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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Content warning: this article contains mentions of racial discrimination against First Nations people.

The ABC recently apologised to staff for racism and cultural insensitivity in its newsrooms. This came after Indigenous and culturally and linguistically diverse ABC staff told an internal group they felt unwelcome in their workplace, their ideas were not being listened to and they received online abuse from the public.

Unfortunately these issues are not unique to the ABC and exist at other media outlets and newsrooms.

• READ MORE: Media inclusion of Indigenous peoples is increasing but there is still room for improvement
• First Nations kids make up about 20% of missing children, but get a fraction of the media coverage
• For an Indigenous perspective on ‘Australia Day’, here’s a quick guide to First Nations media platforms

We also know media organisations can produce content that is racist or hostile towards First Nations people. Decades of research show, with few exceptions, many mainstream Australian media organisations have unfairly reported on First Nations Peoples over the years, and continue to do so.

This reporting has included racist cartoons, prejudiced stereotypes, questions of cultural identity and portrayals of First Nations people as either violent or victimised.

I experienced racism many times throughout my cadetship in 2019. At times it caused crippling anxiety to the point where I’d really have to psych myself up just to go into the office. A former colleague in a leadership role even went out of their way to ruffle my hair once. https://t.co/0osoUh3LNd

— Jedda Costa (@CostaJedda) June 16, 2022

Racist and inappropriate portrayals of First Nations people can also make newsrooms and other media outlets unsafe places to work for Indigenous journalists, as well as influencing how First Nations issues are covered and thought about.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Australians working in media can improve their cultural competency during their university education. This way, they can enter and contribute to workplaces prepared to ethically and respectfully interact with and report on stories outside their own cultures.

However, our new study shows many Australian universities with journalism programmes have significant work to do in including cultural safety in their curricula.

Australia needs cultural safety in its newsrooms
Journalists can help shape national conversations and can influence audiences’ attitudes through how they choose to report. That’s why it’s critical for these journalists to be culturally safe in how they communicate about communities and individuals outside their own culture.

Cultural safety aims to create a space where “there is no assault, challenge or denial of” Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s identities and experiences.

It is built through non-Indigenous people deeply listening to First Nations perspectives. It means sharing power and resources in a way that supports Indigenous self determination and empowerment. It also requires non-Indigenous people address unconscious biases, racism and discrimination in and outside the workplace.

First Nations groups and high-level institutions have been calling for more expertise and training in this area for decades.

The 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody report called for journalism education to consider

in consultation with media industry and media unions, the creation of specific units of study dedicated to Aboriginal affairs and the reporting thereof.

The National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples notes Australian news outlets too often spread “myths and ill-informed or false stereotypes about Australia’s First Peoples, which in turn influence public opinion in unfavourable ways.”

This racism creates

a debilitating individual impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, devaluing their cultural pride and identity and having adverse impacts on their physical and mental health.

Acknowledging and apologising does not interrogate how whiteness is upheld in these spaces. The Australian media landscape has normalised cultural and institutional practices that stem from colonisation and continue to oppress people of colour within it. https://t.co/pYRVcDnmNY

— Alex Dorante (@babydorante) June 17, 2022

In 2009 The National Indigenous Higher Education Network recommended universities “systematically embed Indigenous perspectives in curriculum”.

In 2011, Universities Australia issued an expectation that “all graduates of Australian universities will have the knowledge and skills necessary to interact in a culturally competent way with Indigenous communities”.

Our study
In our study, we reviewed in 2021 more than 100 media/journalism assessments from a sample of more than 10 percent of Australian universities with journalism programmes. We found only one had an explicit focus on an Indigenous topic. Our interviews with 17 journalism students revealed how absent or minimal their education on Indigenous affairs has been.

In the words of a second-year university student:

There is definitely more that should be done because stories and issues concerning Indigenous people is, like, such a big topic. And it would be very useful for people becoming journalists to understand their role in communication and storytelling and the influence their words have on the public perception of Indigenous peoples as well.

The students we interviewed largely expressed desire for more training on Indigenous affairs in Australia. They stated this would help them achieve confidence in reporting on First Nations Peoples in respectful and culturally safe ways.

The students also thought their universities could integrate Indigenous content and perspectives in a more sustained and concentrated way. “It can’t just be that one week we talk about racism,” according to a third-year university student. More education on Indigenous affairs would also benefit First Nations students. One Indigenous participant from our study stated:

Even just having some more Indigenous journalists come through, you can talk to them, find out what it’s really like for them being like a black sheep, essentially, from a very white-dominated industry. I think that there’s a need to be able to put more perspectives and Indigenous knowledges in education in there.

Journalism training needs to include cultural safety
A possible solution could be increasing First Nations journalists in Australian newsrooms. However, the burnout rate for these journalists is high due to toxic workplace conditions. This contributes to the low proportion of Indigenous journalists in Australia.

Universities need to provide their staff and students with time and resources to thoughtfully consider how to work with and report on First Nations Peoples. This would allow for a more culturally safe way of working. This could also provide a safer space for Indigenous people wanting to pursue a role in journalism. It could hopefully address the burnout of these journalists when they join the media workforce.

The integrity of our media system and the way our nation engages with Indigenous affairs depend on it.

Dr T.J. Thomson, senior lecturer in visual communication & Media, Queensland University of Technology; Julie McLaughlin, senior lecturer, Queensland University of Technology, and Leah King-Smith, lecturer and academic lead (Indigenous) in learning and teaching in the School of Creative Practice, Queensland University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

New Zealand children use a lot less Kiwi media than they used to. New research shows its Netflix, YouTube and TikTok engaging their eyeballs big time these days. If our kids screen out our local media, what does the future hold for them?

The news media seized on one startling stat in New Zealand on Air’s latest survey of how children use the media here.

Nearly 90 percent of the 1100 children aged between 10 and 14 surveyed had seen content that had upset them in the past year – such as animal torture and sexual material.

LISTEN: Kiwi kids screening out local TV media – Mediawatch

There is increasing concern they are seeing a lot more potentially upsetting content at an earlier age these days, thanks to the internet. But when it comes to the media kids choose to use, other survey findings were upsetting for homegrown media.

The five most popular networks kids could name were YouTube, Netflix, Disney Plus, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon – none of them local.

The survey found websites and apps were more popular than television. Children are watching much more video on overseas platforms such as YouTube and Netflix than the kids who were surveyed the same way six years ago.

TikTok did not exist in New Zealand back then – now its the most popular social media platform for kids (Tiktok is a video sharing mobile app created in China eight years ago, only launched outside China in 2017 on major mobile phone platforms and in the US in August 2018).

Real bad news
But the real bad news for New Zealand broadcasters is that it is only one of several global online platforms more popular than old fashioned TV with kids here today.

YouTube (51 percent) and Netflix (47 percent) have the highest daily reach and children spend the longest time watching content there. Of local options, TVNZ 1, with 16 percent daily reach and TVNZ 2 at 15 percent, have the highest reach – but two thirds of the children surveyed couldn’t name a favourite locally-made show.

That is also a dilemma for NZ On Air which spends more than $15 million of public money a year on locally-made programmes and content for New Zealand children.

Back in 2016 it launched a review of its spending when TV1, TV2 and TV3 began backing away from screening children’s shows – even when the taxpayer was picking up the tab for making them.

TV3 – as it was then – shunted its local kids shows onto a slot on its sister channel Four – and they disappeared altogether when MediaWorks canned that channel for the reality TV showcase Bravo.

These days it screens Keeping up with the Kardashians and Dance Mums UK in the after school slots.

The only free-to-air TV channel showing kids shows after school anymore is Māori TV. On Wednesdays for example, it airs youth shows Grid and Swagger, followed by its long running show in te reo: Pūkana.

‘None of us are shocked’
“None of us are shocked by what’s in this research,“ said Nicole Hoey, chief executive of Cinco Cine Film Productions. maker of Pūkana and many other local programmes.

“In terms of the research it’s already old once it’s published in terms of the world we now work and live in. The last time this research was done was six years ago. It’s great research but it’s too far apart,“ she said.

Two years ago, NZ On Air launched an online children’s programme platform  – HeiHei – now hosted by TVNZ on Demand, in the hope it would attract young digital natives to the local programmes alongside the international ones

But only 49 percent of children aged 6-14 are aware of HeiHei and only 17 percent said they had used it.

Janette Howe is chair of the NZ Children’s Screen Trust (Kidsonscreen), which has long advocated for a kid’s TV channel.

“I think it has to be remembered the children’s local content has basically disappeared from free to air platforms in New Zealand, so there’s no alternative basically,” she said.

“Those international platforms and global shows have a lot of money behind them. They are easy to find and you stick with them because there’s a lot of choice once you’re there. I think for HeiHei to thrive it needs more funding and to be more discoverable and there needs to be more choice of content once kids find it,“ she said.

‘Small seed in garden’
“It’s a very small seed in a very populated garden.”

“At Māori TV programmes are still at the forefront for television. HeiHei uptake isn’t too bad but the reality is it’s got to be aggressively marketed in the digital world,“ said Nicole Hoey, who’s also a former board member at NZ On Air.

“What’s important is the parents and kids in the survey are still saying that they value local content and I think that really we have to work out better how we deliver it to them,“ said Janette Howe.

So will today’s tamariki and rangatai have any interest in local media at all?

Howe said that around the world where there are dedicated children’s channels that are established they are holding their own against the rise of streaming services apps and websites.

“If you have kids in your whānau, you know they don’t watch television. Early in the morning you can see kids that have iPhones and from 12 or 14 months and they know how to touch the screen. They don’t even know how to use a remote control for television,” said Nicole Hoey.

“It’s about getting out in front of kids where ever they are,“ she said.

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

Indigenous people across the world are disproportionately affected by climate change. They are also leading movements to protect our forests, water and other natural resources.

“Respect and value indigenous peoples – their rights, their knowledge and values, their land and resources that they have kept healthy through generations, their cultures and identities, and their valuable contribution to society as environment defenders,” says Jill Carino, executive director of the Philippine Task Force for Indigenous Peoples Rights, a national network of 11 non-governmental organisations working with indigenous communities in different regions in the Philippines.

“The solution to the climate and biodiversity crises that we face in the world today lies in our collective will and strength to fight against capitalist greed and build just, sustainable, self-determining, and resilient communities,” she says.

READ MORE: Earth Day 2020 could mark the day we stop taking the planet for granted

Carino has been working to defend indigenous peoples’ rights since 1980 when, after graduating from college, she started working with the Cordillera Studies Programme of the Cordillera Schools Group based in Baguio City in the Northern Philippines.

The programme was researching indigenous peoples’ culture and issues and conducted leadership trainings for high school students in mission schools in the Cordillera region. Since then, she has worked with different non-governmental organisations to advance the rights of indigenous peoples to defend their land and resources from destruction.

Carino founded the Cordillera Peoples Alliance in 1984, which leads research, education initiatives and networking for the defense of ancestral land and self-determination of Cordillera indigenous people.

“Indigenous peoples possess traditional knowledge, values and practices that care for the environment and make our communities resilient to climate change,” Carino says.

Indigenous knowledge
Values of inayan (avoiding doing harm to others and the community), ob-obbo (community cooperation), and practices such as lapat and batangan (sustainable forest management) are valuable pieces of indigenous knowledge that help protect the community from threats brought about by climate change and environmental degradation.

However, these values and practices are weakening, are often disregarded or under-valued and lack recognition and support from the authorities, says Carino.

The work indigenous women are doing is particularly notable, she adds. As executive director of the Women Workers Programme from 1990-2000, Carino organised indigenous women in mining communities in the province of Benguet and actively campaigned together with local peoples organisations against the Benguet Corporation’s open-pit mining operations.

The campaign prevented the planned expansion of open-pit mining to other communities in Itogon.

In addition to leading the Philippine Task Force for Indigenous Peoples Rights (TFIP), she also served as executive director of the Cordillera Women’s Education Action Research Centre, which works with regional women’s alliances.

“We have always been advancing indigenous women’s rights and issues to promote the leading and active role of women in the people’s movement for land, food and rights,” she says.

Carino works at a regional level, too, on initiatives that seek to strengthen indigenous peoples’ voices and defend their lands from extractive operations. She worries that development projects also increasingly threaten indigenous communities with displacement for the sake of what the government often defines as the national interest.

Destructive projects
Destructive projects such as the Kaliwa, Kanan and Laiban dams are being forced upon indigenous communities despite their opposition and protests, and despite the adverse social and environmental impacts that contribute to global warming.

“This is all because these projects fall within the misplaced priorities of the national government, are tied to foreign loans or official development assistance, and will bring in profits and other benefits to private investors,” Carino says.

Under the leadership of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, indigenous peoples, rights defenders and environmental activists face serious threats to their lives and security, say groups that monitor such risks.

The Philippine Task Force for Indigenous Peoples Rights has documented many cases of extra-judicial killings, trumped-up charges, illegal arrest and detention, vilification, harassment, intimidation, bombings and other rights violations that occur alongside the violation of indigenous peoples collective rights to their land and resources in the course of development aggression.

“All these are issues and challenges that weaken or hinder indigenous peoples’ agency and resilience against climate change and environmental destruction,” Carino explained. “We can try to overcome these challenges by building strong peoples organizations, and building their capacity to fight for their rights, with the broad support of the wider community,”

Indigenous peoples need to be recognised and respected for what they can contribute for our future, she continued.

“My hope is for the global community to realize that we are facing a climate and biodiversity emergency that needs urgent action from all of us if we are to pass on to the future generations a healthy planet and a just society,” Carino says.

Imelda Abaño is content coordinator for the Earth Journalism Network’s (EJN) Asia-Pacific project. She is an award-winning Philippine environmental journalist and media trainer who has been covering climate change, energy, agriculture, biodiversity and other environmental issues for more than 18 years. Abaño is also founding president of the Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists. Republished with permission from EJN.

The Koori Mail, after awaiting permission from the Kapeen family, has announced with great sadness the sudden passing of Koori Mail chairperson and Bundjalung elder, Russell Kapeen.

“Uncle Russell” passed away on Saturday, May 4, in his home at Coraki, NSW, the Koori Mail statement said. He was 72.

The Koori Mail is proudly owned by five Aboriginal organisations within the Bundjalung region, one of which, the Coraki based Kurrachee Aboriginal Co-operative, Uncle Russell helped establish and lead.

READ MORE: Press Council welcomes first Indigenous member – Koori Mail

He proudly served on the Koori Mail Board since 1993, and was the chairperson since 1995, dedicating a total of 26 years to the voice of Indigenous Australia.

Uncle Russell was a fierce advocate for the well-being of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities throughout NSW and beyond, and was an extremely dedicated and loving family man and community member.

From the Koori Mail Board, staff and our team of writers and correspondents around the nation, we send our deepest condolences and thoughts to the Kapeen family and extended families, and to the communities of the Bundjalung nation during this time.

The Koori Mail will close our office for the day when arrangements for Uncle Russell’s farewell have been confirmed. We ask that our supporters, readers, advertisers and colleagues acknowledge that this is our responsibility to cultural protocol and will advise of office closure day and times accordingly.

The Koori Mail asked, and received permission from the Kapeen family to use this photograph. It also acknowledged and provided a warning that this image may cause some distress to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander persons.