AUCKLAND (Pacific Journalism Review/Pacific Media Watch): "Failed" states and the environment in the region have been featured in the latest edition of Pacific Journalism Review published this week in an issue marking 20 years of the media research journal.
Issues for failed nation-states, political meltdowns, coups and increasing militarisation have dogged the recent postcolonial history on the Pacific.
The edition focuses on Fiji and the need to repeal the Media Decree in the wake of the recent general election; the “political quandary” of West Papua under Indonesian rule; Pacific indigenous social protection systems in a neoliberal world; “carbon colonialism” and deliberative journalism, communicating climate change and “crunch-time” for the University of Papua New Guinea, home of the Pacific’s first journalism school.
A photoessay by Vanuatu-based photojournalist Ben Bohane explores “Melanesian mythical places with unreported conflicts” and Lawrence Bull interviews investigative journalists about whistleblowers inside the Australian building racket.
The annual UNESCO NZ media freedom lecture for 2014 by Dr Gavin Ellis, “No-one died covering celebrity news”, is featured along with articles about “the silence of the Sphinx” on war correspondence, an international student journalism project and audiovisual cultural artifacts of protest in Spain’s Basque Country.
Emerging journal
“Twenty years ago this month, the first edition of PJR emerged from the University of Papua New Guinea,” recalls founding editor Professor David Robie.
“Since then, the journal has grown from strength to strength as well as nurturing Pacific journalism and media research.”
PJR was launched at UPNG in November 1994.
This edition has been co-edited by Dr Robie and Dr Lee Duffield of Queensland University of Technology.
The cover features a Sepik mask from Papua New Guinea chewing up a newspaper drawn by NZ's cartoonist of the year Rod Emmerson of the New Zealand Herald.
The 20th anniversary of the journal is being celebrated at a three-day conference “Political Journalism in the Asia-Pacific” later this month and a special book edition of PJR will be published drawing on papers presented at this event.
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Pacific Journalism Review
