The perils of South Pacific reporting

David Robie says media in the South Pacific is a revolving door -- bright young graduates aren’t paid well enough to face the stressful and often dangerous job of being reporters

By David Robie
AsiaMedia Contributing Writer

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

One of Fiji’s best investigative journalists and media trainers ended up as a spin doctor and henchman for coup front man George Speight. He is now languishing in jail for treason.

Some newshounds in Papua New Guinea have pursued political careers thanks to their media training, mostly failing to make the cut in national politics.

A leading publisher in Tonga was forced to put his newspaper on the line in a dramatic attempt to overturn a constitutional gag on the media. He won -- probably hastening the pro-democracy trend in the royal fiefdom’s recent election.

Every few years, draft legislation introducing statutory regulation and draconian penalties is dusted off in the largest economies and media countries in the region -- Fiji and Papua New Guinea – and also in other Pacific nations. But these “tribunal gag" bills usually sink into oblivion, even if just temporarily, in the face of media and public protest.

Media intersects with the raw edge of politics in the South Pacific as countries are plunged into turbulent times and face the spectre of terrorism. A decade-long civil war on Bougainville; three coups in Fiji -- if the faltered George Speight putsch is counted; ethnic conflict in the Solomon Islands, factional feuding in Vanuatu and political assassinations in New Caledonia and Samoa are all part of the volatile mix.

While teaching journalism in Australia, New Zealand and the United States involves safe reporting of local council and law court news free of the perils of defamation and contempt, Pacific media schools also focus on other testy issues -- such as reporting sedition, treason and how to deal with physical threats and bribery.

At times, it takes raw courage to be a neophyte journalist. At the University of Papua New Guinea, two senior reporters were ambushed by a war party and beaten after the local training newspaper, Uni Tavur, featured the campus warriors’ home province in an unflattering front page report. On another occasion, a student journalist slipped into hiding when ominous "wanted" posters displaying his name and picture were plastered around campus because of his report exposing corruption over an annual Miss UPNG contest.

Also at UPNG in the mid-1990s, trainee reporters covered five campus-related murders over two years as part of their assignments, including the slaying of a lecturer by off duty police officers. In July 2001, four students were shot dead by security forces during protests against the PNG government over World Bank structural adjustment policies. Two young women Uni Tavur reporters, Wanita Wakus and Estella Cheung, wrote moving accounts of the shootings and gave evidence at a subsequent commission of inquiry.

At the University of the South Pacific -- a unique regional institution owned by a dozen Pacific nations -- a team of student journalists covered the Speight rebellion in 2000 for three months for their newspaper, Wansolwara, and website, Pacific Journalism Online. Nervous campus administrators closed the website after martial law was declared. But students carried on filing reports for a special coup website established by the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism on Sydney.

The USP students scooped that year’s Ossie Awards, the student media awards named after the late foreign correspondent Osmar "Ossie" White and competed for in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. Trainee journalists aspire to win an Ossie, which is considered the student equivalent to the Walkley Awards for Australian journalists.

Although three good journalism schools operate in the Pacific -- UPNG and Divine Word at Madang, PNG, and USP in Fiji -- most journalists in the region have no solid training (apart from PNG where 81 percent have formal qualifications). The few journalists who have been trained are lucky if they have had the odd week-long short course or so and in Fiji 49 percent of journalists are school leavers who have had no training at all.

Two newsroom surveys in Fiji and Papua New Guinea in 1998/9 and 2001 make grim reading: While many journalists believe strongly in the watchdog role of Pacific media, lack of training, very poor wages, and political and cultural pressures undermine their efforts.

The typical Fiji journalist is most likely to be male (marginally), single and under the age of 25 with less than four years’ experience. And he is likely to be a native Fijian speaker working for English-language media. He is a school leaver with no or little formal training or higher education.

On the other hand, a typical Papua New Guinean journalist is most likely to be female (also marginally), single, under the age of 29, with about five years’ experience, and a Tok Pisin speaker. She is working on English-language media and most likely she has a university diploma or degree in journalism from either UPNG or DWU.

The appalling pay is a major concern. In Fiji, which has one of the strongest economies and highest wages for many careers in the region, a newly trained graduate nurse begins on about F$13,000 (US$8017) a year, but a graduate journalist usually starts on $6500 (US$4008) – the same as a school leaver with no training. The median wage for journalists in Fiji is $13,000 a year. Pay is worse in Papua New Guinea and many other Pacific nations.

During my decade teaching journalism in Fiji and PNG, I found many bright young graduates will work for a year or so as journalists but eventually leave for other more highly paid media-related jobs using the double major degrees they gained to get into journalism. It means a revolving door in the media with continual loss of staff. This makes it very difficult to achieve stable and consistent editorial standards and policies.

Poorly paid journalists are potentially more readily tempted by 'envelope' journalism -- bribery and other inducements by unscrupulous politicians and other powerful figures. Such cases have been reported in Papua New Guinea and elsewhere in the region. And it may well be worse than generally believed. Financial hardships and lack of training are an unhealthy mix for media in a democracy.

Media organisations are too dependent on donors in the region for the limited training that goes on. In fact, many believe that media organisations are "captive" to donor agendas, including non-government organisations.

Attempts to establish journalist unions in the region have been transient and largely unsuccessful, except for a brief period of support and training by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in the early 1990s. Once the funding cycle ended, the energy of local organisers dissipated. No Pacific nation currently has a journalist union affiliated to the IFJ.

A major change is needed to alter the mind-set among some Pacific news media companies that are reluctant to invest in human resource development and to recognise the importance of education.

At a Fiji seminar in mid-2004 on industry self-regulation, prominent publicist Matt Wilson called for the establishment of a media wages council and better investment in training. Saying the majority of working journalists in Fiji had little or no training at all, the former Fiji Times journalist added: "I can see standards slipping inexorably -- I can see no improvements."

Nevertheless Pacific journalists continue tackling the political and cultural perils of their craft with guts and gusto.

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Dr. David Robie is a journalist and media educator with Auckland University of Technology. Formerly journalism coordinator of the University of the South Pacific, he is also founding editor of Pacific Journalism Review. He is author of Mekim Nius: South Pacific Media, Politics and Education, published by the University of the South Pacific Book Centre.

The views expressed above are those of the author and are not necessarily those of AsiaMedia or the UCLA Asia Institute.

Date Posted: 3/22/2005