A multimedia news report series about the torture of a fugitive prisoner and his suspected accomplice by Fiji prison officers has won Pacific Media Watch contributing editor Daniel Drageset a coveted international prize in trauma journalism.
Drageset, a Norwegian journalist interned at AUT University's Pacific Media Centre and a postgraduate student in the School of Communication Studies, won the Dart Asia-Pacific Centre for Journalism and Trauma Prize for reporting on violence, disaster or trauma in society at the 2013 Ossie Awards for student journalism in Mooloolaba, Queensland.
He has been contributing editor of the PMC’s Pacific Media Watch freedom project for the past year, and has also been a student intern editor on the associated independent Pacific Scoop news website.
”I am really happy to have won this prize. It was incredibly interesting working on this story, and I think it highlights what an important job the PMW is doing,” Drageset said.
Judge Cait McMahon, director of Melbourne's Dart Asia-Pacific Centre, said Drageset’s winning Fiji entry had showed an “impressive investigation into alleged police torture”.
“Daniel had to straddle important ethical issues and clarify potential bias of sources to produce an impressive piece of reporting,” she said.
Careful investigation
“This work carefully investigated YouTube clips, blogs and other sources to construct a series of balanced, online news stories that were eventually picked up by mainstream, international media.
“While the videos were disturbing to watch, Daniel produced a strong series of news stories that align with the principles of giving voice to victims and survivors of violence and injustice.”
The three-part series was reported by Drageset in March as PMW became the first international media outlet to break the story, which was soon also reported by news agencies and other media.
The story was developed from graphic YouTube footage captured on mobile phones of the torture of 27-year-old escaped prisoner Iowane Benedito by apparent prison and other security officers.
Another man suspected of helping the fugitive was also tortured with the help of a dog.
The Fiji regime later admitted to “corrections officers” being implicated in the torture, but rejected calls for an independent inquiry. However, a Fiji Prisons and Corrections Service spokeswoman confirmed that three officers had been sacked over the video.
PMC successes
Drageset worked closely with Professor David Robie, director of the PMC and managing editor of the PMW project, on the stories.
The prize for Drageset was A$200. Highly commended for the Dart award was Eliza Rugg of RMIT University in Melbourne with her article “One metre miracle”.
This is the third year running that the PMC-affiliated students have won all prizes and citations going to the NZ-based nominations.
Last year, Karen Abplanalp and former PMW contributing editor Alex Perrottet won awards, and Perrottet also gained a highly commended award in 2011 for a series of reports on Samoan post-tsunami reconstruction.
On November 28, Drageset made a presentation about the PMW project and the Pacific Scoop internship at the Journalism Education Association of New Zealand (JEANZ) conference hosted this year by AUT.
As well as the Fiji torture issue, Drageset spoke about case studies such as the West Papua Freedom Flotilla, the Samoa Observer editor being verbally attacked by the Prime Minister of Samoa, Papuans Behind Bars about political prisoners in West Papua, and an expose about Danish MP Marie Krarup’s racist comments about Māori.
He based his talk on Dr Robie’s recent paper Pacific Media Watch and digital protest in Oceania: A case study of a campus-based free media collective, presented at the Protest and the Media conference at the University of Westminster in London in June.
The Dart Asia-Pacific Centre for Trauma Journalism
AUT news item on Drageset's trauma journalism award
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