SUVA (Wansolwara / Pacific Media Watch): To produce fearless journalism, journalists must rely on the core principles of their profession to help them tell the stories that matter, journalism educator, journalist and author Professor David Robie has told Fiji graduates.
“No matter what government, political or industry pressure you face, you should hold on strongly to your core values of truth, accuracy, honesty and courage in the public interest,” he said.
“Our communities deserve the best from their media in these deceitful times.”
Dr Robie, an award-winning journalist-turned academic who has accumulated more than 40 years of experience in journalism, was keynote speaker at the University of the South Pacific regional journalism programme awards last month.
While he noted the many challenges confronting the profession, and the irony of today’s digital revolution creating “an illusion of growing freedom of expression and information in the world, when in fact the reverse is true,” he noted that the global industry pressures have yet to impact on journalism in Pacific Island countries, particularly in Fiji.
However, he said the “very real immediate concerns” posed by the Media Industry Development Authority Decree on journalism were an ongoing challenge.
The MIDA Decree has “a chilling’ impact” on the local media “regardless of the glossy mirage the government spin doctors like to put on it”, he said.
'Change the world'
Nevertheless, Robie encouraged graduating student journalists and journalism professionals at the annual awards to persist and “change the world to the way it should be”.
He said journalism schools were among the few that still produced media that could be trusted, and he cited several examples including a climate change story produced by AUT exchange student journalist Niklas Pedersen while on a two-week attachment in Fiji earlier this year.
”This was a nice piece of storytelling on climate change on an issue that barely got covered in New Zealand legacy media,” said Dr Robie, who added that Australia and New Zealand media should not “get too smug about media freedom in relation to Fiji” because recent incidents reflect their increasingly fragile state of media freedom.
Dr Robie, who was the head of USP Journalism between 1998-2002, also launched the journalism programme's alumni network.
The programme boasts about 200 graduates, many of whom serve their respective Pacific island communities in important leadership capacities.
David Robie's full USP awards speech
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Pacific Media Watch
