SYDNEY (Walkley Magazine / Pacific Media Watch): A new media book will "excite debate" around the practice of journalism, says a senior New Zealand broadcast journalist.
Brent Edwards, political editor of Radio New Zealand News, says the new book, Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, mayhem and human rights in the Pacific, raises some challenging issues for the region's media.
Reviewing the book for the national Australian journalists publication Walkley Magazine, Edwards, who has written widely on Pacific political and media freedom issues, wrote: "For someone like me, who is not an expert on the Pacific, the book is a valuable reference to the significant issues that continue to bedevil the region."
According to Edwards, Pacific Media Centre director professor David Robie makes no bones about his distaste of the tendency of regimes and other vested interests in the region trying to suppress press freedoms, often by intimidation and threats - and he also questions the role of Western journalism in the Pacific.
Robie "praises those journalists throughout the region who struggle to do their job in the face of intimidation, legal restraints and poor pay. But ...he questions whether the Western notion of news is appropriate to covering the many complex issues in the region.
"And, before some journalists protest too loudly, this is not a cry for the media to go soft. But Robie does raise some interesting questions about the role of journalism and whether its approach could be altered," Edwards says.
"Robie puts forward the case for journalists practising what he calls critical deliberative journalism in the region. He argues that Pacific journalists now have a greater task than ever in encouraging democratisation of the region and informed insights into development, social justice and peace issues facing related island states.
"In other words, he says journalists should be part of the solution, not part of the problem," added Edwards.
This does not mean allowing politicians’ slogans, such as “cultural sensitivity”, to be used as a smokescreen for the abuse of power and violations of human rights but instead, "greater pressure on journalists to expose the truth and report on alternatives and solutions," says Edwards.
Edwards concludes the review by saying that journalists in Australia and New Zealand might also consider adopting a "different approach" in their journalism practice.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
Pacific Media Watch
