AUCKLAND: One of the champions of Pacific press freedom, Savea Sano Malifa, has accused a rival organisation of “manipulation”and losing its “critical voice” as media groups met in Samoa this week to discuss press freedom and regionalism.
Writing in an editorial marking World Press Freedom Day in his Samoa Observer newspaper, editor-in-chief Savea, who is also president of the new Pasifika Media Association (PasiMA), slammed the Suva-based Pacific Islands News Association (PINA).
While welcoming support from international media partners, he said: "It is entirely up to working Pacific journalists to make [regionalism] happen”.
“Today, the PINA which some of us helped set up some 24 years ago has been quiet for quite some time. It has lost its critical voice,” he said.
“The truth is that it has been manipulated so successfully that it is no longer doing the job it was set up to do – which is keeping a vigilant watch on the governments of the region so that they remain transparent and accountable to the public they serve.
“Today, PINA’s silence is deafening.”
Participating groups at the seminar include network leaders from the AIDB Pacific Media Partnership, IFJ Pacific Media Human Rights and Democracy Project, Pacific Alliance for Development Journalists, Pacific Freedom Forum, Pacific Islands Media Association, Pacific WAVE Media Network and PasiMA.
However, the region’s major media network PINA – which claims to represent 23 media organisations around the region and has a foundation policy of “defending freedom of expression and information” – is not present.
Nor are the region’s three main Pacific journalism schools, Divine Word University (Madang, Papua New Guinea), University of the South Pacific (Fiji) and New Zealand-based AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre, which all run media freedom programmes. They were uninvited.
The UNESCO Pacific-funded dialogue, organised by regional coordinator for the IFJ Pacific media project, Lisa Williams-Lahari, was originally scheduled to be held in Suva, Fiji. But after the location was changed three times it is now being hosted by the National University of Samoa (NUS) in Apia, Samoa. - Pacific Scoop/Pacific Media Watch
Pacific Media Watch
