 22:

1. Join the #HoldTheLine coalition by getting in touch via the contacts below.
2. Sign and share this petition calling for the Philippine government to drop all charges and cases against Ressa, Santos and Rappler, and end pressure on independent media in the Philippines.

The 60 founding members of the #HoldTheLine Coalition are:

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which form the steering committee; African Media Initiative; Association for International Broadcasting (AIB); Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom; Amnesty International; ARTICLE 19; Association of Caribbean Media Workers; Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma; Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM); Centre for Law and Democracy; CineDiaz; The Coalition For Women In Journalism; Community Media Forum Europe (CMFE); DART Asia Pacific; Dart Center; Doc Society; English PEN; European Journalism Centre; First Look Media; Free Press Unlimited; Global Alliance on Media and Gender (GAMAG); Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD); Global Voices;  Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University; Index on Censorship; Institute for Regional Media and Information (IRMI); International Media Support (IMS); International Association of Women in Radio  and Television (IAWRT); International News Safety Institute (INSI); International Press Institute (IPI); International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF); James W. Foley Legacy Foundation; Judith Neilson Institute; Justice for Journalists Foundation; Media Association for Peace (MAP); Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF); Namibia Media Trust (NMT); National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP); Open Society Foundations (OSF); Pacific Media Centre (PMC), Pakistan Press Foundation; Panos Institute Southern Africa; PEN America; Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ); Press Freedom Defence Fund; Project Syndicate; Public Media Alliance; Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting; Rappler; Rory Peck Trust; Rural Media Network Pakistan; South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF); Storyhunter; The Signals Network; Tanzania Media Practitioners Association; Union of Journalists in Finland; World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA); and World Editors Forum.

• Other Rappler media freedom stories

With the rapid spread of the dreaded Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic across the Pacific and Asia many people naturally seek online assurance and news they can trust.

Facebook has seen a nuclear explosion of posts and misinformation, especially in countries like Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.

In PNG’s case the flow of quality information slowed with the lone foreign correspondent in Port Moresby, Natalie Whiting, recalled “temporarily” by the ABC although competent local journalists are striving to fill her shoes.

The small nation of Timor-Leste (East Timor) was awash with foreign correspondents during the bloody period from 1999 to 2002 when it emerged from brutal Indonesian occupation after being invaded in 1975 after the Portuguese colonial empire collapsed.

This sparked the first wave of bloodshed and violence that claimed 200,000 lives. It gained independence in 2002 under UN supervision and life has improved significantly for its current 1.5 million citizens, most still living in villages.

Through all this turmoil one Timor-based foreign correspondent, Antonio Sampaio, continues to play an outstanding role in providing timely and accurate information reporting for the Portuguese newsagency Lusa.

So timely and accurate, I was told by some local journalists earlier this month, they were positively envious. Too many scoops,

Fact check training
I met Antonio this month for a 45-minute session of fine Timorese coffee and Portuguese snacks at his favourite haunt in the gleaming new 6-storey Timor Plaza in the capital Dili. I had been in the country running fact-check training for Timorese colleagues.

During our conversation his phone rang four times. Tips from high-ranking Timorese on the ongoing political crisis before the first confirmed case of Covid-19 set the cat among the pigeons.

Sampaio apologised for the phone interruptions but agreed when I suggested his endless scoops were the result of accurate, balanced reporting and a high level of trust.

His CV, when he was honoured by Timor-Leste, is impressive.

“Antonio Sampaio been covering Timor-Leste since the end of 1990, having written thousands of news stories about the situation in the territory. He wrote about Timor-Leste for Lusa, Diário de Notícias, Publico, Expresso, Jornal de Notícias and most of the Portuguese written press.

“He followed the situation in Timor-Leste for RTP, TVI, RDP, Radio Renaissance and Radio Nova. In Australia he reported on the situation in Timor-Leste during the Indonesian occupation in the newspapers of the group News Limited, including The Australian, on SBS radio and television, including with reports on the Indonesian campaign in which the massacre of Santa Cruz on 12 November 1991 occurred.

“The work in the period earned him the Correspondents Prize in Portugal in 1991 when he was 20 years old. In 1994/1995 he won two journalism awards in Portugal, the Gazeta Prize and the Press Club Award for a television documentary on oppression during the Suharto regime in Indonesia.

First permanent foreign journalist
“He arrived in Timor-Leste in March 1999 and was the first permanent foreign journalist based in the territory – as a bureau chief for Lusa agency – until 2004.

“He opened Lusa’s first delegation in Timor-Leste and despite been placed elsewhere (Geneva and Spain) he continued to be asked to help at times of crises, such as 2006 and 2008. He returned as a bureau chief to Timor in 2014. In 2019 he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Timor-Leste. He continues to write daily with an extensive coverage of Timor-Leste.”

Yes indeed. We discussed a common link. A dual citizen, he was born in Portugal and emigrated to Australia in 1987.

First job was a copyboy on The Australian newspaper in Sydney. Sampaio wrote page one reports on the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre by Indonesian troops of protesting students in the now infamous Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili.

In my case, I started much earlier than him as a second year cadet journalist on The Australian’s Brisbane bureau (I was half the bureau).

Today Lusa. the official Tatoli news agency, TempoTimor and the Timor Post are the most popular news sources in the country while all of them provide a limited English service.

Facebook followers
In my case lately I’ve posted on Facebook (420,000 FB followers locally) a lot on Timor-Leste after my 38th trip to the wonderful country (since my first trip to help launch the first daily Timor Post in February 2000 with computers and other equipment donated by News Limited, Reuters and Fairfax).

Timor’s lone ranger correspondent has corrected me on more than one occasion for errors (not deliberate) in my Google Translation of various reports during the ongoing Covid-19 case confirmation.

I unashamedly join Antonio Sampaio in a chorus hoisting a local cold Bintang beer: Viva Timor-Leste!

Bob Howarth is a veteran journalist with a career that spans working in Australia (Fairfax, News Limited), London (The Times), Hong Kong (South China Morning Post) and as managing director and publisher of the PNG Post-Courier daily. He is currently country correspondent for Reporters Sans Frontières (Paris) and media training adviser to the Timor-Leste Press Council and UNDP Timor-Leste. He is also a research associate with the Pacific Media Centre.

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

The theme for the 26th celebration of the World Press Freedom Day this year is “Media for Democracy: Journalism and Elections in Times of Disinformation”.

World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in December 1993, following the recommendation of UNESCO’s General Conference.

Since then, May 3, the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek, is celebrated worldwide as World Press Freedom Day.

It is a day to:

• celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom;
• assess the state of press freedom throughout the world;
• defend the media from attacks on their independence; and
• pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the line of duty.

This year the global conference is in Africa, being held from May 1-3 in the Ethipian capital of Addis Ababa, but that is not to say there are no problems in the Pacific.

In this video by journalist Sr Krishnamurthi, Professor David Robie, director of AUT’s Pacific Media Centre and 2019 contributing editor Michael Andrew talk about the concerns for the Pacific on World Press Freedom Day 2019.

“Because we lack diversity in most of the newsrooms in New Zealand it means you often get a bit of a distorted coverage of the region, for example there is a tendency to think in most New Zealand media that the Pacific is only one part of the Pacific – the eastern side, the so -called Polynesian triangle…and Melanesia and Micronesia are consequently squeezed out,” says Dr Robie.

Sri Krishnamurthi is an experienced journalist and a current Postgraduate Diploma of Communication Studies student in digital media.

• Other Pacific Media Watch stories

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

Alistar Kata is uniquely placed to talk about diversity in New Zealand media newsrooms.

Not because she was recipient of double awards at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) School of Communication Studies annual awards ceremony in 2015 – the Spasifik Magazine Prize and Storyboard Award for Diversity Reporting, as well as the Radio New Zealand International Award for Asia-Pacific Journalism.

But because this Māori (Ngapuhi)-Cook Islander has been up close and personal with the subject.

“The Pacific is a huge part of who we are. We need to keep that alive,” she said when completing her Bachelor of Communication Studies (Honours) at AUT in 2015.

Last month the Tagata Pasifika journalist was back at AUT as master of ceremonies at the communication studies awards where – in the wake of the Christchurch mosque massacre on 15 March 2019 she was asked about diversity in New Zealand’s newsrooms.

“People are waking up to the idea that New Zealand is not black-and-white anymore, New Zealand is now a spectrum of colours – different points of view, different skin colours, different ethnicities and our audience is starting to wake up to that,” she said.

“To accept that brown face on TV, to accept that maybe the chief editor of The New Zealand Herald will be Pacific Island or Indian soon, to accept that their different voices in our community.”

The genesis for this interview was Michael Andrew’s story on the Pacific Media Watch website How journalists can improve diversity in the media.

That article was written just two weeks after the tragic event unfolded in Christchurch.

Sri Krishnamurthi is an experienced journalist and a current Postgraduate Diploma of Communication Studies student in digital media and contributor to Pacific Media Watch.

• Other Pacific Media Watch stories

In Indonesia, I expected to broaden my understanding and realisation of Asia and its importance to New Zealand. And in a way I did. But more than anything, the experience reinforced for me why engaging with and respecting the Pacific is paramount for New Zealand.

My first week at AFP news agency’s Jakarta bureau coincided, tragically, with the deaths of as many as 100 people, mostly toddlers, in Papua from a measles outbreak.

The crisis, sparked by poor conditions and increasing local reliance on imported foods, represented “decades of neglect” by Indonesia following its annexation of the region.

READ MORE: West Papua protest during Jokowi’s visit to NZ

AFP committed significant resources to covering this, including sending a team of reporters to a remote Papuan village. Along with assistance from us folks that manned the fort in Jakarta, they produced what I believe was the definitive coverage of that health crisis.

It was genuinely humbling to be a part of. Papua, after all, has faced decades of neglect from the international media too, New Zealand included.

While RNZ Pacific does a fantastic job, it is not enough and, as pointed out by some, it is too partisan at times.

Diversity is needed when we cover events of international significance. Yet Papua is of particular and unique significance to New Zealand.

Siding with colonial past?
Having played a key role in the decolonisation of the Pacific, if we cannot continue this, including by acknowledging Papua as a Pacific and Melanesian nation, then surely we are siding with our colonial past (and present).

New Zealand’s foreign policy is changing dramatically, and not just under the direction of a new government in place.

As recent speeches by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have indicated, policy shifts towards the Pacific are motivated at least partly by the increasing sway Asia has there.

And although veiled references to China were highlighted by analysts, its long arm is not the only one in play in the Pacific.

There is a need now to be more savvy than ever towards Asia, if only for the sake of the Pacific. And for all the importance of politics in setting the pace of national dialogue, journalists too play a significant role.

The New Zealand media’s restraint, for example, in covering revelations of China’s political influence activities from Anne-Marie Brady has been remarkable. Just look at Australia, they are going nuts over there.

The media certainly prodded officials during the government’s recent Pacific tour over China’s growing influence there but it was a long way from the “roads to nowhere” white elephant rhetoric coming from across the ditch.

Hope for Asia-Pacific voices
There is hope for how we cover the Asia-Pacific and for the voices we give air to.

So it feels like a good time to arrive back as an “Asia-savvy” journalist – savviness being a term I share the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s fondness for – but an even better time to be a Pacific-savvy journalist.

While both regions demand our attention, one neighbours us and one we sit in. How the two interact will define New Zealand’s foreign policy mandate for the foreseeable future.

There was no happy resolution to Papua’s health crisis; it merely petered out, media coverage in its final days giving way to the detainment of a rather foolhardy journalist who had set out to cover it, rather than the real issues at hand.

And, as observers told AFP, the deaths are doomed to be repeated unless drastic action is taken.

The day before Indonesia declared the crisis over, in an unrelated incident a 61-year-old woman was shot dead by military police in Papua.

As the Foundation’s Pip McLachlan has pointed out, “we need to talk about Asia”. But we also need to talk about the Pacific.

Mackenzie Smith spent six weeks working in Jakarta on the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesia Studies Journalism Professional Practicum. His participation was funded by the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s media programme. Views expressed are personal to the author.

The academic world is supposed to be a bright-lit landscape of independent research pushing back the frontiers of knowledge to benefit humanity.

Years of fingernail-flicking test tubes have paid off by finding the elixir of life. Now comes the hard stuff: telling the world through a respected international journal staffed by sceptics.

After drafting and deleting, adding and revising, the precious discovery has to undergo the ritual of peer-reviews. Only then may your wisdom arouse gasps of envy and nods of respect in the world’s labs and lecture theatres.

The goal is to score hits on the international SCOPUS database (69 million records, 36,000 titles – and rising as you read) of peer-reviewed journals. If the paper is much cited, the author’s CV and job prospects should glow.

SCOPUS is run by Dutch publisher Elsevier for profit.

It’s a tough track up the academic mountain; surely there are easier paths paved by publishers keen to help?

Indeed – but beware. The 148-year old British multidisciplinary weekly Nature calls them “predatory journals” luring naive young graduates desperate for recognition.

‘Careful checking’
“These journals say: ‘Give us your money and we’ll publish your paper’,” says Professor David Robie of New Zealand’s Auckland University of Technology. “They’ve eroded the trust and credibility of the established journals. Although easily picked by careful checking, new academics should still be wary.”

Shams have been exposed by getting journals to print gobbledygook papers by fictitious authors. One famous sting reported by Nature had a Dr Anna O Szust being offered journal space if she paid. “Oszust” is Polish for “a fraud”.

Dr Robie heads AUT’s Pacific Media Centre, which publishes the Pacific Journalism Review, now in its 23rd year. During November he was at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta, Central Java, helping his Indonesian colleagues boost their skills and lift their university’s reputation.

The quality of Indonesian learning at all levels is embarrassingly poor for a nation of 260 million spending 20 percent of its budget on education.

The international ranking systems are a dog’s breakfast, but only UGM, the University of Indonesia and the Bandung Institute of Technology just make the tail end of the Times Higher Education world’s top 1000.

There are around 3500 “universities” in Indonesia; most are private. UGM is public.

UGM has been trying to better itself by sending staff to Auckland, New Zealand, and Munich, Germany, to look at vocational education and master new teaching strategies.

Investigative journalism
Dr Robie was invited to Yogyakarta through the World Class Professor (WCP) programme, an Indonesian government initiative to raise standards by learning from the best.

Dr Robie lectured on “developing investigative journalism in the post-truth era,” researching marine disasters and climate change. He also ran workshops on managing international journals.

During a break at UGM he told Strategic Review that open access – meaning no charges made to authors and readers – was a tool to break the user-pays model.

AUT is one of several universities to start bucking the international trend to corral knowledge and muster millions. The big publishers reportedly make up to 40 percent profit – much of it from library subscriptions.

According to a report by AUT digital librarians Luqman Hayes and Shari Hearne, there are now more than 100,000 scholarly journals in the world put out by 3000 publishers; the number is rocketing so fast library budgets have been swept away in the slipstream.

In 2016, Hayes and his colleagues established Tuwhera (Māori for “be open”) to help graduates and academics liberate their work by hosting accredited and refereed journals at no cost.

The service includes training on editing, presentation and creating websites, which look modern and appealing. Tuwhera is now being offered to UGM – but Indonesian universities have to lift their game.

Language an issue
The issue is language and it’s a problem, according to Dr Vissia Ita Yulianto, researcher at UGM’s Southeast Asian Social Studies Centre (CESASS) and a co-editor of IKAT research journal. Educated in Germany she has been working with Dr Robie to develop journals and ensure they are top quality.

“We have very intelligent scholars in Indonesia but they may not be able to always meet the presentation levels required,” she said.

“In the future I hope we’ll be able to publish in Indonesian; I wish it wasn’t so, but right now we ask for papers in English.”

Bahasa Indonesia, originally trade Malay, is the official language. It was introduced to unify the archipelagic nation with more than 300 indigenous tongues. Outside Indonesia and Malaysia it is rarely heard.

English is widely taught, although not always well. Adrian Vickers, professor of Southeast Asian Studies at Sydney University, has written that “the low standard of English remains one of the biggest barriers against Indonesia being internationally competitive.

“… in academia, few lecturers, let alone students, can communicate effectively in English, meaning that writing of books and journal articles for international audiences is almost impossible.”

Though the commercial publishers still dominate there are now almost 10,000 open-access peer-reviewed journals on the internet.

“Tuwhera has enhanced global access to specialist research in ways that could not previously have happened,” says Dr Robie. “We can also learn much from Indonesia and one of the best ways is through exchange programmes.”

This article was first published in Strategic Review and is republished with the author Duncan Graham’s permission. Graham blogs at indonesianow.blogspot.co.nz

• Indonesia’s UGM World Class Professor programme
• David Robie chalks up many experiences in the WCP programme

The “Journalism Under Duress” seminar examined media freedom and human rights in Philippines and Indonesia’s Papua region, otherwise known as West Papua.

The executive director of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, Malou Mangahas spoke about extrajudicial killings and an ongoing spate of murders of journalists in her country.

Threats to journalists in the Philippines have been on the rise since President Rodrigo Duterte came to power last year. However, according to Mangahas, his “war on drugs” has seen more than 7000 people killed, over often spurious allegations that they were drug dealers.

LISTEN: PCIJ’s Malou Mangahas interviewed by RNZ Mediawatch

In the discussion about West Papua, the PMC seminar heard that access to the Indonesian region for foreign journalists, while still restricted, remained critical for helping Papuan voices to be heard.

Many West Papuans did not trust Indonesian national media outlets in their coverage of Papua, while independent journalists in this region face regular threats by security forces for covering sensitive issues.

The Pacific Media Centre and its two associated news and current affairs websites, Pacific Media Watch and Asia Pacific Report (previously Pacific Scoop), are among the few New Zealand media outlets to cover West Papua.

Research, media production
As well as a range of media books over the past decade, the PMC also publishes the long-running research journal Pacific Journalism Review.

“The Pacific Media Centre is rather unique in a New Zealand university context because it combines the attributes of a research and publication unit, and is also a media producer,” said the PMC director Professor David Robie.

“The PMC provides a publishing environment for aspiring and young journalists to develop specialist expertise and skills in the Pacific region which is hugely beneficial for our mainstream media. All our graduates go on to very successful international careers.

“We also provide an important independent outlet for the untold stories of our region,” he said.

Earlier, the head of the School of Communication Studies at AUT, Professor Berrin Yanıkkaya launched the book Conflict, Custom & Conscience: Photojournalism and the Pacific Media Centre 2007-2017, as well as the latest edition of the Pacific Journalism Review.

She said Dr Robie and his PMC colleagues had created “a channel for the voiceless to have a voice, a platform for the unseen to be seen”.

RNZ International report republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

The College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) is most deeply disturbed by President-elect Rodrigo Duterte’s statement that murdered journalists are “corrupt and biased”; he even went as far as to insinuate that it is just right to kill corrupt journalists.

Based on this sweeping, fallacious statement, it is obvious that the President-elect does not understand how the culture of impunity perpetuates media killings.

The journalists’ job is to expose the truth behind the general scheme of things. Part of this is to expose malfeasance and corruption in government, at the local or national level.

The campus press calls on President-elect Duterte to do his duty to protect and uphold the Constitution and guarantee freedom of the press. He should be reminded that, as president, it is his responsibility to address the already-worsening culture of impunity in the country.

The CEGP, the oldest, broadest and only alliance of tertiary student publications in the Asia-Pacific founded in 1931, stands in the frontline of the continuing struggle to protect press freedom and it condemns the suppression of campus press and professional media.

Marc Lino Abila is national president of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines

University of the Philippines professors, students slam Duterte statement on press killings

RSF condemns Duterte’s threatening comments on journalists