WELLINGTON (Radio NZ International / Pacific Media Watch): A Pacific media commentator says the good mood prevailing at last week’s Pacific Islands News Association was astonishing given the threats of a boycott and predicted tension.
Professor David Robie, who was invited to speak at the gathering of media and journalism professionals in Deuba, has been among critics of the Fiji-based grouping for its failure to address media freedom issues.
Dr Robie, who is director of the Pacific Media Centre at AUT University, says there were no special sessions on media freedom, but there was frank debate at the summit on many issues despite the chill of censorship still hanging over Fiji journalists.
“A lot of journalists have a problem with trust, whom do they trust among their colleagues and it was quite noticeable, particularly among a lot of the younger journalists from Fiji that were at the summit, that they were very reluctant to give their points of view.”
Dr David Robie says there was goodwill for rival regional groups to work together and PINA also resolved to tackle journalism training, research journalists’ working conditions and boost PINA’s Pacnews service with audio and video feeds.
David Robie's Cafe Pacific commentary on the PINA summit
David Robie on social media in the Fiji Sun - April 9
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
Pacific Media Watch
