Prime Minister La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt has defended his decision to ban the Samoa Observer in response to a joint letter from the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) and the Pacific Freedom Forum (PFF).

In a statement issued by the Press Secretary, Nanai Lave Tuiletufuga yesterday, the office of the Prime Minister acknowledged concerns raised by the PINA and the PFF, writing that the criticism was “respected and understood” but urged them “to seek full information before forming conclusions”, reports Sulamanaia Manaui Faulalo of the Samoa Observer.

“This is not a ban on media freedom — it is a response to persistent unprofessional and unethical conduct,” the release said.

• READ MORE: RSF calls on Samoan PM to lift ‘unacceptable’ ban on Samoa Observer
• Regional Pacific student journalists condemn Samoa PM’s ban as ‘deeply troubling’
• Samoa editor says media freedom under attack in response to PM’s ban
• Samoa Observer: The PM’s wish and our promise – Editorial
• Samoan PM bans nation’s only newspaper from government access
• JAWS quiet on ban, concerned over media control
• The PM’s wish and our promise – Samoa Observer editorial
• Samoan PM back home as journalist alleges assault outside his residence
• Other Samoa media reports

“The action taken relates solely to the Samoa Observer, following sustained unprofessional behaviour, breaches of industry ethics, and continuous inaccurate and misleading reporting over an extended period.

“Samoa remains firmly committed to upholding media freedom, transparency, and open engagement with the media,” the statement said.

“However, it is equally important to clarify the context and the basis of the government’s decision.”

The release said that the move targets one media outlet and does not represent a broader clampdown.

‘Multiple opportunities’
According to the statement, the Samoa Observer was given “multiple opportunities for correction, dialogue, and improvement,” and that “No other media organisation in Samoa is affected. Engagement with all other local and regional media continues uninterrupted.”

The release also said it would follow due process.

“The Prime Minister has already indicated that a formal review will be undertaken in due course, once all matters surrounding the Observer’s conduct are addressed and resolved and the facts are fully documented,” the statement said. “This review will include an opportunity for the media organisation concerned to respond to the issues raised.”

The release also reiterated its recognition of the importance of a free press.

“The government reiterates that it welcomes robust scrutiny, responsible journalism, and constructive criticism,” it said. “At the same time, media freedom carries the corresponding responsibility of accuracy, professionalism, and respect for the truth.”

“The government invites PINA and PFF to engage constructively and to review the documented evidence of unprofessional reporting and breach of media ethical standards that led to this action,” the statement said.

“Samoa remains available to provide clarification and to work collaboratively to strengthen media standards across the region.”

No response to Samoa Observer
“The decision relating to the Samoa Observer is specific, justified, and based on conduct, not on an attempt or attack to suppress the free flow of information or journalism,” it said.

“The government of Samoa remains open to fair, balanced, and ethical engagement with all media organisations, both local and overseas.”

The Samoa Observer reached out to the government on November 19 to offer the opportunity to make corrections and provide clarifications on the five points originally raised as the reasons for the ban but no response has been received.

Prime Minister La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt says international media are “in the dark” about the reasons behind his decision to ban the Samoa Observer from government press conferences, arguing that overseas attention has created “support for one newspaper at the expense of the entire country.”

He also addressed concerns raised locally, directing criticism at the Journalists Association of Samoa (JAWS) for advising him to reconsider the ban.

“Now you have given me advice, but you should advise where the problem came from,” he said at a media conference this week. “Why are you advising me to lift the ban when you should be advising them [Samoa Observer]?”

• READ MORE: RSF calls on Samoan PM to lift ‘unacceptable’ ban on Samoa Observer
• Regional Pacific student journalists condemn Samoa PM’s ban as ‘deeply troubling’
• Samoa editor says media freedom under attack in response to PM’s ban
• Samoan PM bans nation’s only newspaper from government access
• JAWS quiet on ban, concerned over media control
• The PM’s wish and our promise – Samoa Observer editorial
• Samoan PM back home as journalist alleges assault outside his residence
• Other Samoa media reports

La’aulialemalietoa said his duty was to the nation. “Who do I stand for? It is the country I represent. I will not back down from protecting the people of Samoa.”

He said he remained firm in his decision but hoped for a “constructive resolution” ahead. “As the Prime Minister, I will stand strong to do the right thing.”

On international reactions, he said some overseas commentators “do not understand Samoa” and claimed outside support was being used “to support one business and throw away the whole country that is trying to protect its future.”

He said the media was “part of democracy,” but argued that global reporting had focused on the ban itself rather than what he described as the issues that led to it.

Questioned actions of journalists
Turning to domestic matters, the Prime Minister also questioned the actions of local journalists, saying JAWS did not engage with ministries affected by earlier Samoa Observer reporting.

“You are talking to me, but why didn’t you talk to the ministries impacted?” he asked.

He also raised questions about the role of a media council. “Where do I go, or where does the government go, if this sort of thing happens?” he said, adding he was unsure whether such a body existed or had convened.

The Prime Minister said his concerns extended beyond media conduct to the protection of the Samoan language and culture.

“My whole being is about the Gagana Samoa. If there is no language, there is no country,” he said.

He also accused the Samoa Observer of showing disrespect and said harmful reporting left lasting effects.

“If you say something that hurts a person, it will stay with the person forever,” he said.

JAWS calls for lifting of ban
JAWS has called on the Prime Minister to lift the ban, saying the decision raises concerns about the safety and independence of the media whenever the government feels threatened.

La’aulialemalietoa said he made it clear upon taking office that his position “is Samoa’s chair,” and the government must correct misinformation when it believed reporting was inaccurate or misleading.

“The government has to say something if a journalist is in the wrong,” he said, arguing that overseas commentary did not reflect local realities.

He said the government supported the media but insisted that cooperation depended on factual reporting.

“If you want to work together, the opportunity is open, but we cannot move forward until the writings are corrected.”

He dismissed one allegation as “a pure lie,” accusing journalists of trespassing onto his land.

“People do not walk onto my land like it’s a market,” he said, urging respect for aganuʻu and cultural protocol.

Michael Leunig — who died in the early hours of Thursday December 19, surrounded by “his children, loved ones, and sunflowers” — was the closest thing Australian cartooning had to a prophet. By turns over his long career, he was a poet, a prophet and a provocateur.

The challenge comes in attempting to understand Leunig’s significance: for Australian cartooning; for readers of The Age and other newspapers past; and for the nation’s idea of itself.

On this day, do you remember the gently philosophical Leunig, or the savagely satirical one? Do you remember a cartoon that you thought absolutely nailed the problems of the world, or one you thought was terribly wrong-headed?

• READ MORE: ‘The pen has run dry’: Acclaimed cartoonist Michael Leunig dies
• Gallery: Michael Leunig’s life in cartoons

Leunig’s greatness lay in how intensely he made his audiences think and feel.

There is no one straightforward story to tell here. With six decades of cartooning at least weekly in newspapers and 25 book-length collections of his work, how could there be?

The light and the dark
One thread is an abiding fondness for the whimsical Leunig. Mr Curly and Vasco Pyjama live on in the imaginations of so many readers.

Particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, Leunig’s work seemed to hold a moral and ethical mirror up to Australian society — sometimes gently, but not without controversy, such as his 1995 “Thoughts of a baby lying in a childcare centre”.

Another thread is the dark satirist.

In the 1960s and 1970s, he broke onto the scene as a wild man in Oz, the Sunday Observer and the Nation Review who deplored Vietnam and only escaped the draft owing to deafness in one ear.

Then he apparently mellowed to become the guru of The Age, still with a capacity to launch the occasional satirical thunderbolt. Decidedly countercultural, together with Patrick Cook and Peter Nicholson, Leunig brought what historian Tony Moore has called “existential and non-materialist themes to the Australian black-and-white tradition”.

By 1999, he was declared a “national living treasure” by the National Trust, and was being lauded by universities for his unique contributions to the national culture.

But to tell the story of Leunig’s significance from the mid 90s on is to go beyond the dreamer and the duck. In later decades you could see a clear distinction between some cartoons that continued to console in a bewildering world, and others that sparked controversy.

Politics and controversy
Leunig saw 9/11 and the ensuing “War on Terror” as the great turning point in his career. He fearlessly returned to the themes of the Vietnam years, only to receive caution, rebuke and rejection from editors and readers.

He stopped drawing Mr Curly and Vasco Pyjama. The world was no longer safe for the likes of them.

Then there was a cartoon refused by The Age in 2002, deemed by editor Michael Gawenda to be inappropriate: in the first frame, a Jew is confronted by the gates of the death camp: “Work Brings Freedom [Arbeit Macht Frei]”; in the second frame an Israeli viewing a similar slogan “War Brings Peace”.

Rejected, it was never meant to see the light of day, but ABC’s Media Watch and Crikey outed it because of the constraint its spiking represented to fair media comment on the Middle East.

That the cartoon was later entered, without Leunig’s knowledge, in the infamous Iranian “Holocaust Cartoon” competition of 2006, has only added to its infamy and presaged the internet’s era of the uncontrollable circulation of images.

A decade later, from 2012, he reworked Martin Niemöller’s poetic statement of guilt over the Holocaust. The result was outrage, but also acute division within the Australian Jewish community.

Dvir Abramovich (chairperson of the Anti-Defamation Commission) made a distinction between something challenging, and something racist, believing it was the latter.

Harold Zwier (of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society) welcomed the chance for his community to think critically about Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank.

From 2019 — a mother, distracted, looking at her phone rather than her baby. Cries of “misogyny”, including from Leunig’s very talented cartoonist sister, Mary.

Then from 2021 — a covid-19 vaccination needle atop an armoured tank, rolling towards a helpless citizen.

Leunig’s enforced retirement (it is still debated whether he walked or was pushed) was long and drawn-out. He filed his last cartoon for The Age this August. By then, he had alienated more than a few of his colleagues in the press and the cartooning profession.

Support of the downtrodden
Do we speak ill of the dead? We hope not. Instead, we hope we are paying respect to a great and often angry artist who wanted always to challenge the consumer society with its dark cultural and geopolitical secrets.

Leunig’s response was a single line of argument: he was “Just a cartoonist with a moral duty to speak”.

You don’t have to agree with every provocation, but his purpose is always to take up the cause of the weak, and deploy all the weaponry at his disposal to support the downtrodden in their fight.

“The role of the cartoonist is not to be balanced”, said Leunig, but rather to “give balance”.

For Leunig, the weak were the Palestinian civilians, the babies of the post-iPhone generation, and those forced to be vaccinated by a powerful state; just as they were the Vietnamese civilians, the children forced to serve their rulers through state-sanctioned violence, the citizens whose democracy was undercut by stooges of the establishment.

That deserves to be his legacy, regardless of whether you agree or not about his stance.

The coming year will give a great many people pause to reflect on the life and work of Leunig. Indeed, he has provided us with a monthly schedule for doing just that: Leunig may be gone, but 2025 is already provided for, via his last calendar.

Dr Richard Scully, professor in modern history, University of New England; Dr Robert Phiddian, professor of English, Flinders University, and Dr Stephanie Brookes, senior lecturer, School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

A senior Nine staff journalist has resigned and readers are angrily cancelling their newspaper subscriptions as Sydney Morning Herald and Age editors defend a decision to ban staff who signed a letter protesting about Australian media’s handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict from covering the war.

The fallout continues from a last Friday afternoon announcement in response to the open letter addressed to Australian newsrooms that called on them to “support ethical reporting on Israel and Palestine”.

The petition, which had more than 100 signatures from journalists, including some from Nine’s mastheads, advocated covering credible allegations of war crimes and disclosing whether staff had taken sponsored trips to the region.

• READ MORE: Which Australian journalists and politicians have gone on trips to Israel and Palestine?
• Open letter from journalists to Australian media outlets
• War on Gaza live: Israel resumes bombing after truce expires

Editors for Nine’s metro papers SMH, The Age, Brisbane Times and WAToday — comprising executive editor Tory Maguire, SMH editor Bevan Shields, Age editor Patrick Elligett and SMH national editor David King — reacted by saying they would remove any staff who signed the letter from reporting or producing content related to the war.

Following the letter, the editors organised an in-person meeting on Tuesday morning and invited Nine’s signatories to the open letter along with the mastheads’ house committee members of journalist union Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA).

According to five staff who spoke to Crikey on the condition of anonymity, little was known about the meeting prior to it being held. Initially, some staff were concerned the meeting would be about further repercussions for the letter’s signatories while others wondered if the editors were planning on softening their stance.

What became clear soon into the 90-minute meeting was that the editors had no intention of backing down. Multiple staff described them as “doubling down” in a “tense” meeting.

‘Mostly defensiveness’
“I would say the vibe was a lot of open discussion but mostly defensiveness from the editors,” one staff member told Crikey.

Editors stressed that their decision to sideline staff who had signed the letter was motivated by a desire to protect their mastheads’ reputations from a perception of bias.

They argued that the bans — while saying they were hesitant to use the word “ban” to describe them — were not punitive and were set to last as long as the conflict does.

A point of contention was the “hypocrisy” of treating staff as potentially biased for signed the letter about media coverage, while not applying that same standard to staff who have attended sponsored trips to Israel. (Crikey reported earlier this week that Maguire, Shields, Elligett and King have all made such trips.)

When one editor raised that a hypothetical reader coming across a Nine journalist’s name on the open letter would affect their perception of the paper, a staff member asked why it would not be the same for someone who had been on a trip, especially given that they were not required to disclose it.

While saying that going on a junket “years ago” would not affect a journalist’s coverage, editors singled out two journalists in the newsroom for having gone on trips — one supported by a movie studio and the other by environmental advocacy group Greenpeace — and whether they would need to disclose this.

In both cases, these journalists, who declined to comment to Crikey, had disclosed the relationship as part of their coverage.

“They [the editors] tried to make comparisons that weren’t really comparisons,” one journalist said.

‘Punished’ over backgrounds
Staff also used the meeting to raise concerns about what management was doing to retain diverse staff, describing feeling as being “punished” for their own backgrounds.

Maguire, Shields, Elligett and King did not respond to questions from Crikey about the meeting, including asking what Nine’s leadership was doing to retain diverse staff. A Nine spokesperson responded with a general statement instead.

“The editorial leaders are in constant communication with a vast range of newsroom staff, representing all perspectives, and will continue to encourage open dialogue on all issues, including this one,” they said in an emailed statement.

Shortly after the meeting on Wednesday afternoon, 17-year Age veteran and environment reporter Miki Perkins posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) that she was resigning from her role.

“I have made the decision that it’s time to seek broader horizons and I will be leaving,” she wrote.

Perkins, who hopes to stay working in journalism, was one of the journalists singled out in the meeting and had been assisting in circulating the open letter to journalists. She did not mention the meeting but Age staff believe that Nine management’s handling of the matter was the final straw.

Angry comments
Meanwhile, Nine’s Slack channel #feedback-smh-website, which automatically posts responses to a feedback survey, has been filled with angry comments from current and former readers who took issue with the editors’ response to the letter.

One metro paper journalist said that the last time they had seen such directed reader feedback was during the backlash to SMH‘s outing of Rebel Wilson.

“My family has been a subscriber to the Age consistently for around 100 years — but this is too far. Please end my subscription immediately,” wrote one respondent.

“Vale Herald. You shall be missed,” wrote another.

Cam Wilson is a journalist for the independent Crikey website in Australia. Republished by Pacific Media Watch.

The Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA) says it is “deeply concerned” at reports that Western Australian police are demanding the ABC hand over footage about climate protesters filmed as part of a Four Corners investigation.

“As researchers and teachers of journalism, we uphold the ethical obligation of journalists to honour any assurances given to protect sources,” said JERAA president Associate Professor Alexandra Wake in a statement.

“This obligation is imperative in supporting the Western democratic tradition of journalism and to investigative journalism in particular.”

• READ MORE: Media union condemns WA police demand for footage
• Escalation: Climate, protest and the fight for the future

The ABC case relates to an investigation due to be broadcast on Four Corners tonight: “Escalation: Climate, protest and the fight for the future”.

“I’m going to remember this for the rest of my life.” Video: ABC Four Corners

WA police are reported to have demanded footage via “Order to Produce” provisions of the WA Criminal Investigations Act. The law compels organisations to comply.

One of JERAA’s core aims was to promote freedom of expression and communication, said the statement.

“The association is concerned that the WA police action represents a direct threat to media freedom and the practice of ethical investigative journalism,” Dr Wake said.

“We join the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) in urging the ABC to stand firm and not hand over footage which could potentially undermine assurances by the Four Corners team to their sources.”

The union for Australian journalists said it was alarmed at the reports that WA police were demanding the ABC hand over footage featuring climate activists filmed as part of the television investigation before it had even aired.

• MEAA support petition for the ABC
• “Escalation” reported by Hagar Cohen goes to air tonight, Monday, 9 October 2023, at 8.30pm AEST on ABC TV and ABC iview.

News media in Indonesia act as “government loudspeakers” by advancing a one-sided narrative regarding the conflict in West Papua, a new study reveals.

The human rights abuses against indigenous Papuans, who have been under military occupation of the Indonesian armed forces since 1962-63 and their struggle for independence from Jakarta, remains a sticking point for the Indonesian government in the region.

However, the Indonesian national media provides an unfair coverage on the plight of the West Papuans by only amplifying the state’s narrative, according to research published in Pacific Journalism Review.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific Journalism Review research reports
• Other West Papua reports

The paper, which looks at how six dominant news media organisations in Indonesia report on the Free West Papua movement, found that they “tend to be only a ‘loudspeaker’ for the government” by using mainly statements issued by state officials when reporting about West Papua.

The findings come from in-depth interviews that were conducted between 2021 and 2022 with six informants and journalists who have a history of writing on West Papua in the last five years.

Additionally, the research analysed over 270 news items relating to West Papua issues that appeared in the six Indonesian online media — Okezone, Detik, Kompas.com, Tribunnews, CNN Indonesia and Tirto — in the week after the Indonesian government formally labelled the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement (TPNPB-OPM) as a terrorist group in April 2021.

“The Indonesian media does not use a balanced frame, for example, in terms of explaining why and how acts of violence are chosen on the path to fight for West Papuan independence,” the author of the research from Universitas Padjadjaran, Justito Adipresto, writes.

‘Prolonging human rights violations’
Non-state actors have acknowledged that “labelling West Papuan separatist groups as terrorist will not only not solve the problem, but that it also has the potential to prolong the human rights violations that have been taking place in West Papua,” Adipresto says.

While some point to the economic disparities as a starting point to the West Papua conflict, the research shows that the media fall significantly short of providing a nuanced coverage by ignoring the “haunting track record of violence and militarism, ethnicity and racism” in their reports.

“The imbalance of representation that occurs in relation to reporting on West Papua cannot be separated from Indonesia’s treatment of ethnic groups and the region of West Papua,” Adipresto says.

He says the government’s labelling of the Free West Papua movement has “severe implications for the current and future situation and conflict in West Papua”.

“Media in Indonesia is under the shadow of the state,” he said adding that reporting on West Papua lacks “explanation and sufficient context”.

He said Indonesian media were “very concerned about the readers clicks”, and therefore on the quantity of reports rather than the quality.

“The concentration of reporters in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, also leads to reporting from reporters not located in or never having visited West Papua, potentially reducing empathy and understanding of human rights or economic aspects in their reporting.

‘Quality, ethics of journalists are an issue’
“The quality and ethics of journalists are an issue in reporting on West Papua, considering that journalists do not tend to cover the issue of labelling a ‘terrorist’ comprehensively.”

The research shows Indonesian media place greater importance on comments from government officials, often ignoring or not providing space for other voices, in particular the West Papuan community.

“It is necessary to develop a more systematic and consolidated strategy for the national media to cover West Papua better,” the author concludes.

The full paper, titled “Government loudspeakers: How Indonesian media amplifies the state’s narrative towards the Free West Papua movement”, can be found at Pacific Journalism Review, published by the Asia Pacific Media Network. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Research on climate crisis as the new target for disinformation peddlers, governance and the media, China’s growing communication influence, and journalism training strategies feature strongly in the latest Pacific Journalism Review.

Byron C. Clark, author of the recent controversial book Fear: New Zealand’s Hostile Underworld of Extremists, and Canterbury University postgraduate researcher Emanuel Stokes, have produced a case study about climate crisis as the new pandemic disinformation arena with the warning that “climate change or public health emergencies can be seized upon by alternative media and conspiracist influencers” to “elicit outrage and protest”.

The authors argue that journalists need a “high degree of journalistic ethics and professionalism to avoid amplifying hateful, dehumanising narratives”.

• READ MORE: The July 2023 PJR table of contents
• Other PJR editions

PJR editor Dr Philip Cass adds an article unpacking the role of Pacific churches, both positive and negative, in public information activities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Several articles deal with media freedom in the Pacific in the wake of the pandemic, including a four-country examination by some of the region’s leading journalists and facilitated by Dr Amanda Watson of Australian National University and associate professor Shailendra Singh of the University of the South Pacific.

They conclude that the pandemic “has been a stark reminder about the link between media freedom and the financial viability of media of organisations, especially in the Pacific”.

Dr Ann Auman, a specialist in crosscultural and global media ethics from the University of Hawai’i, analyses challenges facing the region through a workshop at the newly established Pacific Media Institute in Majuro, Marshall Islands.

Repeal of draconian Fiji law
The ousting of the Voreqe Bainimarama establishment that had been in power in Fiji in both military and “democratic” forms since the 2006 coup opened the door to greater media freedom and the repeal of the draconian Fiji Media Law. Two articles examine the implications of this change for the region.

An Indonesian researcher, Justito Adiprasetio of Universitas Padjadjaran, dissects the impact of Jakarta’s 2021 “terrorist” branding of the Free West Papua movement on six national online news media groups.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, media analyst Dr Gavin Ellis discusses “denying oxygen” to those who create propaganda for terrorists in the light of his recent research with Dr Denis Muller of Melbourne University and how Australia might benefit from New Zealand media initiatives, while RNZ executive editor Jeremy Rees reflects on a historical media industry view of training, drawing from Commonwealth Press Union reviews of the period 1979-2002.

Across the Tasman, Griffith University communication and journalism programme director Dr Kasun Ubayasiri presents a powerful human rights Photoessay documenting how the Meanjin (Brisbane) local community rallied around to secure the release of 120 medevaced refugee men locked up in an urban motel.

Monash University associate professor Johan Lidberg led a team partnering in International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) studies about “the world according to China”, the global media influence strategies of a superpower.

The Frontline section features founding editor Dr David Robie’s case study about the Pacific Media Centre which was originally published by Japan’s Okinawan Journal of Island Studies.

A strong Obituary section featuring two personalities involved in investigating the 1975 Balibo Five journalist assassination by Indonesian special forces in East Timor and a founder of the Pacific Media Centre plus nine Reviews round off the edition.

Pacific Journalism Review, founded at the University of Papua New Guinea, is now in its 29th year and is New Zealand’s oldest journalism research publication and the highest ranked communication journal in the country.

It is published by the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) Incorporated educational nonprofit.

Papua New Guinea’s The National newspaper has welcomed a statement by the Information and Communication Technology Department (DICT) that the government has no wish to control the media to limit freedom of expression.

Editor-in-chief Christine Pakakota said a free media provided oxygen to any country claiming to be democratic, and effectively promoting transparency and accountability.

She was responding to a government statement last week, saying that the proposed national media development policy had “no intention of giving powers to the government to control the media or infringe on the freedom of expression”.

• READ MORE: ‘Chilling effect on journalism’ – Fiji academic warns PNG against media law change
• Other PNG media policy reports

The National submitted its response to the draft policy last Tuesday.

Pakakota said it was obvious that the government’s intention and concern was “to ensure that the people get important and accurate information”.

“We are with any government that wishes to improve the standard of living of the people as well as to develop the country,” she said.

“And when the government says it aims to do so through the promotion of democracy, good governance, human rights and social and economic development, as stated in the covering statement to the draft policy, we will proudly stand beside it.”

‘Long journey’
She regretted that the government had given stakeholders only two weeks “to respond to a matter that would have serious and long-lasting impact on the country’s long journey to becoming a developed nation and take its rightful place in the world”.

“We also believe that the PNG Media Council must be fully independent and adequately funded by the state and/or donors, and run by highly-respected persons,” she said.

“It represents the interests of the media industry in PNG.”

She said the council should also have a complaints committee to judge complaints about press and broadcasting conduct as set out in a Media Code of Ethics and Practice.

“The council should have a chairman and executive secretary selected from the public,” she said.

“Members of the complaints committee (at least five) are also to be picked from the public.”

• Pacific Media Watch reports that the DICT has removed the draft media policy from its website.

Republished with permission.

Women now make up well over half of New Zealand’s journalism workforce, but they have serious concerns about their safety on the job, a new survey shows.

Conducted by Massey University, the Worlds of Journalism Study 2.0: Journalists in Aotearoa/New Zealand garnered responses from 359 of the country’s estimated 1600 full-time journalists.

Women make up 58 percent of the profession but are seriously concerned about their safety at work due to public discrediting, threats, surveillance, physical attack, sexual harassment, and stalking.

• READ MORE: Worlds of Journalism: Mapping journalism’s hostile environment

Journalists reported threats, bullying, stalking and rape and death threats. One had a faux Facebook page set up in their name.

Sexual abuse included “public speculation or commentary about my body, mental health, sex like, marriage, which political commentators/etc I must have had sex with.”

Since the last survey in 2015, women have closed the pay gap and are now equally represented at all levels.

Pay across the board has increased in real terms since then, adjusted for inflation.

Māori journalists now a tenth
There has been a 20 percent increase in Māori journalists, who now make up a tenth of the workforce. But Pasifika and Asian communities remain under-represented.

For the first time, New Zealand journalists were asked about their attitudes to the Treaty of Waitangi; three quarters said it applied to all or most things they wrote.

Journalists are still committed to the traditional non-biased observer role of journalists, but now feel their most important role is to educate the public.

They are less influenced by commercial considerations than they were seven years ago, and more concerned to uphold journalism ethics.

Their political views are slightly left of centre, on average.

Massey University Associate Professor Dr James Hollings said the survey showed that employers needed to do more to keep their female employees safe.

“Journalists are under a lot of strain due to shrinking newsrooms and other pressures, but they’re doing a remarkable job of holding to their core values despite that.

‘Making great diversity efforts’
“It also shows that profession is making great efforts to adapt to become more equal and more diverse, although there’s some way to go in some areas.”

The survey is New Zealand’s contribution to the Worlds of Journalism Study (WJS). It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.25 percent and a confidence level of 95 percent.

The first global survey, undertaken 2012-2016, mapped journalists in 66 countries and provided the first statistically robust picture of journalists worldwide ever undertaken.

This second global survey, which is still underway, will extend the coverage to up to 120 countries, mapping changes since 2016. The first global results will be available in 2024.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Atrocities and total war are not pixilated or sanitised. They bring death with unimaginable brutality and obliterate lives with indifference. It is time to stop protecting the New Zealand public from these grim realities of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Our news media post warnings about disturbing images and then obscure them out of a long-held regard for the sensibilities of readers and viewers over portrayal of death. We see shapeless body bags while those lying in the street are given a dignified digital shroud.

Yes, we read and hear descriptions of what the innocent citizens of Ukraine have had to endure at the hands of Russian invaders. However, we are shielded from most graphic detail of what is being done in a mission to “demilitarise and de-Nazify” a democratic nation that posed no defence threat to its neighbour.

• READ MORE: Other Ukraine war reports
• More Gavin Ellis articles

How often do we see and hear the phrase “Warning: The following item includes disturbing images including dead bodies” when, in fact, we are left to imagine what the body looks like under its obscuring mantle?

I was moved to think about New Zealand media depiction of the victims of war crimes in Ukraine by an essay that appeared in The New York Times last Saturday. Written by long-time photojournalist David Hume Kennerly, it was headed “Photographing Hell”.

Kennerly was a combat photographer in Vietnam and was responsible for the iconic image of a vat of cyanide-laced Flavor Aid surrounded by corpses in the 1978 Jonestown massacre in Guyana. He is no stranger to war and death and was reminded of Jonestown when he saw images of the bodies of civilians lying in the street when Bucha, on the northern outskirts of Kyiv, was retaken by Ukrainian forces.

Those images were denounced by the Kremlin as “fakes” and “provocations”, to which Kennerly responded: “The images of these atrocities were taken by trusted photojournalists. They are the truth, and a record of the mendacity and brutality of the Russian military. As accusations of war crimes mount, these photos are the documentation the world needs to finally understand what is really happening in Ukraine.”

‘Direct line to people’
He went on to describe photographs as “a direct line to people, over the heads of officials, pundits and disinformation” and said some photographs will always have the power to make us confront horror.

One of the images accompanying his essay had that effect on me. It was a photograph of a body bag. It had been unzipped far enough to reveal the side of a face staring resolutely ahead. In death, the man was telling us he was an eye-witness to the atrocity that had taken his life.

The photograph had been taken by Carol Guzy, a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, who covered the conflicts in Kosova and ISIS-held Mosul. Her photographs taken following the liberation of Bucha are confronting and include bodies being exhumed from mass graves, charred corpses, and open caskets. Yet somehow it is the unseeing eye peering from a body bag that is truly iconic.

Kennerly’s essay recalls similarly iconic images from his time in Vietnam, such as Eddie Adams’ picture of a Vietcong suspect being executed in a Saigon street and Nick Ut’s image of a young girl running naked down a road after being burnt by napalm. They helped to change public attitudes to that war.

He could have added Ronald Haeberle’s photograph of a pile of bodies, victims of the My Lai massacre by American soldiers, that appeared on the front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and forced the U.S. military to confront its own crimes. And Malcolm Browne’s photograph of a Buddhist monk in the act of self-immolation in Saigon shook the United States and elsewhere. And Larry Burrows’ Life magazine cover story showing a helicopter gunner with a dying pilot at his feet.

Or he could have gone back further. Start with Goya’s depictions of the Peninsular War between 1810 and 1820, then move to Robert Capa’s moment-of-death image of a falling soldier in the Spanish Civil War in 1936, and Margaret Bourke-White’s graphic portrayal of the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp that appeared in Life magazine in May 1945. Our understanding of those events is rooted in what we were shown more than what we were told. As Kennerly observes in the essay: “Evocative images can affect policy, spur action, and every now and then alter the course of history”.

indelibly on the public record
Now we have Ukraine and Kennerly says many of the photographs from that war deserve to live as indelibly on the public record as the photos of Vietnam (and elsewhere).

But will they achieve that status if news media sanitise and, yes, censor them?

Kennerly ends by saying he’s getting tired of endless disclaimers (there is one at the top of his New York Timescontribution) that warn of “Graphic Material”.

“The best photographs of war might make us want to look away. It’s imperative that we do not.”

I agree, but I concede there is a strong tradition in this country (and in many other places) of shielding audiences from the visual depiction of death. I cannot recall, for example, seeing an unobscured image of the face of a dead person in our media, unless from a safe distance.

I certainly don’t recall publishing one during my editorship of The New Zealand Herald although I certainly saw many confronting images. News agencies observed the practice of sending the image and expecting editors to decide whether or not to publish it.

Jessica Fishman, in a very good US study of how the media censor and display the dead entitled Death Makes the News,notes that news organisations make a distinction between writing about death and portraying it visually. Much of her book is devoted to explaining why images are not published, including the dangers of “death pornography”.

Exceptions made by media
However, she identifies exceptions that media make. More often than not those exceptions are made for bodies somewhere else. Too often they are images of people “who don’t look like us”. Those are poor reasons for publication.

There are some good reasons for being extremely circumspect about publishing images from within your own country when there is a strong likelihood they will be seen by grieving relatives and friends. This is the principal reason New Zealand media do not publish pictures of bodies in fatal road crashes. It was one of the compelling judgements made by New Zealand media following the Christchurch mosque massacre when coverage concentrated on survivors.

Inevitably, however, there will be exceptions to this domestic reticence. For example, in 1972 the Daily Mirror in Britain ran a front page picture of a priest administering last rights to a protester, one of 13 killed by British troops in the Bloody Sunday incident. It is a picture I, too, would have published because it bore witness to demonstrably disproportionate use of state force.

Similarly, I would have published a photograph carried on the front page of The New York Times in 2013. It wasn’t local. It documented a war crime.

The image was of a row of bodies, four of them children, in white shrouds with only their faces visible. They were the victims of a Syrian chemical attack in Damascus.

The paper’s public editor Margaret Sullivan, in a column explaining the decision to publish, invoked the images from Vietnam that Kennerly is now resurrecting. She said they brought home the horror in a way that words never could, and the image from Syria was similarly “capable of changing the narrative, possibly affecting the course of history”. Tragically, that picture has not.

Now we have Ukraine and the strong likelihood that images captured by photojournalists in the war zone will contribute to mounting evidence of war crimes. There are precedents: Photographs taken by Ron Haviv in Bosnia played a material part in the conviction of Slobodan Milošević, Radovan Karadžić and a local warlord by the International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague.

Images add to outrage
New Zealand publication and broadcast of explicit images of war crimes against Ukraine will not tip the balance of history or convict war criminals. However, as elsewhere, a New Zealand audience’s exposure to them will add to the weight of international public opinion against the perpetrators. Images will add to outrage.

Equally, or perhaps of even greater importance, verified explicit images of war crimes and victims may help to counter Russian propaganda still being freely disseminated in this country through the Daily Telegraph New Zealand website (no connection to the publications of the same name in London and Sydney). It carries, unquestioningly, both RT and Sputnik “news” services.

This is not to say that New Zealand media should declare open season on publishing pictures of the dead. Far from it. We are the better for not being exposed to recurring death pornography.

There are also limits to what the public can be expected the bear. In 1991, for example, Associated Press pulled from the wire an image of the charred corpse of an Iraqi soldier who had failed to escape from a burning truck on the Gulf War’s Highway of Death. One picture editor called it “the stuff of nightmares”. London’s Observer was one of only a handful of papers that ran it — and repeated publication in a book on the war. I vividly recall the image. Would I have inflicted it on a New Zealand audience? No.

Decisions on whether to publish defining images that capture far more than a moment are hard when the central focus is a corpse. It requires not only a determination of newsworthiness but also a self-examination of motives. Publication must serve a higher purpose than merely shocking an audience.

Sadly, pictures that serve that higher purpose will continue to emerge from Ukraine. I hope editors in this country publish them. They were paid for with the lives of innocents.

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications – covering both editorial and management roles – that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes a blog called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

The Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) has appealed to news media that reported on intimidation against the parents and relatives of human rights lawyer Veronica Koman to immediately make corrections.

Some media have revealed the identity and addresses exposing them to further violence, reports Tabloid Jubi in Jayapura.

The plea comes amid many protests among civil society groups about the harassment and the London-based Indonesian human rights organisation TAPOL condemned the increasing threats and attacks against Koman’s family in Jakarta.

• READ MORE: Parents of Papuan rights defender Koman attacked in Jakarta
• Other West Papua reports

Koman, a prominent advocate for West Papuan human rights, lives in Australia in self-imposed exile.

AJI chairman Sasminto Madrim said that mentioning the identity, names, and addresses of Koman’s family members in the news would lead to further “terrorism” acts.

“Regarding the news that reveals the identity of Veronica Koman’s family, we want to convey that there is no news worth a life,” Madrim said during an online media conference.

“The safety of the informants is paramount.”

Journalism code of ethics
Article 2 of Indonesia’s Journalism Code of Ethics (KEJ) reads: “Indonesian journalists use professional methods in carrying out journalistic duties.”

Madrim said that “being professional’ meant respecting the privacy of the source in certain cases, such as victims of terrorism, violence, or sexual violence.

Madrim further mentioned Article 10, which says: “Indonesian journalists immediately retract, rectify, and correct false and inaccurate news accompanied by apologies to readers, listeners, or viewers.”

The Jornal Independente newspaper has been awarded Timor-Leste’s mediaoutlet of the year prize in the National Press Council’s 2019 awards.

Rigoberto Monteiro, executive director of Timor-Leste’s Press Council, said the Independente took out the award because of the quality of its stories and “strict adherence to the journalism code of ethics compared to other major media”.

Virgilio Da Silva Guterres, president of the Press Council, said although the Independente was one of the smaller media outlets in the country, its commitment to “writing balanced news and obeying the journalism code of ethics” gave it an edge over other media outlets.

• READ MORE: Timor-Leste’s Independente champions ‘free press’
• AJF condemns impunity over Balibo Five murders in Timor, other killings

Accepting the award, Jose Sarito Amaral, director of the Independente, said he was “very grateful that the Press Council and jury team [had] recognised Jornal Independente as the best media in Timor-Leste.”

Amaral said he promised to continue motivating his journalists to improve the quality of their work.

Introduced in 2017, the Press Council Awards recognise the critical role media plays in access to information and freedom of speech.

The award comes with prize money of US$1500 and a trophy.

• The award also marked the assassination of five Australian-based journalists at Balibo, Timor-Leste, on 16 October 1975, shortly before the invasion of the country by neighbouring Indonesia and the later killing of Roger East, who set up an East-Timor news agency.
• Jornal Independente

Below is a slightly edited version of the defence that Rebecca Kuku posted on her Facebook account in response to criticisms of her and The National and which she subsequently removed. The Pacific Media Centre’s Asia Pacific Report is republishing this with the permission of Rebecca and her editor, Christine Banian Pakakota, as an example of courageous journalism in the public interest. – Asia Pacific Report Editor

COMMENT: By Rebecca Kuku in Port Moresby

Thank you to all those media experts, lawyers – and just about everyone who found the time in their busy schedules – to call me up in the newsroom, send an email or message me about the report and the picture of a young mother, Jenelyn Kennedy, on today’s The National newspaper. Even a Papua New Guinean student lawyer in Australia sent a complaint from her law firm to my editors.

And yes, I know it was unethical, it was distressing and graphic but her story needs to be told and what better way to do it than in a picture because a picture is worth a thousand words.

READ MORE: Tragic life and death of Jenelyn – babysitter tells of PNG torture case

Besides I had gained permission from her family, both the maternal and paternal sides.

And yes, I knew I’d be trashed. I’m not new to the industry or the criticism but you see, yesterday [Thursday], sitting in that press conference, I was torn between sobbing out loud or just punching a wall.

It was nearly deadline for the newspaper and so I made my excuses and left to go back and file …

Then I ran back up to the room and asked the family if I could use that picture. I told them straight, that it would be graphic and gruesome and against media ethics but people needed to see it for themselves to really know what she had been through and the family gave me permission to use it.

So you see, sometimes we have to make decisions that go against ethics – hard decisions. And I thank my chief editor Christine Banian Pakakota, editor Gynnie Kero and assistant editor Charles Moi for always backing me up. For making that call, that decision to have it published.

At the end of the day, it was an editorial decision and credit must go back to chief editor Christine Pakakota for making the decision to publish the picture.

Teamwork at the Big Red House
I filed it but she made the brave decision to run it! It was teamwork and that is why I am always proud to be a part of the Big Red House (The National)

I know it was a hard decision to make and so thank you.

Her story needed to be told – as a reporter, a woman, a mother, a sister, I failed to be her voice when she was alive and I’d be damned if I would fail her now in her death. Her voice needs to be heard and that picture was used to ensure her voice was loud and clear and to also awaken the authorities who seem to be sleeping, to open their eyes to the realities of gender-based violence (GBV).

Men who beat their wives can see that picture and start realising that one day they too might beat their wives to death, women who are still trapped in violent marriages can see that picture and feel empowered to leave because I’m sure no women would want to die like that.

It was a wake up call for citizens to realise the horrific realities of GBV so they can check on their daughters, sisters or freinds and help them get out before it’s too late, and so much more.

So you see. You can say all you want to say, and email, call or text… but I will stand by my decision to file that picture with the story and defend it – because it’s about time!

By Rebecca Kuku in The National

The battered body of young mother Jenelyn Kennedy lay in a morgue yesterday as relatives told of the repeated beatings she had been receiving in the past five years which had been reported to police.

Grandfather Kennedy Karava said Jenelyn had last week been subjected to another six days of beating.

She finally collapsed at the home she shared with her partner at Korobosea in Port Moresby early Tuesday morning.

Her partner was charged with wilful murder yesterday.

Karava said Jenelyn was only 15 and doing Grade Seven at the Eki Vaki Primary School when her father gave her a house in downtown to live in. She eloped with her partner in late 2015.

“We started looking for her. My son heard that they were living at 6-Mile. He lodged a complaint with the 6-Mile police station as she was under age,” he said.

“But at the police station, the officer told [my son] to come back the next day. He released Jenelyn and the partner. The next day, my son and I went to the police station and waited untill afternoon. The police station commander referred us to the Sexual Offence Unit at the Boroko police station.”

He said they were told to leave their contacts with police and that “they would get back to us”.
Jenelyn and her partner disappeared in 2016.

“We went back a couple of times to the police station but they said the same thing: leave a number and will call you back,” he said.

Last year, Jenelyn managed to run away from her partner and returned to her maternal family at the Murray Barracks – “with her two babies, a broken arm and a black eye”.

Uncle Dickson Karava said the partner came and took her back, and “beat her up”.

“Every time we tried to intervene, she would stop us, saying he had the money and connections and would just make her life worse.”

Her children’s babysitter, Racheal Ipang, said when she returned to her partner in October last year, “he was good to her for a week, then beat her up again”.

Ipang said Jenelyn wasn’t allowed to leave her room.

“Jenelyn sought help, went to the safe house at Ela Beach, at Kaugere, at Erima, but it was no use.”

Ipang told of how last Thursday [June 18] he had assaulted her too before turning to Jenelyn again.

“We were inside the kids’ room when I started hearing Jenelyn’s muffled cries, the noise of chains and banging on the door.

“I was scared too. There were five men in the house too but they didn’t intervene.

“He beat her from last week Thursday to Monday morning when he called for a doctor [named] to treat her at home.”

She said after the doctor left, he beat her again.

“Her screams stopped at around 3am [Tuesday]. I believe that’s when she passed away.”

Journalist Rebecca Kuku has a special Facebook page called Becky’s World where she discusses GBV issues.

#IMayHaveOnlyOneMatchButICanMakeAnExplosion
#BigRedHouse
#JusticeForJenelyn
#LetHerVoiceBeHeardNow

International public service media from G-7 countries have reported “strong audience increases” since the covid-19 pandemic, which they interpret as a show of confidence for the “reliable and independent information” they deliver on multiple communication platforms, in a variety of languages, on all continents.

The global health crisis has illustrated that public service media are “at the service of the general interest, democratic values and freedom of expression, which brings us together,” said a statement cited by the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC).

The statement was issued by France Médias Monde, France 24, Deutsche Welle, BBC World Service, USAGM, NHK World, CBC/Radio-Canada and ABC Australia.

READ MORE: The conspiracy virus: Covid-19 misinformation in the US – Al Jazeera

The managers and chief executives of these media – which reach a weekly global audience of one billion — pledged to “build on this public confidence in our media, which is more precious and greater than ever”.

“Public service media have suffered greatly from the unregulated nature of digital platforms as well as from unscrupulous bloggers and peddlers of fake news,” said WACC general secretary Philip Lee.

“The rehabilitation of public service media is long overdue,” he added.

The statement noted that journalists, technicians, correspondents, and other employees “have mobilised to pursue their mission tirelessly, informing people about the new coronavirus and helping to combat its spread by delivering prevention messages, in conjunction with the health authorities”.

The fact that their content is reported in many international languages by local correspondents “makes it possible to reach the citizens of the world in their mother tongues,” the G-7 public service media added.

International public service media have also been on the frontlines of the fight against the spread of fake news about the novel coronavirus and treatments, it said.

“The international public service media in our seven countries have opened their platforms to the best scientific experts and specialists, to major political and economic leaders, on all aspects of the worst pandemic the world has seen in decades,” said the statement.

Emphasising that “the humanist values of solidarity” underpin actions of public service media, the statement noted how they have joined in worldwide tributes to healthcare workers, researchers and essential workers and paid special tribute to women, “whose role has often been crucial at all levels of society.”

It noted, among others, that their stories have helped raise awareness of increases in gender-based violence and domestic violence during lockdown and ways to address them.

“This period should  encourage us to draw lessons  about the way the world works and changes, about social relations, about the importance of public services and access to information,” said the statement.

“Our media contribute to the international reflection and debate needed to build the post-pandemic future and make the most of it.”

Yesterday [Saturday], we received a lot of criticism over our coverage of the death of Senior Inspector Andrew Tovere.

As a news organisation, we have several responsibilities one of which is to deliver ACCURATE information.

READ MORE: Former PNG Defence Force chief calls for inquiry after policeman killed

Friday night’s incident presented several critical challenges:

Accuracy vs speed:
We had a situation that could have turned nasty if we had carelessly pumped out information as demanded by social media users. Yes. There is a place for breaking news and being first with information. However, given the situation [on Saturday], accuracy was of primary importance. I personally issued instructions to be careful of how we handled the situation.

Any sensationalism could have got us an enormous amount of traffic…. and contributed to tipping the city into chaos jeopardising the negotiation work that was being done by senior PNG Defence Force (PNGDF) and Royal PNG Constabulary (RPNGC) commanders behind the scenes. In short, we could have added to the complication and contributed to more deaths, had we not been careful.

Papua New Guinea is different. We all know that. I am urging everyone to look at the big picture in circumstances like this. Do not succumb to the lust for breaking news and dead bodies. As I said, there is a place for it.

Yesterday [Saturday], in my opinion, was not the place for it. We lost one senior police officer, and bear in mind, a human being with a family, a tribe and colleagues who could have taken a different course of action.

There is an editorial team made up of the head of news, the online editor, myself and other senior reporters that works everyday to verify incoming content. It is a lengthy ongoing process. It’s not “poor journalism”. it’s actually good journalism to verify and check sources. Good journalism is about accuracy and balance.

We have to care about our country.

News cannot, always, be handled like what you see in America, Australia and other countries. Our team always tries to take into account the wider impact on the community. A community made up of families, clans and tribes. That is a difficult task with no room for selfishness and sensationalism.

Verification:
While many will want to jump at the opportunity to share information circulated, we have to verify the details of what happened. We presented an honest, unsensationalised account of that happened also clearly stating that it was a developing story and that we would provide updates as things happened. There is nothing wrong with being honest and cautious.

We placed reporters at Port Moresby General Hospital to verify that a death had occurred then sought clarification from the RPNGC command and the police minister. We shared when we were sure everything we had was accurate.

Live broadcast (controlled and uncontrolled situations):
Quite a few people demanded “live coverage” of the shootout. Unfortunatley, it rarely happens in real life in UNCONTROLLED situations like a shootout. Some said we should be “risking our lives” to get accurate information. While I have team members who can do that, the answer for me as a team leader is NO.

I don’t have to explain this, but there are so many misconceptions related to this that sometimes, the comments border on fictional expectations. We don’t usually go to a scene and prepare for a police shootout to happen.

Let’s be realistic.

Scott Waide is a frequent contributor to the Pacific Media Centre’s Asia Pacific Report. Here he gives some insight into journalists’ dilemmas with news judgement, ethics and responsibility in Papua New Guinea in response to social media criticism of EMTV News coverage. The comment was first published on his Facebook page.

Papua New Guinea’s Police Minister Bryan Kramer has published an extraordinary attack on two leading journalists over their reporting of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, accusing them of “misrepresenting” a financial update this week and suggesting they ought to be sacked.

He claimed in an Easter weekend posting on his Kramer Report – a Facebook publication dedicated to being the “inside story through in-depth investigative reporting and critical analysis” with more than 127,000 followers – that Loop PNG political and business editor Freddy Mou and senior PNG Post-Courier journalist Gorethy Kenneth “can’t be trusted”.

“Both journalists have close ties to the former Prime Minister Peter O’Neill. Both have also been accused of publishing biased and misleading reports,” Kramer alleged.

READ MORE: RSF criticises PNG government minister’s call for two reporters to be fired over Covid-19 coverage

The commentary was headlined: “Who got it wrong? PNG Loop or the Treasurer?”

Kramer accused Mou of misrepresenting a one-on-one interview with Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey in alleging that the bulk of the 23 million kina (almost NZ$11 million) released by the government for Covid-19 operations was being used to hire cars and media consultants.

According to Kramer, the Treasurer said the reporter had contacted him to get his response to a claim by Opposition Leader Belden Namah that the government’s recent announcement of a K5.6 billion stimulus package was illegal and that it needed to recall Parliament to pass a supplementary budget to give effect to any additional spending.

While acknowledging some criticisms of the funding, Kramer transcribed a video of the interview released by journalist Mou to Kenneth that she had purportedly shared on the Covid19 Whatsapp network, claiming: “The article is mischievous and misleading by including certain words the Treasurer said with additional words that he didn’t.”

Loop PNG stands by ‘key facts’
Loop PNG responded with an online editorial today saying that it stood by the “key facts of the story published on 9 April 2020 about the K23 million of taxpayer funds earmarked by the National Government for the Covid-19 response.”

https://www.facebook.com/kramerreportpng/posts/1947742718695358

It added: “Any misunderstanding, though regrettable, was not deliberate or intentional, and Loop PNG rejects all assertions to the contrary.

“Loop PNG also rejects any attempts to interfere with its editorial independence, which is a cornerstone of Papua New Guinean democracy.”

“Loop PNG has a proud history of journalistic integrity and independence which it strives to uphold in every story. This is consistent with the fundamental role of the media in our democracy, which is to hold the government of the day to full account without fear or favour. Loop PNG will continue to play that important role throughout the state of emergency and beyond.”

The online news website added that it welcomed the detailed breakup of how the funds had been spent so far, which the Police Minister had posted on social media.

Amid hundreds of comments in response to the online furore, a leading independent media commentator and training consultant, Bob Howarth, a former publisher and general manager of the PNG Post-Courier, described it as a “disturbing situation” when the Police Minister “makes serious ethical allegations against two senior journalists”.

“[A] case for adjudication by an effective media council rather than a court of law?” he asked.

In his detailed online posting on Kramer Report, the minister said: “Though the Treasurer raises some concerns about some of the priorities in the spending, nowhere in the interview does the Treasurer say there are allegations that the ‘bulk’ of the 23 million kina released by the government for Covid-19 operations, was being used to hire cars and media consultants.

“Nor did he say the Prime Minister has been notified, [n]or that there was a call for a proper audit before the government releases the balance.

“It begs the question: What action would a reputable media company take against a journalist who caused significant damage to its reputation?

“If it were me being misrepresented in the media, I would take immediate action against the journalist and media company.”

Minister Kramer made a reputation for transparency and use of online media communication when an opposition MP for Madang. Since being part of the government led by Prime Minister James Marape, he has enhanced his reputation for straight talking and making information available on the internet.

Among responses online, one writer said: “Please enact laws to deal with journalists who publish or reports false and misleading information to the public. Kramer you’re in the government now so push for new policies or amendment of the act to cover these. Let the law deal with those liers once and for all rather than we argue amongst ourselves and the liars ride away freely.”

Another said: “This is not their [journalists] first time to report such [biased] information. They are misleading the 8 million plus population of this country. Those culprits need to be investigated and prosecuted by the law of this country.

“If you don’t do it now, then when are you going to do it? We need to see them facing the law of this sovereign nation.”

The Media Council of PNG has called on all state agencies involved in policing and securing the country’s borders and people against a potential novel coronavirus outbreak to  collaborate more closely.

It has also called on them to ensure that all measures are “clearly articulated” to the mainstream media so that the people would be be kept informed and reassured about their safety.

Council member journalists who have been covering developments over coronavirus say state agencies are not working together, or have referred all responses to the National Department of Health.

READ MORE: PNG students in Wuhan scared of coronavirus infection

A national executive council (NEC) directive restricting ministers – other than the Health Minister – from speaking on the virus response in each of their areas of responsibility, “has not helped in establishing whether ‘screening measures’ against an impending virus outbreak, are as effective as they should be”, said the media council in a statement.

“The MCPNG calls on all these state agencies to use the mainstream media more effectively,” the statement said.

“We stand prepared to work with every state agency which has some responsibility in being part of a one PNG government approach to installing protection and prevention measures to keep our people safe, and more importantly, informed of developments with regard to the coronavirus.

“We have already seen the onset of what has been confirmed as misinformation about positive cases of coronavirus in the country. This misinformation can lead to widespread panic and disorder, if our people do not have the relevant and credible information they need.”

Improved information
The media council suggested the following to improve the way information is being made available to PNG citizens:

• National Department of Health, as the lead agency, to proactively schedule regular briefings and situation reports, and to make these open to all media organisations for coverage;
• All involved state agencies should proactively update the media on what measures each of them is responsible for; and
• All ministers responsible for these state agencies, should collaborate and consult more proactively, so that correct, detailed information is made available for public consumption and awareness.

The media council said it understood that a decision by the NEC had lifted a travel ban which was earlier put in place by the Immigration and Citizenship Authority.

“It is the MCPNG’s fervent hope, that corporate and diplomatic interests do not override our collective efforts to keep our people safe,” the council said.

“MCPNG members have continued reporting on the medicines shortage in the country; and cannot stress enough the enormity of the situation, should there be a coronavirus outbreak in PNG.

“Much of the drugs currently in short supply in our health centres and hospitals, are first-line antibiotics for cold and flu.

Physical checks at the main international gateway in Port Moresby, left the health of Papua New Guineans “resting on the assumption that every passenger arriving in the country from a port where there are positive coronavirus cases will be truthful and honest about their health and medical status”.

“We need the right screening equipment to be installed,” the council added.

“Mainstream media outlets continue to be the most credible source that the majority of our people will turn to for information and awareness. Please use us more effectively.”

• Al Jazeera coronavirus updates

A leading cyber security expert has called on universities to play a more active role in implementing ethics and legal frameworks for communications smart technology to save society from an Orwellian future.

Dr Mohamed El-Guindy, an Egyptian consultant to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC-ROMENA), says communication research programmes should promote “ethically aligned” design.

In an era of “accelerated addictiveness” to smartphone and other digital technologies, he told media researchers, policy advisers and journalists at the 27th Asian Media Information and Communication (AMIC) conference in Bangkok, Thailand, this week that it was vital for democracy that universities stepped up.

READ MORE: Mohamed El-Guindy and the Global Institute for Global Security and Defence Affairs

He also said families and parents needed to be more critically active by balancing screen time and promoting “real social interaction”.

Addressing the “persuasive technologies” industry, Dr El-Guindy spoke about being  “hooked”, the “scrolling dopamine loop” and the “digital skinner box” models and how they had made smartphones fill psychological needs.

“Our social fabric is being torn apart,” he said.

“As we expect more from technology, we expect less from each other as people.

“We have suffered a loss of ability to focus without distraction. The result is mental health issues, less empathy and more confusion.”

‘Misinformation, lies’
Dr El-Guindy said societies were engulfed in “misinformation, propaganda and lies”.

He quoted from educator and media theorist Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, originally published in 1985 and drawn from a talk reflecting on George Orwell’s 1984.

“Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in [Aldous] Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to ignore the technologies that undo their capacity to think.”

In a separate address, Dr El-Guindy and other presenters spoke about facial recognition technologies, voice generators that can put words in people’s mouths and how artificial intelligence is compromising and undermining privacy.

The three-day AMIC conference at Chulalongkorn University featured the theme “Are you human? Communication, Technology and New Humanism”.

Manila-based AMIC is the major global organisation focused on Asian media policy and research and publishes two leading journals, the Asian Journal of Communication and Media Asia.

AMIC board chair Professor Crispin Maslog challenged the more than 200 participants to take a more “humanist” approach to communication research and policy building.

“We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another,” he said. “In its scale, scope and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before.

“As the millennials would say, OMG!”

Climate change guide
Among four new international books about communication research and technology, prolific Filipino author and communications expert Dr Maslog launched his 36th title, Science Writing and Climate Change.

Developed as a guide for journalists in the Asia-Pacific region, it has been co-authored with New Zealand’s Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie and regional editor Joel Adriano of SciDev.Net, a leading online publication with a focus of science and development.

Among several UNESCO delegates and speakers at the conference, Dorothy Gordon, of the governing board of the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education, called on participants to lobby through their national commissions and global agencies if they wanted action.

“Asia has the potential to be in control, it can make changes for tech for peace,” she said.

“UNESCO is made up of member states. If you want something to happen, you need to lobby your own country first to take up the issue.”

Malaysia’s Dr Azman Azwan Azmawati, an associate professor at the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in Penang and president of the Asian Congress for Media and Communication (ACMC), called for more critical research on patriarchal systems.

“It is crucial for more study of patriarchal systems because of their negative impact on women and stereotyping of women,” she said.

“The patriarchal system hinders women from reaching their potential.

Power imbalance
Much more research was needed to focus on the imbalance of power – ‘deconstructing the power of the powerful over the powerless.

“Cultural norms and mindsets must be re-examined, critiqued, reevaluated and rethought.”

Professor Mark Pearson of Australia’s Griffith University spoke of human rights advocacy journalism in a global justice context.

“Global justice can be a legitimate ethical objective of advocacy journalism, requiring factuality as a platform,” he said.

“It is achievable in some cases through a wise and intentional position of ‘advocacy journalism’ which sits comfortably with the professional values of the livelihood of journalists.”

He cited several examples of advocacy journalism in Australia and New Zealand, including Greenpeace investigative journalist Phil Vine.

Dr Pearson, author of The Journalist’s Guide to Media Law, also spoke about “mindful journalism”, a form of journalism with “wisdom and compassion” drawing from elements of secular Buddhist approaches to meditation and ethics.

He dedicated a separate paper on the topic to the memory of Dr Shelton Gunaratne, who died in March this year after being awarded the 2016 AMIC Asia Communication Award for his “ground-breaking scholarship and intellectual contribution to Asian media and communication research”.

High tech ‘slavery’
Professor Jack Linchuan Qiu, author of Goodbye iSlave and director of the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s C-Centre for Chinese Media and Comparative Communication Research, gave an inspired address on the impact of modern day “slavery” in the high tech industries.

Taiwan’s Professor Georgette Wang of the National Chengchi University engaged with the debate about Asian research methodologies, saying that perhaps the right questions were not being asked.

She said there was an absence of “East-West dialogue” over research methodologies and there needed to be more engagement.

Blaming globalisation, she said that while the “periphery” had gained greater presence in the international arena, it had also “brought the profile of theories and questions originating in the West to greater prominence”.

Instead of rejecting Western research models in an Asian context, more effort was needed to “develop a new paradigm” drawing on both East-West traditions.

New Zealand was represented by only three academics, Professor David Robie and Khairiah A. Rahman of Auckland University of Technology (AUT), and Dr Adam Brown of the Auckland Institute of Studies.

Dr Robie addressed the November 2018 referendum on independence and last month’s territorial elections in New Caledonia and the implications for the future in the Pacific; Rahman addressed the fallout from the Christchurch massacre on March 15 and “negotiating discrimination of the Pan-Asian identity”; and Dr Brown examined learner-centred, interactive learning strategies.

Next year’s AMIC conference will take place in Beijing hosted by the Chinese University of Communication (CUC).

Dr David Robie is the New Zealand country representative of AMIC.

• AMIC website
• Asia Communication Awards
• AMIC address by Mohamed El-Guindy – video

Conference highlights. Video: AMIC

Seven senior New Zealand journalists spent a week in Hawai’i late last year and produced just one story between them. It didn’t cost their organisations a cent – the tab was picked up by the US State Department.

And the bill wouldn’t even be a rounding error when it comes to the sums being spent by governments in an ongoing soft power war for the hearts and minds of the world’s citizens.

Last year Foreign Policy magazine reported that China was spending US$6 billion consolidating its three international media outlets into one – Voice of China.

LISTEN MORE: RNZ Mediawatch podcast

A sum that dwarfs the next biggest spender: the US which, according to Al Jazeera, spends $685 million on Voice of America and its affiliates .

Al Jazeera itself is funded by Qatar and is available in New Zealand on Freeview and Sky and the Russian funded RT is on Sky.

The voices of China and America – despite their mammoth budgets – are only available locally in New Zealand via the internet or shortwave radio.

But that doesn’t mean the US State Department – and other governments – aren’t helping shape what audiences see and hear. The State Department’s Bureau of Public Affairs – has said part of its aim is to: “[T]ap the power of the foreign press to inform, engage, and influence perceptions of US foreign policy.”

Courting world’s media
And a couple of weeks back Stuff’s Tracy Watkins wrote a piece that shed some light on how it goes about it. In an article titled: Washington is courting the world’s media on North Korea – she wrote:

Late last year, I joined a group of journalists in Korea and Washington for a series of meetings with US and South Korean officials.

The Americans pulled out all the stops. There were 12 journalists from countries including Vietnam, Thailand, Mongolia, Burma, China, Singapore, Japan, Indonesia (and New Zealand).

Flights were booked and paid for by the US and we got a generous daily per diem to cover all our other costs, like food and accommodation.

Tracy Watkins said journalists were surprised to be told that background briefings were to be strictly confidential with any quotes having to be attributed to “anonymous sources”.

After lobbying from the journalists US officials agreed reporters could use some material but only if it was cleared by a military censor first. “Some tried but got most of it knocked back anyway,” Watkins said. “I didn’t ask. There were too many strings attached.”

Fellow Stuff political reporter Stacey Kirk was one of seven Kiwi journalists to spend a week in Hawai’i courtesy of the State Department last December. And was the only one to write about it.

Speaking with US officials
“As our external spy agency the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) was putting the kibosh on plans for Spark to allow Chinese telco Huawei to build a 5G mobile network in New Zealand, I spent the past week speaking with defence officials at US Indo-Pacific Command,” she wrote.

None of those defence officials were quoted by name but Kirk said:

“[A]s one US Defence official put it: there is ‘no way’ a network built by a company that has that many ties to the Chinese Government, is not a security threat.”

It’s no surprise that a US Defence official would say that but he or she must have been delighted to see their point of view seemingly endorsed by a New Zealand journalist – without any reference to the many informed commentators who have questioned the spying claims.

The Samoa Observer’s Mata’afa Keni Lesa also attended the five day long event. He reported:

“In Honolulu this week, the ‘conversations’, which are mostly held under Chatham House rules, were designed to give journalists an in-depth understanding of the US contribution to security, US perspectives on issues surrounding security and what the US is doing to promote peace and stability in the Pacific region.”

Newsroom’s political editor Sam Sachdeva, one of the seven Kiwi journalists on the Hawai’i trip, told Mediawatch:

‘Educational in nature’
“The way the trip was designed and sold to us was that it was educational in nature. So, it’s not that reporting was barred but it wasn’t a precondition of going on the trip.

“Ideally, I would have liked to produce a few stories out of it but the way it was structured in terms of the conversations we had – the briefings – I felt I couldn’t really report on it in a way that wouldn’t be lopsided.”

Sachdeva said journalists were told they couldn’t refer to people by name or rank and only quote them as: “US Defence official” or a “US official.”

He said the trip gave him a better understanding of the American view. “Not to say that I suddenly find myself agreeing with them on everything but just to understand a little bit more where they’re coming from and to get that, I guess, candour which is the flip-side of that background briefing.”

If other countries were to offer him similar trips, he said, he would consider it on a case-by-case basis. One definite no-no would be any copy vetting conditions. “If I had confidence that China, North Korea or Russia would allow me to report freely, then I would in principle be happy to consider it.”

So if Sachdeva heard that seven senior New Zealand journalists had been shouted a trip to Russia or China to meet with military and government officials and only one reported it – would he write it up as a news story?

‘It would depend …’
“I guess it would probably depend on what was said about it by anyone who was interested. If there was someone who raised a concern that I felt was valid then you’d have to look at it as a story.”

Last October Sam Sachdeva wrote a series of features on South Korea following a trip funded by the Korean government.

He said the trip was a no strings attached one with the officials even lining up an interview with a prominent critic of the government.

The US embassy told Mediawatch it had funded trips by 13 New Zealand journalists last year.

• One NZ journalist travelling to examine US responses to Trafficking in Persons.
• One NZ journalist travelling to report on the RIMPAC multilateral military exercise in Hawai’i.
• Two NZ journalists travelling to report on the US midterm elections.
• One NZ journalist on a professional development/educational programme in the US.
• Seven NZ journalists travelling to INDOPACOM. (Although they were free to report portions of their visit, that was not a requirement of participation. Some have, some haven’t.)
• One NZ journalist travelling to South Korea and to the US to examine policies and responses to DPRK.

Relevant content
Two RNZ journalists were among them: former deputy political editor Chris Bramwell, and series and podcast executive producer Tim Watkin.

RNZ spokesperson John Barr told Mediawatch: “RNZ is open to considering approaches from international sources where they have the potential to provide relevant content and/or career development for staff in line with RNZ’s business plan and statutory obligations.

“Events are not to be covered solely or mainly because of the availability of subsidised travel. Under no circumstances will there be any external influence on programmes/editorial coverage resulting from any subsidised trip.

Where approved assistance is provided to help us create content, it should be acknowledged on air and online.”

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

• Links to programmes mentioned in the audio version of this story:
• RT – John Pilger interview
• Al Jazeera: Journalism or propaganda? US state-sponsored media

New debates in Timor-Leste are circulating about political interference in newsrooms. Attempts to condition or determine that somebody cannot make news on a subject or interview this person or that person.

It’s a problem affecting both public and private media groups.

This debate is important in Timor-Leste. There is a lot of promiscuity between “journalists” who work for government or other state institutions, and journalists who work in the news media.

READ MORE: An analysis of the Timor-Leste media at Pacific Journalism Review

And this is reflected in the coverage.

Ensuring the independence of public media is even more important. Interference in newsrooms is unacceptable and should always be tackled. Whoever does this is weakening the quality of the Timorese state.

As for private ownership of the media, organisations may have an editorial line but they must be transparent about this.

They cannot use the “cover” of supposed impartiality one moment, and then fail to meet that impartiality on a day-to-day basis because of “business”.

Editorial transparency
If they support an editorial idea there must be transparency.

But at the same time, the media cannot only act when it considers their own independence is at stake. It is the responsibility of journalists to work ethically, impartially, and responsibly. They should not spread false news, or help advertise party or group propaganda.

They cannot always give their opinion on the subjects they write about when writing factual articles. And they must be careful how they write, not give incomplete information.

Journalists are not just microphones that reproduce, without any contradiction or analysis, what the political leaders say.

If they do that then we don’t need journalists.

Journalists have a responsibility to verify what they are told is true. And they must be very careful about the headings and content of what they post because they can help ignite already tense situations.

The responsibility of journalists and the media is essential.

António Sampaio is a news agency journalist. This column is a personal view expressed on his Facebook page. It was translated from Portuguese.

• Sacked head of state broadcaster RTTL claims ‘political axe’
• How Timor-Leste’s media bloomed from the ashes of violence and bloody conflict

A research paper by a National University of Samoa lecturer warns media freedom in Samoa still faces many challenges.

Media freedom has had a long, proud history in Samoa. Struggling against the odds, the country’s only daily newspaper, the Samoa Observer, founded in 1978, championed the free media cause under the leadership of its founder, publisher and inaugural editor, Gatoa’itele Savea Sano Malifa.

Now, as Samoa, enters into a new media generation, there is a pressing need for more training, better salaries, more women involved in media management, better technology facilities and more emphasis on media ethics and values in a Samoan context, argues Misa Vicky Lepou.

A 15-page research paper put together by Misa, an NUS journalism educator and practitioner, published by Pacific Journalism Review in its latest edition, has highlighted some key parts where local journalism practice suffers.

The paper, titled “Samoa’s media freedom climate: Shining the light”, is the introductory article for this special PJR edition on journalism education in Asia-Pacific to mark 10 years of the Pacific Media Centre.

The research traces the growth of journalism in Samoa since its first and still only daily newspaper was established in 1978 by Gatoaitele.

An editorial by Professor David Robie, a former head of the regional University of the South Pacific journalism programme, said: “While the United States was enduring its Vietnam war upheaval and the Watergate break-in challenge to the presidency, in one of the finest periods of truth-to-power global reportage, Misa Vicky Lepou brings alive Samoa’s own golden era of investigative journalism in the 1970s.

“Tracing some of the proud moments of Savea Sano Malifa’s trailblazing investigations and struggle for press freedom with the Samoa Observer, Misa laments an erosion of ethics and media professionalism in contemporary times.”

Media growth
Journalism though has come a long way since then. According to the report, there are now 17 media organisations in Samoa run locally either private or government-owned.

With such a growth, Misa believes it calls for a much high push for better practice and education.

“As a sole provider of journalism education in Samoa, the National University of Samoa has addressed demands from the industry to enhance training curriculum by forging a strong relationship with the media industry,” said Misa.

“The existing Media and Journalism programme requires more resources in order to become a fully-fledged programme,” she added.

“Hence, the National University of Samoa pushing forward with the establishment of a Bachelor of Arts degree in Media and Journalism programme with the hope it will roll out soon.”

The report has also highlighted a strong need for ethical journalism practice in Samoa.

With the Journalists Association of Samoa (JAWS) adopting a new Code of Practice and the incoming Media Council, Misa claims ethical journalism depends on more training and higher education.

Press freedom struggle
The Samoa Observer’s struggle for press freedom also paid the price for not upholding the Code of Practice as highlighted in this research. The infamous front page of a suicide story in 2016, which clearly violated ethical guidelines is also highlighted in this research.

“There are still a lot of ethical guidelines to be observed in conjunction with the law. Journalists and any media practitioner must be knowledgeable and understand the contexts of what the new Code entails and the available laws that protect the work of the media not as organisations but the journalists as individuals.”

Along with other case studies highlighted in this research, Misa also sees the need for sensitivity by journalists in their work when it comes to professionalism.

“Most of the journalists interviewed in this research concurred that journalists should uphold higher standards of journalism as well as physical presentation.”

“The programme under NUS would serve as the go to provider for up-skilling and development of journalism in Samoa. It’s just a matter of those wanting to do journalism and existing journalists to take up the available opportunities to keep abreast of doing journalism in Samoa.”

The research concluded that several challenges became apparent about media working conditions which will be the subject of a future paper.

Poor salaries highlight the need for increases, more women should be involved in media management, and better technology facilities are needed in media offices because not every reporter has access to the internet, better assignment transport is needed, and much more training is needed.

Areas that require particular training attention are photography, digital and social media, radio news presentation, and the values and ethics of doing journalism in Samoa.

Training involving media ethics and standards needs to be observed if Samoa is to maintain its proud record in defence of media freedom, says Misa.

Misa Vicky Lepou is head of the Media and Journalism School at the National University of Samoa (NUS) in Apia. She is also president of the Media Educators Pacific (MEP). An earlier version of this article was presented at the World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) conference in Auckland, New Zealand, on 14-16 July 2016. Her presence at the conference was funded by a UNESCO scholarship.

• The special edition of PJR on Journalism education in the Asia-Pacific
• Pacific Journalism Review research papers

So-called “fake news” and the damage it can do has featured much in the media in recent months.

Radio NZ’s Mediawatch looks at how one false story sparked a row between Qatar and its neighbours, which has now cast a shadow over the future of the pioneering international TV news channel Al Jazeera.

Mediawatch’s Jeremy Rose interviews Dr Tarek Cherkaoui, holder of an Auckland University of Technology doctorate and author of The News Media at War, on how the clash between Western and Arab media perspectives has contributed to global polarisation.

Al Jazeera English has reflected a sympathetic view of the Arab Spring upheaval and Al Jazeera Arabic has been challenging for authoritarian regimes in the region.

Russian ‘freelance’ hackers
An inquiry last week by the FBI found that Russian “freelance” hackers were responsible of the fake news broadcast on the state-run Qatar News Agency, sparking the biggest crisis in decades crisis among the Gulf States.

A Guardian report said: “Some observers have claimed privately that Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates (UAE) may have commissioned the hackers.”

Earlier this month, after the fake news report, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Bahrain launched an unprecedented campaign to isolate Qatar diplomatically and economically with a transport blockade over alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Iran. Qatar has rejected the allegations as “without foundation”.

Al Jazeera employs a number of New Zealand journalists and is the only global news channel broadcast on the free-to-air platform Freeview in New Zealand.

• Russian hackers to blame for sparking Qatar crisis, FBI inquiry finds
• ‘Fake news’ unlikely to gain presence in NZ media, says journalism panel
• ‘Fake news’ sparks real crisis in the Gulf

Pacific Media Watch News Desk

Journalists, reporters and media practitioners in Papua New Guinea have been urged to use the industry’s revised code of ethics to guide their conduct during next month’s 2017 General Election.

The General Code of Ethics for the News Media was reviewed and updated by the Australian Press Council in October last year after the MCPNG approached and asked for their assistance, due to the growth of the PNG media industry and the arrival of social media and online news services.

The MCPNG board met and agreed to give the revised edition of the code its stamp of approval in December last year and distribute it to all media personnel on the eve of Papua New Guinea’s 2017 general election.

“I must thank the Australian Press Council for the collaboration and partnership by agreeing to review and revise our General Code of Ethics for the News Media — especially Professor David Weisbrot, chair of the Australian Press Council, who played a major part in the review,” said MCPNG president Alexander Rheeney.

“The revised code covers all aspects of a growing PNG media industry including online news services. I appeal to all media personnel to use it as a guide when covering the 2017 general elections, as it will ensure that the news content you produce will be of a high standard for your Papua New Guinean listeners, readers and viewers.”

The release of the revised code coincides with the launching of the MCPNG’s new website

Rheeney said the availability of the new website would ensure that the code, the work as well as the goals and objectives of the MCPNG was now available for media industry people and the PNG public to check.

“I urge the public to log on to our website and check out the code so you are aware of the conduct that all media practitioners including journalists are expected to benchmark themselves against when covering news in Papua New Guinea.”

Should there be instances of abuse of the revised code; said Rheeney, the aggrieved member of the public should not hesitate to contact the respective media organisations or the MCPNG to take it up on their behalf.

• New MCPNG website

When journalist and media activist Victor Mambor wants information from inside Papua, Indonesia, he knows how to get it — he has to ask someone who isn’t Papuan.

“I’m Papuan so when something happens, I ask the police about it but they don’t give me an answer,” says Mambor. “My friend, who isn’t Papuan, can ask the same thing and get an answer.”

The situation epitomises how Mambor has had to operate in order to fill the pages of his Papuan-based newspaper, Jubi.

“If you want to be a real journalist in Papua and committed to ethics, it’s very hard, from the reporting to the salary,” says Mambor. “There’s a double standard for Papuan journalists and a lot of discrimination.”

The Indonesian government has used the long-standing conflict in Papua to justify implementing harsh rules in the region, offering limited opportunities and restricted access to journalists. While authorities may withhold information from local Papuan journalists — who are identified by their family name or physical characteristics — foreign journalists have little chance of even accessing the region.

But while the lack of access to Papua means that coverage of the region remains limited, some say that the coming year will be a test for Indonesia as it gets set to host UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day celebrations on May 3, 2017.

Many Papuan journalists say they are fed up with the censorship, self-censorship and dangers that go along with reporting from and about the region and they are ready to let the world know.

Human rights abuses
Papua and West Papua have a long-standing history of human rights abuses, ever since the Free Papua Movement (OPM) began its low-level guerrilla war against the Indonesian state in the 1960s. Since then, West Papuans have protested for independence, accusing the Indonesian government of violence and abuses of freedom of expression.

In an attempt to mask the suppression of Papuan nationalism, the Indonesian government has long made outside access to Papua a challenge.

For journalists who do tackle the task of reporting on Papua, the primary focus is often related to the environment, with topics on resource extraction or corruption — topics very difficult and dangerous to report on.

Recently, the Indonesian government looked ready to open access to Papua, when President Joko Widodo made an announcement in May 2015 stating that the government would lift restrictions on foreign media access. But Phelim Kine, the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch in New York, says that the announcement hasn’t pulled much weight.

“It was never followed up by any written decree, so while it was a rhetorical opening to Papua, foreign media still can’t get in,” says Kine. “And if they do get in, they’re subject to surveillance and harassment that makes effective reporting very difficult.”

Kine says journalists routinely self-censor material, and that the Indonesian government and security forces in Papua often place informers into media organisations to monitor and influence coverage. At other times, an intelligence operative will be required to follow a journalist into the region, restricting what they can report on and how sources offer testimony.

The result is that little or no coverage exists about the realities inside Papua, where civilians — especially in remote areas — are victims of civil, social and economic rights violations.

Stolen land
Many in the region have no access to health or education services, or risk having their land stolen by the police or military. Because of their isolation, they have no one to whom they can report the violations.

But as much as authorities within Papua have tried to censor incriminating material, much of the news that comes out of the region remains negative, says Lina Nursanty, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers’ (WAN-IFRA) Indonesian Media Freedom Committee chair and a West Java-based freelance editor.

“Whenever we hear anything about Papua, it’s always about a tribal war or human rights abuses,” says Nursanty. “The news we get from there is always violent.”

As hosts of next year’s UNESCO World Press Freedom Day celebrations, Indonesia has the challenging task of convincing the world that it deserves to act as a platform for media freedom.

Nursanty says that while attending last year’s Press Freedom Day event in Helsinki, she joined a meeting with the Indonesian ambassador, where the discussion of Papua was at the top of the agenda.

“The Indonesian Press Council representative said that our biggest homework for next year is press freedom in Papua,” says Nursanty.

The Indonesian press council is currently creating a press freedom index for each region. And while the country’s overall index is improving, many Papuan journalists say it is not enough.

World Press Freedom Day
Mambor says that at next year’s World Press Freedom Day, he is willing to expose the truth about Papua, even if it puts his personal safety at risk.

“We need to take the opportunity to tell the world about what’s happening in Papua,” says Mambor. “We need to say how we are not granted freedom of the press and about the discrimination there. I’m already past paranoia. I’ll talk about what’s going on. I’m not worried. Sometimes you have to take the risk.”

The WAN-IFRA Indonesia Media Freedom Committee is organising a joint reporting trip to Papua at the beginning of 2017. The initiative will see 10 Indonesian media organisations provide a week of joint coverage from the region, working with local Papuan journalists to shift the national news agenda and provide more detailed coverage of issues of importance to Papuans.

The president of Papua New Guinea’s media council says there is a need for the country’s media ethics codes to be revised, Radio NZ International reports.

Alex Rheeney, president of the Media Council PNG, said local media were under fire recently over coverage of recent police shootings of students at the University of Papua New Guinea.

Rheeney, who is also editor of the Post-Courier newspaper, said there had been many changes in the industry over the years including the rise of social media.

He said the current code of ethics which was implemented nearly 30 years ago needed to be changed.

“Social media has funnily become a movement in Papua New Guinea,” he said.

“How do we work within the code of ethics and apply – how can journalists in Papua New Guinea apply that to their profession today. You know, we need to have a code of ethics that actually reflects those changes,” he said.

He was among an 11-strong Asia-Pacific contingent organised by the Pacific Media Centre at the World Journalism Education Congress in Auckland last week.

• PNG’s media council says recent campus events a ‘wake-up’ call

A Papua New Guinea media educator today called for an investigation into coverage of the two months of protest at the nation’s universities, including last month’s incident when police opened fire on peaceful students.

Emily Matasororo, leader of the journalism strand at the University of Papua New Guinea, was critical of students protesting against the media earlier in the period of unrest for burning the two national newspapers, PNG Post-Courier and The National, on campus.

But she added that they did this to “show their frustrations” over how they viewed the media as taking sides in the dispute.

The students were calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and for him to cooperate with a police investigation into corruption allegations.

“The burning was an indication that they disliked the paper’s coverage of events leading up to the protest,” Matasororo said in a Pacific journalism education panel session at the Fourth World Journalism Education Congress hosted at Auckland University of Technology.

“Why should the Student Representative Council go as far as preferring certain media outlets over others?”

The Post-Courier, The National and television station EMTV were banned from covering student activities on campus.

‘Public space’
“The UPNG is a public and government-run institution and is a public space open to everyone, including the media.

“If students reacted that way, it brought up issues of credibility and integrity of the freedom of the press in Papua New Guinea.”

Matasororo also said that this brought to light questions of ethics.

She quoted a statement from a student leader online in PNGLoop that described the news reports and “shallow and biased” and saying they “have no trust in the media”.

“While I acknowledge and appreciate the tireless efforts of the media’s coverage of the student protest, for me, this is a strong statement that needs to be investigated,” she said.

It needs to be done by all stakeholders concerned to promote “fair and just reporting” and “the essence of good ethics and journalism”.

The stakeholders included the newspaper publishers and management, the Media Council of PNG, Transparency International, Ombudsman Commission and journalism educators at UPNG and Divine Word University at Madang.

‘Black Wednesday’
Matasororo presented an analysis of the unfolding events in PNG.

On June 8, heavily armed police fired upon the peaceful protesters at UPNG after a scuffle and up to 30 were reportedly wounded. Some international media reported four deaths but this was later denied by Port Moresby hospital authorities.

To mark what has been dubbed “black Wednesday”, UPNG’s journalism Strand plans to unveil and wall display to tell the “untold stories” and a photo montage of “unseen images” for future students to “ponder over”.

Dr David Robie, director of the Pacific Media Centre, was chair of the Pacific journalism education panel.

The president of Papua New Guinea’s media council has highlighted the ongoing challenges facing the government and media educators in a panel discussion during the preconference of the 4th World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC).

In touching on the challenges to journalism education in Papua New Guinea, Alexander Rheeney, also the editor-in-chief of the Post Courier, addressed pitfalls in the reportage of the shooting of several University of Papua New Guinea students by police last month.

Rheeney said the reportage was a question over quality from the media and highlighted the need for investigative reporting.

“It has been a good wake-up call for the industry and we need to pull up our socks.”

Rheeney’s comments come after this week’s “twist” made by the Supreme Court, ordering Parliament to reconvene to vote on the no-confidence motion lodged against Prime Minister Peter O’Neill regarding allegations of corruption

O’Neill told media he remained confident he would survive the motion scheduled for this Friday.

Rheeney also touched on challenges facing journalism educators in Papua New Guinea, namely the flow-on effects from a “drastic” decline in the quality of high school graduates over the past 20 years in areas such as literacy.

• Protesting students shot in crackdown over UPNG march
• PNG’s PM confident he can survive motion

Strained relations between the President-elect of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, and much of the news media before he even takes office this week pose challenging times for the nation.

A journalist, broadcaster and media educator visiting New Zealand for the World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) next month warns that the news media will need to be “more enterprising” to get a good story.

Jose Maria Carlos, a former secretary-general of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC), which has now moved to Manila from its previous location of Singapore, says journalists in the Philippines must be extra vigilant in protecting press freedom and challenging the culture of impunity that exists in the country.

President-elect Duterte will be sworn in on Thursday as the 16th chief executive of the Philippines in a simpler ceremony than usual having declared that he would strip away “lavish inauguration rites that will inconvenience Filipinos with cost and heavy traffic”.

But the controversial incoming president has come under international fire from media freedom groups for his threats against journalists, saying that those killed in the Philippines were often corrupt and that he would shun press briefings.

“The Philippines news media will need to be more enterprising to get a good story,” says Carlos.

“As the new president declared, he would not hold any press briefings for the duration of his term, practitioners need to find credible sources to examine and report on new policies, directions, progress and gaps of project implementation.”

‘Biased reporting’
President-elect Duterte had complained of “erroneous and biased” reporting by some journalists and media, says Carlos.

“The media needs to be extra mindful of their ethical responsibility to be accurate and fair, providing background and context so that the public can better understand stories, participate in public discourse and help them make decisions on matters that affect them,” he says.

Carlos is being brought to New Zealand for the WJEC conference being hosted by the Pacific Media Centre along with two colleagues, Professor Crispin Maslog, current chairman and a founder of AMIC, and Dr Hermin Indah Wahyuni, of Yogyakarta’s Gadja Mada University in Indonesia, who are being supported for the conference by the Asia NZ Foundation.

OPINION: By Kalafi Moala in Nuku’alofa

A brother has made a terrible mistake. He has, however, taken responsibility for it and has apologised. Those of us who are offended need to offer forgiveness in the spirit of Pacific compassion, and move on.

Gatoa’itele Savea Sano Malifa, founder and editor-in-chief of the incredibly successful Samoa Observer, admitted it was a mistake for the Sunday Samoan edition of his newspaper to have reported on the suicide of a 20-year-old transgender woman, Jeanine Tuivaiki; and especially to publish a photo of the lifeless body of the deceased.

I have known Savea for almost 30 years, and he is one of the most professional and enduring journalists in our region. He has also been very successful in building a news organisation, and a daily publication that has made all of us Pacific people proud.

The Samoa Observer has a code of ethics, and Savea is one whom I know to advocate passionately for the need for media organisations to have a code of ethics.There is no excuse for mistakes so blatant as this suicide report, and I would be the last one to offer any justification for what the Samoa Observer did.

Reactions to the Sunday Samoan report has been largely fair, and reasonable. Media is often the harshest critic of itself, but criticism is usually left with a close-ended condemnation without any solutions.

We also need to be reasonable, compassionate, and be balanced in our judgments.

Balanced criticism
The Prime Minister of Samoa, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi has given a very balanced criticism of the Observer. He is a wise friend of media to have done so without resorting to a “ban the media” mentality.

I found Sandra Kailahi’s offer of using a guideline she has written on suicide reporting very helpful indeed. But that’s what we need to do, to help each other when mistakes are made, and then move on to do what we have been called to do in each of our countries and societies.

There is really no time to get vicious and to use this occasion as an opportunity to exact retribution on Savea and his organisation, for it is not really helpful, even in this situation.

I have read most of the criticism and attacks made on Savea and his organisation. I have also been invited to join the condemnation. But before I consider doing so, I need to look back also at my own news organisation, and publication, and ask what mistakes we’ve made in our 28 years of operation. I am ashamed to say that we made quite a few mistakes ourselves over the years.

The key however is to recover, correct course, and move on with the business of providing information for our people.

This is not the time to pick up stones and throw at Savea and the Samoa Observer. Let us not forget the incredible contribution he has made to Samoa and Pacific media for over 30 years. He has not only been inspirational to many of us, he has also helped in providing employment, training youth in journalism, and also speaking out without fear in his watchdog role.

Journalism is a profession that often walks the edge of risky engagement, and is demanding of every ounce of professionalism from us. We are bound to make mistakes now and then. But, can we also learn, make corrections and move on?

Not helpful
It is not helpful to get on an “anti-Sano, anti-Samoa Observer” bandwagon. I believe we are mature enough in our Pacific media roles to criticise Savea and the Samoa Observer fairly, but at the same time be embracing and helpful.

The Observer will still be going on strong tomorrow, next week, and in the future. We need to support our brother, even after we’ve expressed our disappointment. He is one of us. If he has failed, let us encourage him to “fail forward” so that we can all learn and continue to do what we need to do, in a spirit of co-operation and loving partnership.

Kalafi Moala is the chief executive and publisher of the Taimi ‘O Tonga group and vice-chair of the Pasifika Media Association (PasiMA). He is also on the editorial board of Pacific Journalism Review.

• Earlier reports on the Sunday Samoan publication issue
• Samoa’s Ombudsman on complaints over publication

Many of the complaints have requested the Ombudsman to initiate an inquiry into the Samoa Observer, publisher of the Sunday Samoan.

The Office of the Ombudsman has the power to investigate matters of good governance in public administration and to promote and protect human rights in Samoa.

It does not have the jurisdiction under the Ombudsman (Komesinao Sulufaiga) Act 2013 to regulate the media in Samoa.

Given that many of the complaints were concerned with poor journalism and a lack of media ethics on behalf of the Observer, the Office believes that the proposed Media Council is the appropriate mechanism to investigate and determine such complaints.

This statement does not concern the possible criminal investigation into the death of Jeanine. It is concerned with the article, the photo and the reporting of Jeanine’s death as a suicide by the Observer. It does not suggest that Jeanine’s death was either as a result of suicide or a possible homicide.

That is a matter for the Police and for the Coroner. Rather, the Office has weaved together relevant human rights and fa’asamoa principles to highlight how the article was inconsistent with Samoan culture and was also a fundamental breach of human rights.

Anguish caused
The Office understands the anguish this article has caused within the Samoan community. Many complaints include passionate arguments in the defence of Jeanine and the fa’afafine community.

It is heartening to know that so many within the Samoan community defended Jeanine’s rights at a time when Jeanine could not.

It is also encouraging that so many people stood up for the rights of Jeanine’s family as well as fa’afafine in Samoa.

The Office notes that the Observer has since apologised to Jeanine’s family and to its readers for publishing the article. It has also published many editorials criticising the Observer, including a moving statement from the Samoa Fa’afafine Association. This statement seeks to assist in the reconciliation process so that Jeanine’s family can grieve for the loss of their loved one in private and to assure the fa’afafine community that they are loved and protected in Samoa.

Right to dignity and the lack of mutual respect afforded to Jeanine and family

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

— Article 1 of the Declaration of Human Rights.The dignity of the human person is not only a fundamental human right in itself, but constitutes the basis of all human rights.The Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrined this principle in its preamble where it states “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”. Article 1 of the Declaration reminds us that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and that people should act towards one another in a spirit of ‘brotherhood’.

This concept mirrors the core fa’asamoa principle of feavaa’i (mutual respect). Like the human right to dignity, feavaa’i is demanded of all Samoans. It is something that should be afforded to all people, regardless of their gender, race or creed. It should also be afforded at all stages of the human experience, from birth to adolescence, adulthood and even in death.

The Observer did not afford Jeanine, and the family, respect when it published the photo and printed the article on the front page of the Sunday Samoan. It showed a callous disregard for Jeanine as a human being. It denied Jeanine’s right to inherent dignity and took away Jeanine’s humanity. The Office strongly endorses the Samoa Fa’afafine Association’s comment that we all have a responsibility to incorporate our fa’asamoa in all that we do. This sentiment reflects a central theme of human rights which is that we should respect the rights of others without discrimination.

The misgendering of a fa’afafine
The article also failed to afford Jeanine and the fa’afafine community respect when it referred to Jeanine as a man when the term fa’afafine is widely recognised in the Samoan community Terminology can have a profound impact on a person’s identity, self-worth and inherent dignity. The use of inclusive and accepted terminology empowers individuals. Terminology that describes such intrinsic parts of a person’s identity or characteristics carries a heavy weight and significance. This is particularly so for groups that have been stigmatised in their community. In those circumstances, terms validate who someone is and may help them to feel connected to others who share that identity or those characteristics. While terminology evolves over time, what remains constant is the importance of treating each person with dignity, in a way that protects the person from discrimination and violence.

Fa’afafine are an important part of Samoan culture. They are traditionally known for their hard work and dedication to the family in carrying out the roles and responsibilities of both men and women. We should always consider our fa’asamoa by ensuring that we afford fa’afafine feavaa’i and refer to them in a manner that is both culturally and gender sensitive.

Freedom of expression, the role of the media and the need for industry oversight
The media play an important role in any democratic society. Media organisations such as the Observer help generate public debate on important public issues and ensure that the government and business are held accountable for their actions. Above all else, the media should report the news in an objective and responsible manner. The media should always serve the public by providing it with accurate and reliable information. The article did not do this. It was based on hearsay and insinuated the reasons for Jeanine’s death without corroborating its source.

In an edition of the Observer dated 22 February 2016, the editor stated that Samoa did not need a Media Council as the Observer had been operating for many years without one. The inappropriate publishing of the photo, combined with the insensitive reporting of Jeanine’s death and gender clearly highlights the need for industry oversight of Samoa’s media.

The Media Council Act 2015 creates a mechanism for such oversight. It establishes the Media Council and requires it to develop a Code of Practice regulating the broadcast of news and current affairs in Samoa. Under the Act, complaints can be made to the Council about breaches of the Code. The Council has the power to hear, investigate and make decisions regarding such complaints. This mechanism is established practice around the world with many countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada enacting similar procedures with regards to regulating their media. It is regulation of the media, by the media.

It is the responsibility of the Journalists Association of Samoa (JAWS) to elect an executive committee which then appoints members to the Media Council. It has yet to do this. The Media Act also permits the Head of State, on the advice of Cabinet, to appoint an interim Council if JAWS fails to appoint one itself. It also allows the Interim Council to adopt a Code of Practice from another jurisdiction until one is adopted by the Media Council.

In the same editorial mentioned above, the editor said that the Media Council would result in a restriction of press freedom and freedom of expression in Samoa. The right to freedom of expression is contained in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) as well as the Constitution of Samoa. It includes the right of a person to publish information and ideas of all kinds, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media. When the editor of a newspaper decides to publish an article he exercises his right to freedom of expression. However, freedom of expression is not an unlimited right. Under human rights law, a person’s right to freedom of expression can be restricted in certain exceptional circumstances. These include things like protecting a person’s reputation (defamation laws), as well as for the protection of national security, public morals, public health and public order.

As will be explained below, the prevention of suicide is considered a legitimate public health issue. A Media Code of Practice, which includes a set of standards for the reporting of suicide in Samoa is an appropriate way to regulate media behaviour, including preventing the inappropriate reporting of suicide. A Media Code of Practice would not breach Article 19 of the ICCPR and would be a permissible restriction to the right to freedom of expression.

Recommendation: If JAWS has yet to establish the Media Council, the Office of the Ombudsman recommends that the Cabinet establish an Interim Media Council. The Interim Council should adopt a code of practice from another jurisdiction until JAWS can appoint members to the Media Council for it to develop Samoa’s own Media Code of Practice.

Recommendation: The Office of the Ombudsman recommends that once appointed, the Media Council immediately take steps to formulate and adopt Samoa’s own Media Code of Practice.

Recommendation: The Office of the Ombudsman recommends that all the complaints relating to unethical journalism regarding the article “Suicide in Church Hall” be transferred to the Media Council for its consideration.

Reporting of suicide in the media
This section relates to the reporting of Jeanine’s death as a suicide. Again, the Office does not suggest that it was either a suicide or a homicide. This section is only concerned with the appropriate reporting of suicide in the media.

Suicide is a serious public health problem all around the world, including Samoa. The factors contributing to suicide and its prevention are complex and not yet fully understood. There is increasing evidence that suggests the media plays a significant role in both the cause and prevention of suicide. A number of studies have shown that inappropriate reporting can lead to ‘copycat’ suicides. However, it has also been proven that responsible reporting of this issue in the media can help educate the public, and may encourage those at risk to seek help.

In 2008 the World Health Organisation and the International Association for the Prevention of Suicide released a Checklist for Media Professionals to be used when reporting this issue. The Observer failed to do nine out of eleven steps before publishing the article. It failed to:

• Take the opportunity to educate the public about suicide – suicide is never the result of a single factor or event. It can be misleading to attribute it to a single event such as failing an exam or a breakdown in a relationship.

• Avoid language which is sensationalised or normalised suicide – The media should recognise the importance of language when reporting events. Rather than educate Samoa about suicide, the Observer’s article and photo sensationalised Jeanine’s death.

• Avoid explicit description of the method used. The Observer’s inclusion of the photo and the article itself failed to do this.

• Avoid providing detailed information about the site. Again, The Observer’s inclusion of the photo and the article itself failed to do this.

• Word headlines carefully – the word ‘suicide’ should be avoided in the headline.

• Avoid including a photo of someone who has died of a suicide.

• Show consideration for family and friends who are grieving for the deceased. As mentioned above, the Observer failed to afford Jeanine’s family mutual respect (feavaa’i) by publishing the photo and the article.

The Office notes that the New Zealand High Commission has offered to fund training for the media in Samoa on the appropriate reporting of suicide and suicide prevention. The Office understands that the media is responding positively to this initiative.

Recommendation: The Office of the Ombudsman recommends that the Media Council, once appointed, adopt a set of standards for the appropriate reporting of suicide in the media.

Recommendation: The Office of the Ombudsman recommends that JAWS, with the assistance of the New Zealand High Commission, facilitate training for all its members in the appropriate reporting of suicide.

This week has been a difficult week for the fa’afafine community, the staff of the Samoa Observer and indeed for the country. However, it must be remembered that it is the people who were closest to Jeanine that have had to endure the worst. The Office would like to offer its condolences to Jeanine’s family and friends as they grieve for the loss of their loved one. Our thoughts and prayers are with you as you go through this difficult time.

Statement from Samoa’s Office of the Ombudsman published in the Samoa Observer.

• Earlier reports on the Sunday Samoan publication issue

Let there be no mistake about this. Since his proclamation by Congress as President-elect,  Rodrigo Duterte has engaged the media in a relentless campaign of coercion and harassment to browbeat journalists into submission before he takes office on June 30.

The interregnum marked an unprecedented test of wills between the presidency and the media, a ferocity not experienced by any incoming administration in the history of the adversarial relationship between the two social institutions.

The conflict has entered an impasse from which none of the protagonists appears to be backing off.

No incoming President has mounted such a  dangerous challenge to the media since the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos.

In that conflict, journalists critical of the abuses of power by Marcos survived 14 years of the martial law regime, which jailed a number of its critics.

None of the critics was threatened with  summary executions by squads sponsored by nonstate law enforcement actors.

Under siege
In this running conflict, freedom of the press has come under siege and has in fact suffered erosion without the formal declaration of emergency powers of a burgeoning, aspiring dictatorship, as Duterte awaits his inauguration.

Are we indeed entering a twilight zone in the transition of our electoral democracy?

This impasse leaves little room for complacency in  the light of Duterte’s campaign to eradicate crime and bureaucratic corruption in six months  from his inauguration on June 30.

Media reports abound about  this struggle of the press to defend its freedom from the creeping erosion posed by a supposed campaign against criminals, drug lords and corrupt officials demonised by partisan propaganda as enemies of the state.

One of the recent media reports comes from the Associated Press (AP). In this story, Duterte is reported to have blasted media groups for condemning his earlier comments that appeared to justify the killings of  journalists because they were corrupt or overly critical.

The journalists were depicted as allies of the criminal suspects tagged by Duterte. He refused to  apologise and dared reporters to carry out a threat to boycott his news conferences.

‘Don’t threaten me’
The AP reported that Duterte, in an outburst at a late night news conference in Davao City, lambasted  journalists, saying, “Don’t threaten me. Boycott, boycott … go ahead, damn you!”

The outburst came after international and local news groups  expressed outrage over Duterte’s remarks about the media killings.

Reporters Without Borders urged local media to boycott his news conferences until he issues a public apology.

Duterte replied that he would survive even if journalists boycotted him because he could ask state-run TV network to cover his activities.

“I’m telling the networks I do not need you,” he said. He threatened to order his Cabinet members not to speak to journalists who are not from the state-run network.

According to the International Federation of Journalists, the Philippines has been the second deadliest country for journalists since 1990, behind only war-torn Iraq.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Duterte’s remarks  “apparently excusing extrajudicial killings threaten to make the Philippines into a killing field for journalists.”

It said the country ranks fourth on its impunity index, which spotlights the countries where the killers of  journalists go unpunished.

Duterte’s crass pronouncements not only sully the memories of journalists who have been murdered since 1986, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said.

Open season
Asked to comment on the unsolved killings of journalists, Duterte, in effect, declared open season to silence the media.

He made the sweeping accusation that many of those slain were paid to take sides on issues or had overly criticised people who could not tolerate personal attacks.

“Just because you’re a journalist (doesn’t mean) you’re exempted from assassination if you’re a son of a bitch,” Duterte said.

“Your  freedom of expression cannot help you if you have done something with the guy.”

• Only state-run media for inauguration
• Duterte threatens assassination of journalists

Just living in Australia for a few months and watching television, makes you see clearly, how the Fiji public is so badly denied by the poverty of Fiji media offerings and silent censorship

There are wonderful Australian media programmes such as Q and A, Insiders, Catalyst, Landline, Insights, Foreign Correspondent, Four Corners, to name just a few, not even mentioning the many specials every week on ABC and SBS.

Just in the past two months alone, Landline explored how an Australian sugarcane farmer, successfully intercropped rice to pander to his Vietnamese wife. Another intercropped with sunflowers for the seeds and oil, and mung beans (which Fiji farmers have also tried on a very small scale).But what really stands out are the many robust public policy debating programs with sharp neutrality such as Q and A (Tony Jones) or Insider (Barry Cassidy) or Insights, where Opposition MPs or politically neutral commentators are given equal weight to that of government voices.

Often, intelligent studio audiences are allowed to comment or give their verdict on particular utterances with applause or sceptical silence,

Of course, we all remember that once upon a time, Fiji Television also had very robust programmes, such as Close Up, but sadly, no more.

Despite the ending of open censorship by the Fiji government, an invidious silent self-censorship is denying the public access to “alternative voices”.

My personal individual experience of censorship by the premier university – University of the South Pacific, by the Fiji media and by the Fiji Bureau of Statistics is only the tip of the iceberg of a much wider “silent censorship of many”.

The one rare exception is The Fiji Times whose survival must be defended, or the public won’t know what they have got, until it is gone.

Open and silent censorship
In the past, media censorship was quite easy to prove. Censors were physically in the newsroom, expatriate newspaper publishers were being expelled, large fines or jail terms were being handed down by courts, and warnings were given to certain media organisations.

Today’s censorship is not obvious simply because no journalist, media organisation or educational institution will publicly own up to “self-censorship”. But it is abundantly clear that there is an absence of dissenting voices from forums such as Close Up, 4 The Record, Talk Business, and the many talkback shows on TV and radio.

My personal absence from these programmes is obvious to many, given my obvious prominence in previous years. Also absent are other “dissenting” voices like Opposition Members of Parliament or critical NGO leaders, while voices sympathetic to government are given maximum exposure.

What is missing in government circles is any adherence to the dictum attributed to Voltaire (or Evelyn Beatrice Hall): “I disagree with your views but I will defend to the death your right to express them.”

The one bright media light in Fiji, is The Fiji Times which continues to serve the public as a channel for alternative views and as a proper watchdog on the government of the day, despite operating financially on a less than level playing field.

It saddens me that the Fiji public continues to show total apathy to the censorship of individuals such as me, or blatant unfairness with taxpayers’ advertising funds shown to The Fiji Times, the proven most popular print media in Fiji.

Censorship from USP
This individual has been a senior USP economist, former parliamentarian and well-known media commentator, yet there is no public comment on his continued censorship by not just that university but also the mainstream media and a supposedly neutral government department like the Fiji Bureau of Statistics.

Despite my decades of service from 1973, USP asked me to resign in 2012, alleging financial pressure from the government.

In 2013, USP refused to allow the Faculty of Business and Economics to host the launching of my FBS Report on the 2008-09 Household Income and Expenditure Survey, and the associated policy workshops for civil servants, NGOs and other stakeholders.

In 2013, an invitation by the USP Journalism Students Association to speak at USP for World Media Freedom Day was withdrawn.

This prominent economist has been excluded from several panel discussions in his area of expertise, organised by USP departments, while expatriate professors have been welcomed.

One Economics Department panel discussion on the Fiji government’s re-issue of a F$500 million (NZ$ 345 million) bonds (to which I had been invited) was cancelled.

A special edition of the Journal of Pacific Studies on the 2014 Election, excluded all writings by this academic, while pro-government non-academic outsiders were invited to contribute.

USP’s censorship is not confined to me. It is on record, that one senior member of the university management was strongly warned not to associate socially with a particular Member of Parliament (and former USP academic) or even with one of his friends, also a senior academic at USP.

Other senior USP academics, not perceived favourably by the management are deprived of acting headships, despite their proven experience.

The USP Staff Association fails to defend members’ rights and privileges, while USP students have been actively discouraged from responsible political activity.

The once robust intellectual life at USP of both academics and students, has been severely eroded without any show of concern by the University Council or the public.

Censorship by FBS
It is public knowledge that my FBS Report on the 2010-11 Employment and Unemployment Survey (Fiji Women and Men at Work and Leisure) completed in 2013 has still not been published. This denies the Fiji public essential and fascinating statistical results on gender gaps in employment, incomes, unpaid household work, sports and leisure activities like sports, kava drinking, watching television, and religious gatherings.

It is understandable that the FBS management cannot protest publicly for fear of loss of their employment. But sadly, neither has there been any public protest from university academics, or NGOs (like FWRM, WCC, CCF, Transparency International) or professional organisations such as the Fiji Institute of Accountants or Fiji Law Society, or social leaders, who all should be interested in the statistical findings being censored.

The public will not know that while the FBS has completed a 2013-14 Household Income and Expenditure Survey, this data is being processed now with World Bank assistance, while a local academic who did this work with them for the past seven years, has been completely shut out, undermining the self-reliance that has been built up these past 10 years.

Yet objective and freely disseminated statistics from FBS is vital for public policy decisions.

Media censorship of one
After the 2009 abrogation of the 1997 Constitution, not just my articles but also many letters to the editor were not accepted for publication by both Fiji Sun and The Fiji Times even when copied to the Media Industry Development Authority (MIDA) chairman.

Media programmes such as Close Up, 4 The Record and Talk Business and the many radio talkback shows declined to invite this economist, who used to be ever-present on their programmes before 2009. On a rare positive note, just prior to the September 2014 Election, The Fiji Times began to publish and continues to publish my opinion pieces, sometimes only after vetting by its lawyers.

The Fiji public needs to appreciate the courage of The Fiji Times owners (Motibhai Patel family), FT publisher (Hank Arts) and editor (Fred Wesley) for their moral courage in producing a newspaper which remains the sole source of independent information in Fiji, and whose relative superiority has been independently verified by the Tebbutt Poll.

Lest we forget, in recent years, newspapers have been fined heavily, some expatriate publishers have been expelled, while editors have been given jail sentences.

A recent decision by government denying The Fiji Times fair access to taxpayers’ advertising funds, also drew no public comment from MIDA, the Commerce Commission, the Fiji Chambers of Commerce, or professional organisations such as the Fiji Institute of Accountants and Fiji Law Society, or NGOs (like FWRM, WCC, CCF, Transparency International) or social leaders, who all should be interested in ensuring that there is a robust competitive media environment.

If the Fiji public do not rise out of their apathy to defend the legitimate rights of The Fiji Times, then sadly, “the Fiji public won’t know what it has got, until it is gone”.

One day, they will also remember bitterly the words of Jawaharlal Nehru: “Evil unchecked grows and evil tolerated poisons the whole system.”

Oppressed people do leave
As occurred after the 1987 and 2000 military coups, there is also today an emigration of many educated and skilled people.

Sadly, that category now includes me, even though no comfortable refuge abroad will ever be the “home” that Fiji has been and will always be in my heart.

This will be my last article for The Fiji Times as I pursue professional work in Australia.

I thank the publisher, editor and other staff members of this newspaper who have facilitated my media contributions over the years.

I also thank its readers who have expressed appreciation for my articles.

Professor Wadan Narsey is adjunct professor at James Cook and Swinburne universities in Melbourne, Australia. This article was first published by The Fiji Times and is republished with the permission of the author.

Dr Wadan Narsey’s blog on fighting censorship in Fiji

“We found journalistic content showing violence, descriptions of criminal acts in too much detail, insufficient protection of victims, inaccurate news and repetitive reporting of tragedy,” said KPI chairman Judhariksawan in a hearing with the House of Representatives Commission I overseeing intelligence, defence and foreign affairs on Monday.

The KPI had imposed 49 sanctions, including discontinuing two programs and limiting the duration of two others, across several television networks in the first two months of 2016, he said, adding that there was still a lot of broadcast content that violated the Broadcasting Code of Conduct and Programme Standards (P3SPS).

Among those remaining violations are: the use of public channels to serve the interests of their owners, physical and verbal abuse on various television shows and featuring personal and private matters as infotainment, Judhariksawan added.

He also said that the broadcasting commission planned to evaluate the 10 television networks whose permits were set to expire this year.

Lawmaker Elnino M. Husein Mohi of the Gerindra Party said that House Commission I had discussed several changes in the revision of the Broadcasting Law, including the extension of the KPI’s power to fine unresponsive television networks and the restriction of cigarette and political advertising.

“We are proposing one point to be included in the hearing’s conclusion: stopping all unfair and unequal political ads, so that there will be no more complaints from the public about kids memorising political party anthems,” he said.

Moderate Muslims were losing the media war with ISIS, according to leading Turkish journalist, Kerim Balci.

”Authentic” Muslims were losing to “radical so called Muslims” because of the obvious symbiosis between journalists and terrorists.

“Ten thousand Muslims may be doing good things but it’s not reported,” he said. “One Muslim makes something bad and its headlines!

“The voice of extremism is always multiplied through world media!” Even Muslim media were guilty of this.

Kerim Balci is editor of the Turkish Review, a bimonthly journal published by Zaman Media Group.

Balci studied physics and political science and international relations in the Bosporus University of Turkey. He has an MA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the city where he served as the representative of Zaman Turkish Daily for eight years. Balci is currently a linguistic philosophy PhD candidate at Durham University. He was in Sydney at the invitation of the Affinity Intercultural Foundation.

Balci said social media could have been an alternative where “authentic” Muslims could promote peaceful Islam.

“Unfortunately, ISIS uses social media much better than us. The videos that are produced by ISIS for Youtube are much better than even the movies produced for the market in many Muslim countries”.

Mainstream conflict
Mainstream Muslim media could also find themselves in conflict with their own governments.

In Turkey, journalists had revealed the government had been engaged in secret negotiations with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), regarded by the state and in the West as a terrorist organisation.

“There is the paradoxical situation where you are stuck between the national interest and journalistic ethics”.

Turkish newspapers published the story. The government was “quite angry” and two journalists were jailed, accused of treason.

“It’s not the duty of journalists to keep those things secret,” Balci said.

Meanwhile, some [radical] religious Muslim media branded any journalists who identified terrorist groups, as “infidels” .

“In fact one of them is sitting in front of you, ” he said with a grin. “I wrote an article calling Hamas terrorists,” Baldi said. ”And a [radical] religious paper called me an infidel!

‘More harm’
“As a religious person, I believe the terrorists are hijacking my religion and doing more harm to religious Muslims than they are doing harm to the West”.

ISIS had killed many more Muslims than Westerners.

“As a journalist, I have a duty to inform the public. But there is also an inescapable duty to educate the public about our religion.”

In this “post modern era” many people got their information on religion from newspapers.

“Those of us who cover religious conflicts are actually setting the tone for the people. We have to realise that what we say may be perceived by our readers as if we are the preachers in the mosque.”

An Armenian journalist was killed in Turkey by a “religiously motivated” nationalist young man, as a result of what he had read in a religious newspaper, Balci said.

Terrorism was too often defined as what your enemy was doing. In a mirror image of the more belligerent Western newspapers, many Muslim publications called Western actions “terrorism” while being reluctant to apply the term to Muslim atrocities.

“Suicide bombings are never OK, no matter who does it,” Balci said.

“We journalists need to be sincere, frank and consistent about the language we are using,” he said. “Language is never innocent. We have to understand it won’t stay in the newspaper. It will influence people!”

The article was first published on Professor Alan Knight’s blog Online Journalism and is republished here with the author’s permission.