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David Robie

Pacific Journalism Review, Editorial, Faculty Member

Auckland University of Technology, Pacific Media Centre, Faculty Member

Auckland University of Technology, School of Communication Studies, Faculty Member

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David Robie is a semi-retired professor of journalism and communication studies and is founding director of the Pacific Media Centre in the School of Communication Studies at Auckland University of Technology. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Technology, Sydney, and a PhD in history and politics from the University of the South Pacific, Fiji. He is founding editor of Pacific Journalism Review and Pacific Journalism Monographs, and convener of Pacific Media Watch and is currently editor of Asia Pacific Report. He has written several books on Asia-Pacific media, including Mekim Nius: South Pacific Media, Politics, and Education (2004), and Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific (2014), and on the environment, including Eyes of Fire (2015) on the Rainbow Warrior bombing and nuclear testing. He also publishes the media freedom blog Café Pacific. He has served as an Asia-Pacific analyst for Reporters Without Borders (Paris) and Freedom House (New York).
Phone: +64211122079
Address: Editor of Asia Pacific Report
David Robie Publishing Limited
PO Box 47716
Ponsonby
AUCKLAND 1144
Aotearoa New Zealand
AUT University
Private Bag 92006
Auckland 1102
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Books by David Robie

Peace Journalism, Colonialism, and Conflict in the South Pacific: A Critical Reflexive Approach to Timor - Leste and West Papua

Kula Press, Apr 7, 2024

For almost a quarter of a century, the December 1975 Indonesian invasion and subsequent occupatio... more For almost a quarter of a century, the December 1975 Indonesian invasion and subsequent occupation/annexation of Timor-Leste were a news media “blind spot” (Leadbeater, 2008, p. 168; Perrottet and Robie, 2011; Robie, 1989, 1992, 2014, 2021)—largely out of the public consciousness in New Zealand and among Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) member nations despite some of the territory’s leaders’ close relationship with Australia and a significant Timorese diaspora in that country.
During the period of Indonesian control, which defied the United Nations Security Council’s persistent recognition of Portugal’s sovereignty over Timor-Leste as legitimate colonial power until the latter finally won independence in 2002, international media had little access to the region. Chapter 2, published in "Waves of Change Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific", edited by Shailendra Singh, Biman Prasad and Amit Sarwal.
https://kulapress.com.au/

Owen Wilkes: Exposing foreign militarism on the 'backside of the earth'

Peacemonger, Nov 23, 2022

When I first encountered Owen Wilkes it was at a range of 17,000 kilometres – the distance betwee... more When I first encountered Owen Wilkes it was at a range of 17,000 kilometres – the distance between Auckland, Aotearoa, and Stockholm, Sweden. He was already something of an extraordinary and increasingly well-known, although humble, celebrity in the final decade of the Cold War. As a researcher for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Owen had taken on the Scandinavian security establishment and challenged and embarrassed it in a quiet and unassuming way for a second time (after an earlier skirmish in Norway), and the powers that be were not going to let him get away with it. My attention was drawn to Owen Wilkes while I was back in Auckland freelancing after working for three years in Paris with the French news agency Agence France-Presse as an editor and correspondent. Before that I had spent several years editing newspapers and reporting on the African continent, mainly in Kenya and South Africa. In that time I had stumbled across an edition of the Fredstidningen PAX, a Swedish magazine featuring sustainable peace and disarmament, in February 1982, which carried the intriguing headline ‘Spionutrustningen’ – ‘Spy gear’. It was a cover story devoted to the trials of Owen Wilkes. The cover illustration depicted the alleged ‘spy equipment’ belonging to Owen – a trusty bicycle, kitbag, small camera and pocket binoculars. I contacted Owen to find out more about the back story and these enquiries led to an article and years of correspondence and debate, plus collaboration on two books – Blood on their Banner: Nationalist Struggles in the South Pacific (1989) and Tu Galala: Social Change in the Pacific (1992). We formed a long friendship that stretched to his final years in Kāwhia and his ‘retirement’ from the peace movement and ‘rebirth’ as an archaeologist and occasional community coastal tour guide. --
An excerpt from Chapter 8 (pp. 102-122) of the book Peacemonger: Owen Wilkes: International Peace Researcher, edited by May Bass and Mark Derby. Published 23 November 2022. ISBN 978-1-99-1153-86-9

PACIFIC MEDIA CENTRE Annual Review 2020

Pacific Media Centre Annual Review, Dec 2020

The Pacific Media Centre (PMC) completed a challenging year dealing with the Covid-19 coronavirus... more The Pacific Media Centre (PMC) completed a challenging year dealing with the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic through several projects, including an international grant for a climate and Covid environmental initiative. Although social distancing ruled out its usual public and industry seminars, staff and students collaborated in several virtual conferences and symposia. It completed the year with its own symposium under the theme of "Pacific Media Centre 2020 and Beyond: Highlights and New Horizons" which hosted two groups of West Papuan students from Auckland University of Technology and Waikato University.
[This was the last annual report before the PMC's demise in 2020].
ISSN 2624-375X (Print)
ISSN 2624-3768 (Online)

Introduction: Poverty and privilege

Tu Galala: Social Change in the Pacific, 1992

Tahitians have an expression, 'seaside or mountainside', which once symbolised a sort of socio-ec... more Tahitians have an expression, 'seaside or mountainside', which once symbolised a sort of socio-economic barrier roughly dividing the island's poor and the privileged élite. For decades only the narrow coastal strip at the foot of the lofty mountain peaks was inhabited -- a road loops the island with homes spread out on both sides. Between the road and the Pacific Ocean were fashionable homes of the privileged and wealthy, often screened off by hedges or walls. Around Punaauia, the density of the chic homes frequently barred access to the beach for several kilometres at a time.
[Introduction from the book Tu Galala: Social Change in the Pacific (editor: David Robie), which was assisted by the Pacific Development and Conservation Trust, a fund established by the New Zealand government with compensation money paid for the sabotage of the Rainbow Warrior by French state terrorists in Auckland harbour on 10 July 1985. Contributors to the book include Robert Robertson, Akosita Tamanisau, Rita Baua, Owen Wilkes, Sitiveni Ratuva, Jone Dakuvula, Bunny McDiarmid, Roger Moody, Pauline Tangiora and Ed Rampell.]

Pacific crises: COVID, climate emergency and West Papua

Pacific Journalism Review, 2021

Edited by Philip Cass and David Robie: This edition of Pacific Journalism Review was originally p... more Edited by Philip Cass and David Robie: This edition of Pacific Journalism Review was originally planned as an unthemed edition. However, a cluster of media papers on COVID-19, climate change and the ongoing human rights crisis in West Papua has led to it being designated as a 'Pacific Crises' edition. The edition also features a Photoessay case study on Pacific refugee migration and Australian 'imperialism'; Frontline on the making of the documentary Ophir and the Bougainville 'silences'; and the 'Watchdogs under Pressure' Special Report is a major study on the state of journalism in the Pacific. Included in the unthemed section are articles on sustaining democratic freedoms in the Pacific, a journalists' 'toolbox' of the Digital-Global Age, mobile phones and the digital divide, urban settlement communication in Papua New Guinea, and hate speech in Indonesia. Ten books and documentaries are examined in the Reviews section.

'Stay home, stay safe, be kind': How New Zealand crushed, not just flattened the COVID-19 curve

COVID-19, Racism and Politicization, Jul 26, 2021

In contrast to disastrous Western exceptionalist trends in Europe and the United States in counte... more In contrast to disastrous Western exceptionalist trends in Europe and the United States in countering the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, New Zealand was influenced by the success of Asian countries such as Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. New Zealand was conscious of its strategic responsibility for vulnerable Pacific Island nations and launched a bold 'go hard and go early' offensive. After an impressive two-month lockdown period that gave the country time to strengthen its public health defenses, health experts predicted a 97 percent chance of COVID-19 being eliminated. However, there was a relapse in August 2020 when a sudden cluster emerged in the country’s largest city which threatened New Zealand’s COVID-free status. This cluster in turn was contained and eliminated. But the health issue dominated the economic recovery debate until the general election on October 17 when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s youngest and most popular political leader, won re-election with a landslide victory. The news media initially played a decisive support role in Ardern’s ‘kindness’ model in rallying a united nation, but later this fragmented. *** Chapter 8 in COVID-19, Racism and Politicization: Media in the Midst of a Pandemic (Kalinga Seneviratne and Sundeep R. Muppidi - Editors) ISBN: 978-1-5275-7089-4

Media Freedom: A West Papuan Human Rights Journalism Case Study

The Palgrave Handbook of Positive Peace, 2021

Media freedom means journalism can "shape and spread values, defuse tensions, and counter hate-sp... more Media freedom means journalism can "shape and spread values, defuse tensions, and counter hate-speech." Through its capacity to investigate, challenge, and question competing views and opinions with facts and balanced reason, journalism can contribute to positive and sustainable notions of peace. However, advocating for positive peace in the news media is not just about reducing or eliminating violence or conflict narratives, it is also about offering alternative narratives of hope and action toward peace. In this case study about West Papua, human rights and peace narratives, the author examines changing strategies over more than half a century by the Melanesian Papuan people to achieve a just, positive, and sustainable peace in the Pacific.
Book Chapter: Robie D. (2021) Media Freedom: A West Papuan Human Rights Journalism Case Study. In: Standish K., Devere H., Suazo A., Rafferty R. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Positive Peace. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3877-3_30-1

Science Writing and Climate Change

We now live in the age of science and technology. In this age, the senior citizens among us walk ... more We now live in the age of science and technology. In this age, the senior citizens among us walk around bewildered by these strange electronic gadgets and programs in the hands of the millennials—video games, computers, PSP games, phone apps, mobile phones, tablets, and many others. As we move into this new age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we need to understand what is going on if we are to survive. The mission of science communicators is clear. They must make all these science and scientific inventions understandable to the general public. Science has many publics and the role of the science communicator—to reach these various publics--is a gargantuan task. This small book will try to address the huge issue of how to communicate science to Everyman. - Professor Crispin Maslog is the lead author.

Bougainville: The valley of the Rambos, 1989

Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific , Apr 24, 2014

‘The original [Panguna mine] agreement overrode our customs, denied us our land rights and was to... more ‘The original [Panguna mine] agreement overrode our customs, denied us our land rights and was too rushed. It contradicts our way of life; what comes from the land should benefit the landowners … nobody else. ’
A Nasioi militant landowner

APART from convoys with soldiers riding shotgun and yellow ochre Bougainville Copper Limited trucks packed with security forces sporting M16s, you would hardly guess that a guerrilla war was in progress near the Bougainville provincial capital of Arawa. But once you reached the sandbagged machinegun nest in Birempa village at the foot of the rugged mountain jungles of the Crown Prince Range, the tension started to rise.
Scanning the dense vegetation for a sign of the militants of the Bougainville Republican Army (BRA)—known as Rambos in the first year of the decade-long civil war – the Papua New Guinea Defence Force soldier manning the machinegun didn’t notice the irony of the T-shirt he was wearing.
Chapter 16 of Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific, by David Robie (2014). ISBN 9781877484254

Introduction: Trust and transparency

Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific, 2014

ONCE I worked with a Kenyan chief editor, George Githii of the Daily Nation, who observed wryly a... more ONCE I worked with a Kenyan chief editor, George Githii of the Daily Nation, who observed wryly about media freedom in developing nations: “For governments which fear newspapers, there is one consolation: We have known many instances where governments have taken over newspapers, but we haven’t known of a single incident in which a newspaper has taken over a government.” George, always dressed in a dapper bow tie, no matter what the emergency—such as a senior reporter being abducted before dawn by secret police because of a front page exposé on a pharmaceuticals corruption case—had impeccable credentials politically. He was former press secretary for then President Jomo Kenyatta, founding “father” of Kenya. His comment stuck with me for a long time, and at one stage I used the quote as a personal email rider. The notion that newspapers might take over a government or two seemed laughable. - "Reporting in West Papua is a risky business." - Introductory chapter to David Robie's 2014 book Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific.

Changing paradigms in Pacific journalism

Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific, 2014

South Pacific media face a challenge of developing forms of journalism that contribute to the nat... more South Pacific media face a challenge of developing forms of journalism that contribute to the national ethos by mobilising change from passive communities to those seeking change. Instead of news values that have often led international media to exclude a range of perspectives, such a notion would promote deliberation by journalists to enable the participation of all community stakeholders. Deliberative journalism is issue-based and includes diverse and even unpopular views aboutg the community good and encourages an expression of plurality. Chapter 24 in Robie, D. (2014). Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific (pp. 321-343)
ISBN 9781877484254

REVIEW: Coups, globalisation and Fiji’s reset ‘democracy’ paradigm

Pacific Journalism Review, Jul 17, 2018

The General’s Goose: Fiji’s Tale of Contemporary Misadventure, by Robbie Robertson. Canberra: Aus... more The General’s Goose: Fiji’s Tale of Contemporary Misadventure, by Robbie Robertson. Canberra: Australian National University. 2017. 366 pages. ISBN 9781760461270

When Commodore (now rear admiral retired and an elected prime minister) Voreqe Bainimarama staged Fiji’s fourth ‘coup to end all coups’ on 5 December 2006, it was widely misunderstood, misinterpreted and misrepresented by a legion of politicians, foreign affairs officials, journalists and even some historians. A chorus of voices continually argued for the restoration of ‘democracy’ – not only the flawed version of democracy that had persisted in various forms since independence from colonial Britain in 1970, but specifically the arguably illegal and unconstitutional government of merchant banker Laisenia Qarase that had been installed on the coat-tails of the third (attempted) coup in 2000. Yet in spite of superficial appearances, Bainimarama’s 2006 coup contrasted sharply with its predecessors.

Journalism education in the South Pacific, 1975-2003 : politics, policy and practice

Pacific Studies, USP, Apr 2004

University education for South Pacific journalists is a relatively recent development. It has exi... more University education for South Pacific journalists is a relatively recent development. It has existed in Papua New Guinea for merely a generation; it is less than a decade old at degree level in Fiji, and in the former colonies in Polynesia. At the same time, mean age, experience and educational qualifications have been rising among journalists in the major Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) member countries, Australia and New Zealand, as the news media has become more professionalised. While the Papua New Guinea media has largely depended on journalism education to provide the foundation for its professionalism, Fiji has focused on a system of ad hoc short course training funded by international donors. This thesis examines the history of South Pacific university media education and its impact on the region’s journalism. Its first objective is to test the hypothesis that tertiary education has a critical influence on how Pacific journalists practise their profession and perceive their political and social role in a developing society faced with the challenges of globalisation. Secondly, the thesis aims to analyse the political, economic and legal frameworks in which the media have operated in Papua New Guinea and Fiji since independence. Third, the thesis aims to explain and assess in detail the development of journalism education in the South Pacific since independence. The theoretical framework is from a critical political economy perspective. It also assesses whether the concept of development journalism, which had its roots in the 1980s debate calling for a ‘New International Information and Communication Order’ (NWICO), has had an influence on a Pacific style of journalism. The thesis argues within a context where journalists can be considered to be professionals with some degree of autonomy within the confines set by a capitalist and often transnational-owned media, and within those established by governments and media companies. Journalists are not solely ‘governed’ by these confines; they still have some freedom to act, and journalism education can deliver some of the resources to make the most of that freedom. The thesis includes historical case studies of the region’s three main journalism schools, Divine Word University (PNG), University of Papua New Guinea and the University of the South Pacific. It demonstrates some of the dilemmas faced by the three schools, student journalists and graduates while exercising media freedom. Research was conducted using the triangulation method, incorporating in-depth interviews with 57 editors, media managers, journalists and policy makers; two newsroom staff surveys of 15 news organisations in Fiji and Papua New Guinea in 1998/9 (124 journalists) and 2001 (106); and library and archives study. It also draws on the author’s personal experience as coordinator of the UPNG (1993-1997) and USP (1998-2002) journalism programmes for more than nine years. The thesis concludes that journalists in Papua New Guinea (where university education has played a vital role for a generation) are more highly educated, have a higher mean experience and age, and a more critically sophisticated perception of themselves and their media role in Pacific societies than in Fiji (where almost half the journalists have no formal tertiary education or training). Journalists in Fiji are also more influenced by race, cultural and religious factors. Conversely, PNG journalists are poorly paid even when compared with their Fiji colleagues. There are serious questions about the impact that this may have on the autonomy of journalists and the Fourth Estate role of news media in a South Pacific democracy.

Chapter 5: ‘Unfree and unfair’?: Media intimidation in Fiji’s 2014 elections

Chapter in Ratuva, S., and Lawson, S., (2016). The People Have Spoken: The 2014 Elections in Fiji... more Chapter in Ratuva, S., and Lawson, S., (2016). The People Have Spoken: The 2014 Elections in Fiji. Canberra: Australian National University. Fiji was a media pariah among Pacific nations, as well as a political outcast, for much of the eight years after Voreqe Bainimarama’s military coup in December 2006. But while some media credibility was restored in the months leading up to the 2014 general elections and during the ballot itself, the elephant is still in the room: the 2010
Media Industry Development Decree (Fijian Government 2010). While this Decree remains in force, Fiji can hardly claim to have a truly free and fair media. Just seven months out from the September 17 elections, Fiji was ranked 107th out of 179 countries listed in the 2014 World Press Freedom Index prepared by the Paris-based global media freedom it was in many quarters during that year, and the promise of ‘free and
fair’ elections by 30 September 2014. The elections gave Fiji’s ranking a further boost, rising 14 places to 93rd (RSF 2015).
organisation Reporters Without Borders (RSF). That ranking was an improvement on the previous year (RSF 2014a), rising 10 places from the 2013 ranking. The major reason for this improvement was the adoption of the new Constitution on 6 September 2013, criticised as it was in many quarters during that year, and the promise of ‘free and fair’ elections by 30 September 2014. The elections gave Fiji’s ranking a further boost, rising 14 places to 93rd (RSF 2015).

Eyes of Fire: The last voyage of the Rainbow Warrior

"Award-winning journalist David Robie was on board the Greenpeace environmental ship Rainbow Warr... more "Award-winning journalist David Robie was on board the Greenpeace environmental ship Rainbow Warrior on its last mission to Rongelap Atoll in May 1985 and continued to stay with the ship until it reached Auckland in July. Robie’s account of this voyage – of the Marshall Islands community poisoned by nuclear fallout and of the fatal bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by the French secret service – remains a definitive work on Western treachery in the Pacific, but also shows the power of good people who were willing to stand up and be counted when others desperately needed help."
‘ One of the most iniquitous stories of the nuclear age. ’
New Internationalist
‘ This is THE book of the last five months of the first Rainbow Warrior. ’
Rainbow Warrior skipper Peter Willcox
‘ Robie’s analysis places the bombing squarely in the context of the South Pacific politics and people, providing a
much-needed human backdrop. ’
Steve Sawyer, Greenpeace Magazine

Political Journalism in the Asia-Pacific

by David Robie and Barry King

A special book edition of Pacific Journalism Review marking 20 years of publishing. This new publ... more A special book edition of Pacific Journalism Review marking 20 years of publishing. This new publication features the Pacific asylum seeker and human rights, the Fiji post-coup general election and free speech, resource development in the Solomon Islands, Australia’s emerging “secret state” and shield laws, human rights in West Papua, martial law and e-martial law in the Philippines and New Zealand political and climate change reportage of the Pacific. The book includes chapters by Del Abcede, Pat Craddock, Kayt Davies, Eliki Drugunavalu, Lee Duffield, Amy Forbes, Walter Fraser, Maire Leadbeater, Irene Manueli, Ricardo Morris, Chris Nash, Mark Pearson, David Robie, Shailendra Singh and others. Published by the Pacific Media Centre and distributed by Little Island Press.

Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, mayhem and human rights in the Pacific

""This is an extraordinary 'secret history' of a vast region of the world of which David Robie ha... more ""This is an extraordinary 'secret history' of a vast region of the world of which David Robie has been a rare expert witness. What makes this epic work so timely is that it allows us to understand the Asia-Pacific at a time of renewed Cold War ambitions and dangers" - Investigative journalist John Pilger

"Twenty five years of reportage and media and research in the Asia-Pacific region and an analysis of journalism methodologies and studies such as conflict and peace journalism, development journalism, comparative international journalism, communication for social change and cross-cultural reporting."

David Robie, an independent journalist, media campaigner and educator, distils his lessons from 35 years of working in the Asia-Pacific region. Covering environmental challenges, coups, the nuclear-free and independent Pacific movement and civil rights, as well as the many barriers journalists face in the Pacific, his book, Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face, reveals many of the hidden stories from these island nations. - Little Island Press

362 pp. Illustrated, map, bibliography, index ISBN 978 1 877 314 86 5

Dreadlocks : Oceans, islands and skies

This special issue of Dreadlocks publishes the proceedings of the “Oceans, Islands and Skies - Oc... more This special issue of Dreadlocks publishes the proceedings of the “Oceans, Islands and Skies - Oceanic Conference on Creativity and Climate Change – The Role of Writers, Artists and the Media on Environmental Challenges in the Pacific.” The OIS-OCCCC was held from 13th - 17th September, 2010 at the University of the South Pacific, Laucala Campus in Suva. The conference proceedings attest to the multidisciplinary achievements of the gathering of academics, writers, artists, performers and the general community in putting forward creative solutions, advocacy and awareness programs on climate change.

Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior

On 10 July 1985, French secret agents bombed the Greenpeace campaign flagship Rainbow Warrior in ... more On 10 July 1985, French secret agents bombed the Greenpeace campaign flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour, New Zealand. Portuguese-born photographer Fernando Pereira died in the sabotage outrage that shook the world. The bombed ship was scuttled off a New Zealand bay in 1987 to form a living reef and Rainbow Warrior II was commissioned. In 1996, France ended nuclear tests in Polynesia after further Greenpeace and Pacific protests. This redesigned and revised new "memorial edition" of the original 1986 book contains new material and additional pictures about American and French nuclear testing in the Pacific.

The memorial edition (2005) of this book 20 years after the bombing is dedicated to "the memory of nuclear-free campaigners Amelia Rokotuivuna, Bengt and Marie-Therese Danielsson, Elaine Shaw and Owen Wilkes, who opened our eyes".

Mekim Nius: South Pacific media, politics and education

"Coups, politics and the Pacific media - The news media is the watchdog of democracy. But in the ... more "Coups, politics and the Pacific media - The news media is the watchdog of democracy. But in the South Pacific today the Fourth Estate role is under threat from governments seeking statutory regulation, diminished media credibility, dilemmas over ethics and uncertainty over professionalism and training." - Back cover

Peace Journalism, Colonialism, and Conflict in the South Pacific: A Critical Reflexive Approach to Timor - Leste and West Papua

Kula Press, Apr 7, 2024

For almost a quarter of a century, the December 1975 Indonesian invasion and subsequent occupatio... more For almost a quarter of a century, the December 1975 Indonesian invasion and subsequent occupation/annexation of Timor-Leste were a news media “blind spot” (Leadbeater, 2008, p. 168; Perrottet and Robie, 2011; Robie, 1989, 1992, 2014, 2021)—largely out of the public consciousness in New Zealand and among Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) member nations despite some of the territory’s leaders’ close relationship with Australia and a significant Timorese diaspora in that country.
During the period of Indonesian control, which defied the United Nations Security Council’s persistent recognition of Portugal’s sovereignty over Timor-Leste as legitimate colonial power until the latter finally won independence in 2002, international media had little access to the region. Chapter 2, published in "Waves of Change Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific", edited by Shailendra Singh, Biman Prasad and Amit Sarwal.
https://kulapress.com.au/

Owen Wilkes: Exposing foreign militarism on the 'backside of the earth'

Peacemonger, Nov 23, 2022

When I first encountered Owen Wilkes it was at a range of 17,000 kilometres – the distance betwee... more When I first encountered Owen Wilkes it was at a range of 17,000 kilometres – the distance between Auckland, Aotearoa, and Stockholm, Sweden. He was already something of an extraordinary and increasingly well-known, although humble, celebrity in the final decade of the Cold War. As a researcher for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Owen had taken on the Scandinavian security establishment and challenged and embarrassed it in a quiet and unassuming way for a second time (after an earlier skirmish in Norway), and the powers that be were not going to let him get away with it. My attention was drawn to Owen Wilkes while I was back in Auckland freelancing after working for three years in Paris with the French news agency Agence France-Presse as an editor and correspondent. Before that I had spent several years editing newspapers and reporting on the African continent, mainly in Kenya and South Africa. In that time I had stumbled across an edition of the Fredstidningen PAX, a Swedish magazine featuring sustainable peace and disarmament, in February 1982, which carried the intriguing headline ‘Spionutrustningen’ – ‘Spy gear’. It was a cover story devoted to the trials of Owen Wilkes. The cover illustration depicted the alleged ‘spy equipment’ belonging to Owen – a trusty bicycle, kitbag, small camera and pocket binoculars. I contacted Owen to find out more about the back story and these enquiries led to an article and years of correspondence and debate, plus collaboration on two books – Blood on their Banner: Nationalist Struggles in the South Pacific (1989) and Tu Galala: Social Change in the Pacific (1992). We formed a long friendship that stretched to his final years in Kāwhia and his ‘retirement’ from the peace movement and ‘rebirth’ as an archaeologist and occasional community coastal tour guide. --
An excerpt from Chapter 8 (pp. 102-122) of the book Peacemonger: Owen Wilkes: International Peace Researcher, edited by May Bass and Mark Derby. Published 23 November 2022. ISBN 978-1-99-1153-86-9

PACIFIC MEDIA CENTRE Annual Review 2020

Pacific Media Centre Annual Review, Dec 2020

The Pacific Media Centre (PMC) completed a challenging year dealing with the Covid-19 coronavirus... more The Pacific Media Centre (PMC) completed a challenging year dealing with the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic through several projects, including an international grant for a climate and Covid environmental initiative. Although social distancing ruled out its usual public and industry seminars, staff and students collaborated in several virtual conferences and symposia. It completed the year with its own symposium under the theme of "Pacific Media Centre 2020 and Beyond: Highlights and New Horizons" which hosted two groups of West Papuan students from Auckland University of Technology and Waikato University.
[This was the last annual report before the PMC's demise in 2020].
ISSN 2624-375X (Print)
ISSN 2624-3768 (Online)

Introduction: Poverty and privilege

Tu Galala: Social Change in the Pacific, 1992

Tahitians have an expression, 'seaside or mountainside', which once symbolised a sort of socio-ec... more Tahitians have an expression, 'seaside or mountainside', which once symbolised a sort of socio-economic barrier roughly dividing the island's poor and the privileged élite. For decades only the narrow coastal strip at the foot of the lofty mountain peaks was inhabited -- a road loops the island with homes spread out on both sides. Between the road and the Pacific Ocean were fashionable homes of the privileged and wealthy, often screened off by hedges or walls. Around Punaauia, the density of the chic homes frequently barred access to the beach for several kilometres at a time.
[Introduction from the book Tu Galala: Social Change in the Pacific (editor: David Robie), which was assisted by the Pacific Development and Conservation Trust, a fund established by the New Zealand government with compensation money paid for the sabotage of the Rainbow Warrior by French state terrorists in Auckland harbour on 10 July 1985. Contributors to the book include Robert Robertson, Akosita Tamanisau, Rita Baua, Owen Wilkes, Sitiveni Ratuva, Jone Dakuvula, Bunny McDiarmid, Roger Moody, Pauline Tangiora and Ed Rampell.]

Pacific crises: COVID, climate emergency and West Papua

Pacific Journalism Review, 2021

Edited by Philip Cass and David Robie: This edition of Pacific Journalism Review was originally p... more Edited by Philip Cass and David Robie: This edition of Pacific Journalism Review was originally planned as an unthemed edition. However, a cluster of media papers on COVID-19, climate change and the ongoing human rights crisis in West Papua has led to it being designated as a 'Pacific Crises' edition. The edition also features a Photoessay case study on Pacific refugee migration and Australian 'imperialism'; Frontline on the making of the documentary Ophir and the Bougainville 'silences'; and the 'Watchdogs under Pressure' Special Report is a major study on the state of journalism in the Pacific. Included in the unthemed section are articles on sustaining democratic freedoms in the Pacific, a journalists' 'toolbox' of the Digital-Global Age, mobile phones and the digital divide, urban settlement communication in Papua New Guinea, and hate speech in Indonesia. Ten books and documentaries are examined in the Reviews section.

'Stay home, stay safe, be kind': How New Zealand crushed, not just flattened the COVID-19 curve

COVID-19, Racism and Politicization, Jul 26, 2021

In contrast to disastrous Western exceptionalist trends in Europe and the United States in counte... more In contrast to disastrous Western exceptionalist trends in Europe and the United States in countering the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, New Zealand was influenced by the success of Asian countries such as Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. New Zealand was conscious of its strategic responsibility for vulnerable Pacific Island nations and launched a bold 'go hard and go early' offensive. After an impressive two-month lockdown period that gave the country time to strengthen its public health defenses, health experts predicted a 97 percent chance of COVID-19 being eliminated. However, there was a relapse in August 2020 when a sudden cluster emerged in the country’s largest city which threatened New Zealand’s COVID-free status. This cluster in turn was contained and eliminated. But the health issue dominated the economic recovery debate until the general election on October 17 when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s youngest and most popular political leader, won re-election with a landslide victory. The news media initially played a decisive support role in Ardern’s ‘kindness’ model in rallying a united nation, but later this fragmented. *** Chapter 8 in COVID-19, Racism and Politicization: Media in the Midst of a Pandemic (Kalinga Seneviratne and Sundeep R. Muppidi - Editors) ISBN: 978-1-5275-7089-4

Media Freedom: A West Papuan Human Rights Journalism Case Study

The Palgrave Handbook of Positive Peace, 2021

Media freedom means journalism can "shape and spread values, defuse tensions, and counter hate-sp... more Media freedom means journalism can "shape and spread values, defuse tensions, and counter hate-speech." Through its capacity to investigate, challenge, and question competing views and opinions with facts and balanced reason, journalism can contribute to positive and sustainable notions of peace. However, advocating for positive peace in the news media is not just about reducing or eliminating violence or conflict narratives, it is also about offering alternative narratives of hope and action toward peace. In this case study about West Papua, human rights and peace narratives, the author examines changing strategies over more than half a century by the Melanesian Papuan people to achieve a just, positive, and sustainable peace in the Pacific.
Book Chapter: Robie D. (2021) Media Freedom: A West Papuan Human Rights Journalism Case Study. In: Standish K., Devere H., Suazo A., Rafferty R. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Positive Peace. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3877-3_30-1

Science Writing and Climate Change

We now live in the age of science and technology. In this age, the senior citizens among us walk ... more We now live in the age of science and technology. In this age, the senior citizens among us walk around bewildered by these strange electronic gadgets and programs in the hands of the millennials—video games, computers, PSP games, phone apps, mobile phones, tablets, and many others. As we move into this new age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we need to understand what is going on if we are to survive. The mission of science communicators is clear. They must make all these science and scientific inventions understandable to the general public. Science has many publics and the role of the science communicator—to reach these various publics--is a gargantuan task. This small book will try to address the huge issue of how to communicate science to Everyman. - Professor Crispin Maslog is the lead author.

Bougainville: The valley of the Rambos, 1989

Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific , Apr 24, 2014

‘The original [Panguna mine] agreement overrode our customs, denied us our land rights and was to... more ‘The original [Panguna mine] agreement overrode our customs, denied us our land rights and was too rushed. It contradicts our way of life; what comes from the land should benefit the landowners … nobody else. ’
A Nasioi militant landowner

APART from convoys with soldiers riding shotgun and yellow ochre Bougainville Copper Limited trucks packed with security forces sporting M16s, you would hardly guess that a guerrilla war was in progress near the Bougainville provincial capital of Arawa. But once you reached the sandbagged machinegun nest in Birempa village at the foot of the rugged mountain jungles of the Crown Prince Range, the tension started to rise.
Scanning the dense vegetation for a sign of the militants of the Bougainville Republican Army (BRA)—known as Rambos in the first year of the decade-long civil war – the Papua New Guinea Defence Force soldier manning the machinegun didn’t notice the irony of the T-shirt he was wearing.
Chapter 16 of Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific, by David Robie (2014). ISBN 9781877484254

Introduction: Trust and transparency

Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific, 2014

ONCE I worked with a Kenyan chief editor, George Githii of the Daily Nation, who observed wryly a... more ONCE I worked with a Kenyan chief editor, George Githii of the Daily Nation, who observed wryly about media freedom in developing nations: “For governments which fear newspapers, there is one consolation: We have known many instances where governments have taken over newspapers, but we haven’t known of a single incident in which a newspaper has taken over a government.” George, always dressed in a dapper bow tie, no matter what the emergency—such as a senior reporter being abducted before dawn by secret police because of a front page exposé on a pharmaceuticals corruption case—had impeccable credentials politically. He was former press secretary for then President Jomo Kenyatta, founding “father” of Kenya. His comment stuck with me for a long time, and at one stage I used the quote as a personal email rider. The notion that newspapers might take over a government or two seemed laughable. - "Reporting in West Papua is a risky business." - Introductory chapter to David Robie's 2014 book Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific.

Changing paradigms in Pacific journalism

Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific, 2014

South Pacific media face a challenge of developing forms of journalism that contribute to the nat... more South Pacific media face a challenge of developing forms of journalism that contribute to the national ethos by mobilising change from passive communities to those seeking change. Instead of news values that have often led international media to exclude a range of perspectives, such a notion would promote deliberation by journalists to enable the participation of all community stakeholders. Deliberative journalism is issue-based and includes diverse and even unpopular views aboutg the community good and encourages an expression of plurality. Chapter 24 in Robie, D. (2014). Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific (pp. 321-343)
ISBN 9781877484254

REVIEW: Coups, globalisation and Fiji’s reset ‘democracy’ paradigm

Pacific Journalism Review, Jul 17, 2018

The General’s Goose: Fiji’s Tale of Contemporary Misadventure, by Robbie Robertson. Canberra: Aus... more The General’s Goose: Fiji’s Tale of Contemporary Misadventure, by Robbie Robertson. Canberra: Australian National University. 2017. 366 pages. ISBN 9781760461270

When Commodore (now rear admiral retired and an elected prime minister) Voreqe Bainimarama staged Fiji’s fourth ‘coup to end all coups’ on 5 December 2006, it was widely misunderstood, misinterpreted and misrepresented by a legion of politicians, foreign affairs officials, journalists and even some historians. A chorus of voices continually argued for the restoration of ‘democracy’ – not only the flawed version of democracy that had persisted in various forms since independence from colonial Britain in 1970, but specifically the arguably illegal and unconstitutional government of merchant banker Laisenia Qarase that had been installed on the coat-tails of the third (attempted) coup in 2000. Yet in spite of superficial appearances, Bainimarama’s 2006 coup contrasted sharply with its predecessors.

Journalism education in the South Pacific, 1975-2003 : politics, policy and practice

Pacific Studies, USP, Apr 2004

University education for South Pacific journalists is a relatively recent development. It has exi... more University education for South Pacific journalists is a relatively recent development. It has existed in Papua New Guinea for merely a generation; it is less than a decade old at degree level in Fiji, and in the former colonies in Polynesia. At the same time, mean age, experience and educational qualifications have been rising among journalists in the major Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) member countries, Australia and New Zealand, as the news media has become more professionalised. While the Papua New Guinea media has largely depended on journalism education to provide the foundation for its professionalism, Fiji has focused on a system of ad hoc short course training funded by international donors. This thesis examines the history of South Pacific university media education and its impact on the region’s journalism. Its first objective is to test the hypothesis that tertiary education has a critical influence on how Pacific journalists practise their profession and perceive their political and social role in a developing society faced with the challenges of globalisation. Secondly, the thesis aims to analyse the political, economic and legal frameworks in which the media have operated in Papua New Guinea and Fiji since independence. Third, the thesis aims to explain and assess in detail the development of journalism education in the South Pacific since independence. The theoretical framework is from a critical political economy perspective. It also assesses whether the concept of development journalism, which had its roots in the 1980s debate calling for a ‘New International Information and Communication Order’ (NWICO), has had an influence on a Pacific style of journalism. The thesis argues within a context where journalists can be considered to be professionals with some degree of autonomy within the confines set by a capitalist and often transnational-owned media, and within those established by governments and media companies. Journalists are not solely ‘governed’ by these confines; they still have some freedom to act, and journalism education can deliver some of the resources to make the most of that freedom. The thesis includes historical case studies of the region’s three main journalism schools, Divine Word University (PNG), University of Papua New Guinea and the University of the South Pacific. It demonstrates some of the dilemmas faced by the three schools, student journalists and graduates while exercising media freedom. Research was conducted using the triangulation method, incorporating in-depth interviews with 57 editors, media managers, journalists and policy makers; two newsroom staff surveys of 15 news organisations in Fiji and Papua New Guinea in 1998/9 (124 journalists) and 2001 (106); and library and archives study. It also draws on the author’s personal experience as coordinator of the UPNG (1993-1997) and USP (1998-2002) journalism programmes for more than nine years. The thesis concludes that journalists in Papua New Guinea (where university education has played a vital role for a generation) are more highly educated, have a higher mean experience and age, and a more critically sophisticated perception of themselves and their media role in Pacific societies than in Fiji (where almost half the journalists have no formal tertiary education or training). Journalists in Fiji are also more influenced by race, cultural and religious factors. Conversely, PNG journalists are poorly paid even when compared with their Fiji colleagues. There are serious questions about the impact that this may have on the autonomy of journalists and the Fourth Estate role of news media in a South Pacific democracy.

Chapter 5: ‘Unfree and unfair’?: Media intimidation in Fiji’s 2014 elections

Chapter in Ratuva, S., and Lawson, S., (2016). The People Have Spoken: The 2014 Elections in Fiji... more Chapter in Ratuva, S., and Lawson, S., (2016). The People Have Spoken: The 2014 Elections in Fiji. Canberra: Australian National University. Fiji was a media pariah among Pacific nations, as well as a political outcast, for much of the eight years after Voreqe Bainimarama’s military coup in December 2006. But while some media credibility was restored in the months leading up to the 2014 general elections and during the ballot itself, the elephant is still in the room: the 2010
Media Industry Development Decree (Fijian Government 2010). While this Decree remains in force, Fiji can hardly claim to have a truly free and fair media. Just seven months out from the September 17 elections, Fiji was ranked 107th out of 179 countries listed in the 2014 World Press Freedom Index prepared by the Paris-based global media freedom it was in many quarters during that year, and the promise of ‘free and
fair’ elections by 30 September 2014. The elections gave Fiji’s ranking a further boost, rising 14 places to 93rd (RSF 2015).
organisation Reporters Without Borders (RSF). That ranking was an improvement on the previous year (RSF 2014a), rising 10 places from the 2013 ranking. The major reason for this improvement was the adoption of the new Constitution on 6 September 2013, criticised as it was in many quarters during that year, and the promise of ‘free and fair’ elections by 30 September 2014. The elections gave Fiji’s ranking a further boost, rising 14 places to 93rd (RSF 2015).

Eyes of Fire: The last voyage of the Rainbow Warrior

"Award-winning journalist David Robie was on board the Greenpeace environmental ship Rainbow Warr... more "Award-winning journalist David Robie was on board the Greenpeace environmental ship Rainbow Warrior on its last mission to Rongelap Atoll in May 1985 and continued to stay with the ship until it reached Auckland in July. Robie’s account of this voyage – of the Marshall Islands community poisoned by nuclear fallout and of the fatal bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by the French secret service – remains a definitive work on Western treachery in the Pacific, but also shows the power of good people who were willing to stand up and be counted when others desperately needed help."
‘ One of the most iniquitous stories of the nuclear age. ’
New Internationalist
‘ This is THE book of the last five months of the first Rainbow Warrior. ’
Rainbow Warrior skipper Peter Willcox
‘ Robie’s analysis places the bombing squarely in the context of the South Pacific politics and people, providing a
much-needed human backdrop. ’
Steve Sawyer, Greenpeace Magazine

Political Journalism in the Asia-Pacific

by David Robie and Barry King

A special book edition of Pacific Journalism Review marking 20 years of publishing. This new publ... more A special book edition of Pacific Journalism Review marking 20 years of publishing. This new publication features the Pacific asylum seeker and human rights, the Fiji post-coup general election and free speech, resource development in the Solomon Islands, Australia’s emerging “secret state” and shield laws, human rights in West Papua, martial law and e-martial law in the Philippines and New Zealand political and climate change reportage of the Pacific. The book includes chapters by Del Abcede, Pat Craddock, Kayt Davies, Eliki Drugunavalu, Lee Duffield, Amy Forbes, Walter Fraser, Maire Leadbeater, Irene Manueli, Ricardo Morris, Chris Nash, Mark Pearson, David Robie, Shailendra Singh and others. Published by the Pacific Media Centre and distributed by Little Island Press.

Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, mayhem and human rights in the Pacific

""This is an extraordinary 'secret history' of a vast region of the world of which David Robie ha... more ""This is an extraordinary 'secret history' of a vast region of the world of which David Robie has been a rare expert witness. What makes this epic work so timely is that it allows us to understand the Asia-Pacific at a time of renewed Cold War ambitions and dangers" - Investigative journalist John Pilger

"Twenty five years of reportage and media and research in the Asia-Pacific region and an analysis of journalism methodologies and studies such as conflict and peace journalism, development journalism, comparative international journalism, communication for social change and cross-cultural reporting."

David Robie, an independent journalist, media campaigner and educator, distils his lessons from 35 years of working in the Asia-Pacific region. Covering environmental challenges, coups, the nuclear-free and independent Pacific movement and civil rights, as well as the many barriers journalists face in the Pacific, his book, Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face, reveals many of the hidden stories from these island nations. - Little Island Press

362 pp. Illustrated, map, bibliography, index ISBN 978 1 877 314 86 5

Dreadlocks : Oceans, islands and skies

This special issue of Dreadlocks publishes the proceedings of the “Oceans, Islands and Skies - Oc... more This special issue of Dreadlocks publishes the proceedings of the “Oceans, Islands and Skies - Oceanic Conference on Creativity and Climate Change – The Role of Writers, Artists and the Media on Environmental Challenges in the Pacific.” The OIS-OCCCC was held from 13th - 17th September, 2010 at the University of the South Pacific, Laucala Campus in Suva. The conference proceedings attest to the multidisciplinary achievements of the gathering of academics, writers, artists, performers and the general community in putting forward creative solutions, advocacy and awareness programs on climate change.

Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior

On 10 July 1985, French secret agents bombed the Greenpeace campaign flagship Rainbow Warrior in ... more On 10 July 1985, French secret agents bombed the Greenpeace campaign flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour, New Zealand. Portuguese-born photographer Fernando Pereira died in the sabotage outrage that shook the world. The bombed ship was scuttled off a New Zealand bay in 1987 to form a living reef and Rainbow Warrior II was commissioned. In 1996, France ended nuclear tests in Polynesia after further Greenpeace and Pacific protests. This redesigned and revised new "memorial edition" of the original 1986 book contains new material and additional pictures about American and French nuclear testing in the Pacific.

The memorial edition (2005) of this book 20 years after the bombing is dedicated to "the memory of nuclear-free campaigners Amelia Rokotuivuna, Bengt and Marie-Therese Danielsson, Elaine Shaw and Owen Wilkes, who opened our eyes".

Mekim Nius: South Pacific media, politics and education

"Coups, politics and the Pacific media - The news media is the watchdog of democracy. But in the ... more "Coups, politics and the Pacific media - The news media is the watchdog of democracy. But in the South Pacific today the Fourth Estate role is under threat from governments seeking statutory regulation, diminished media credibility, dilemmas over ethics and uncertainty over professionalism and training." - Back cover

Challenging the Pacific ‘blind spots’ through images

Pacific Journalism Review, Jul 1, 2024

Photoessay: A unique feature of Pacific Journalism Review, compared with many other journalism an... more Photoessay: A unique feature of Pacific Journalism Review, compared with many other journalism and media research journals, has been a particular focus on photography and documentary. Contributors have been eclectic and varied, ranging from activist photojournalist John Miller (Ngapuhi), who charted the new wave of Māori assertiveness from the first Nga Tamatoa protest at Waitangi in 1971 and who offered a research portfolio on the Ngatihine Land/ Forestry legal dispute in Northland Aotearoa, to Ben Bohane's 'Melanesian mythical places with unreported conflicts', to Kasun Ubayasiri's 'Manus to Meanjin' study of refugee migration, to Filipino Fernando G. Sepe's stunning but shocking portrayal of President Rodrigo Duterte's extrajudicial 'war on drugs' (in reality a 'war on poverty'), through to Todd M. Henry's Tongan 'Gangsters in Paradise' and the realm of kava in New Zealand. At least a dozen portfolios have been published by the journal and this article examines and reflects on some of the highlights. The photoessay is completed with a portfolio of protest photographs from the seven months of Israel's War on Gaza.
https://ojs.aut.ac.nz/pacific-journalism-review/article/view/1360

Media plurality, independence and Talanoa: An alternative Pacific journalism education model

Pacific Journalism Review, Jul 1, 2024

The shrinking mainstream media plurality in Aotearoa New Zealand provides a context for examining... more The shrinking mainstream media plurality in Aotearoa New Zealand provides a context for examining publication of campus-based media where student and faculty editorial staff have successfully established an independent Asia-Pacific digital and print press over the past two decades. New Zealand’s largest city Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) has the largest urban population of Pacific Islanders globally—more than 300,000 people in a total of 1.7 million (Pasifika New Zealand, n.d.), earning the moniker ‘Polynesian capital of the world’. The presenter has had a pioneering role with four university-based journalism publications in the Pacific region as key adviser/publisher in Papua New Guinea (Uni Tavur, 1993-1998); Fiji (Wansolwara, 1998-2002); and Aotearoa/New Zealand (Pacific Scoop, 2009-2015; Asia Pacific Report, 2016 onwards), and also with two journalism school-based publications in Australia (Reportage, 1996, and The Junction, 2018-2020) (Robie, 2018). In early 2021, he was co-founder of the Asia Pacific Media Network | Te Koakoa Incorporated which has emerged as a collective umbrella for academics, student journalists and independent reporters producing innovative publications, including the research journal Pacific Journalism Review and a strengthened Asia Pacific Report, which draw on a cross-disciplinary range of media contributors and scholars in other professions. These contributors are mindful of the challenges of reportage about the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This article explores an independent journalism model drawing on professional outlets for Asia-Pacific students and how an investigative and storytelling model like ‘Talanoa Journalism’ can be an effective bridge to alternative media careers and addressing ‘blind spots’ in legacy news media.
https://ojs.aut.ac.nz/pacific-journalism-review/article/view/1349

Challenges for campus and community media in Asia-Pacific diversity

by David Robie and Kalinga Seneviratne

Pacific Journalism Review, Jul 1, 2024

The 'watchdog' model has created a journalism culture that is too adversarial and creates conflic... more The 'watchdog' model has created a journalism culture that is too adversarial and creates conflicts rather than helping to solve today's problems/ conflicts. The panellists assess new journalism paradigms in the Asia-Pacific region where the media is able to make powerful players to account for facilitating the development needs of communities, especially those in the margins of society. A challenge for contemporary journalism schools is to address such models in a global context of 'development rights' with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals as a benchmark. In the Pacific Islands context, journalists face a challenging news reporting terrain on their news beats, especially in the Melanesian countries of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Besides dealing with political instability, coups, civilian unrest and complex developmental issues, journalists must contend with hostile governments and draconian media legislation. The talents, idealism and storytelling skills of Pacific journalists can be cultivated and strengthened to produce independent platforms and models of journalism that challenge the status quo. Examples of this campus strategy include Radio Pasifik, Wansolwara, Pacific Scoop and Asia Pacific Report.
https://ojs.aut.ac.nz/pacific-journalism-review/article/view/1335

EDITORIAL: Gaza, genocide and media: Will journalism survive?

Pacific Journalism Review, Jul 1, 2024

30th Anniversary Edition of Pacific Journalism Review: When editor Philip Cass and I, as founding... more 30th Anniversary Edition of Pacific Journalism Review: When editor Philip Cass and I, as founding editor, started planning for this 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalism Review, we wanted a theme that would fit such an important milestone. At the time when we celebrated the second decade of the journal’s critical inquiry at Auckland University of Technology with a conference in 2014, our theme was ‘Political journalism in the Asia Pacific’, and our mood about the mediascape in the region was far more positive than it is today (Duffield, 2015). Three years later, we marked the 10th anniversary of the Pacific Media Centre, with a conference and a rather gloomier ‘Journalism under duress’ slogan. The PJR cover then featured a gruesome corpse at the height of Rodrigo Duterte’s callous and bloodthirsty ‘war on drugs’—and on media—in the Philippines. Three years later again the PMC itself had been closed in spite of its success.
https://ojs.aut.ac.nz/pacific-journalism-review/article/view/1368

'Voice of the voiceless': The Pacific Media Centre as a case study of academic and research advocacy and activism

Pacific Journalism Review, Jul 31, 2023

For more than a decade, the pioneering Pacific Media Centre at Aotearoa’s Auckland University of ... more For more than a decade, the pioneering Pacific Media Centre at Aotearoa’s Auckland University of Technology led the way in journalism research and publication, publishing the globally ranked peer-reviewed journal Pacific Journalism Review, monographs, and a series of media and social justice books and documentaries. Perhaps even more important was the centre’s role in nurturing young and challenging Asia-Pacific student journalists and communicators seeking social change and providing them with the opportunity, support, and encouragement to enable them to become confident changemakers and community advocates. This article is a case study of a style of academic advocacy and activism that was characterised by its own multiethnic stakeholders’ advisory board as ‘the voice of the voiceless’. A feature was the ‘talanoa journalism’ model (Robie, 2014), focused more on grassroots people and community resilience, especially faced with the global COVID-19 pandemic and climate crisis. The inspired initiative ended with a change of management to a more neoliberal approach to education at the university with scant appreciation for the vision.

Original DOI as published in the Okinawan Journal of Island Studies (Japan):
https://doi.org/10.24564/0002019736

'Voice of the Voiceless': The Pacific Media Centre as a Case Study of Academic and Research Advocacy and Activism

Okinawan Journal of Island Studies, May 15, 2023

For more than a decade, the pioneering Pacific Media Centre at Aotearoa's Auckland University of ... more For more than a decade, the pioneering Pacific Media Centre at Aotearoa's Auckland University of Technology led the way in journalism research and publication, publishing the globally ranked peer-reviewed journal Pacific Journalism Review, monographs, and a series of media and social justice books and documentaries. Perhaps even more important was the centre's role in nurturing young and challenging Asia-Pacific student journalists and communicators seeking social change and providing them with the opportunity, support, and encouragement to enable them to become confident changemakers and community advocates. This article is a case study of a style of academic advocacy and activism that was characterised by its own multiethnic stakeholders' advisory board as "the voice of the voiceless." A feature was the "Talanoa journalism" model (Robie 2014), focused more on grassroots people and community resilience, especially faced with the global COVID-19 pandemic and climate crisis. The inspired initiative ended with a change of management to a more neoliberal approach to education at the university with scant appreciation for the vision.
https://davidrobie.nz/2023/05/voice-of-the-voiceless-the-pacific-media-centre-as-a-case-study-of-academic-and-research-advocacy-and-activism/

Media and academia: the intriguing case of the Pacific Media Center

Media Asia, Sep 11, 2022

Te Amokura: Pacific Media Center (PMC) was founded at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) in ... more Te Amokura: Pacific Media Center (PMC) was founded at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) in October 2007 at a time of great turbulence in the Pacific (Robie, 2018). Luamanuvao Dame Winnie Laban, at the time New Zealand’s Minister of Pacific Island Affairs before she later became Victoria University of Wellington’s Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Pasifika), launched the center and strongly welcomed the initiative (Robie, 2017). She returned a decade later in November 2017 as guest of honor to celebrate the center’s 10th anniversary. In 2007, corruption, gender violence, and other human rights violations were rife across the Asia-Pacific region. There were arbitrary, unlawful, and extrajudicial killings by elements of the security services in the Philippines (but not anything like the scale during the “war on drugs” era of President Rodrigo Duterte from 2016 to 2022). In Timor-Leste, security forces carried out nine killings in 2007—less than a third of the 29 recorded the previous year—and there were human rights violations against journalists and other civilians. These circumstances were fertile ground for the establishment of both the PMC at AUT (https://pmc.aut.ac.nz/) and its Pacific Media Watch (PMW) media freedom project as one of the first research and publication initiatives established under the university’s Creative Industries Research Institute (CIRI) umbrella, also established in 2007. The PMW project had been transferred to AUT’s PMC from the University of Papua New Guinea and University of Technology Sydney where it had been founded by ABC Four Corners investigative journalist Peter Cronau and me. [Published online ahead of the print edition. Available at Media Asia: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01296612.2022.2118802] [A longer fully documented version is available on request from the author: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361391867_Te_Amokura_The_rise_and_likely_demise_of_the_Pacific_Media_Centre ]

FRONTLINE 1: New Zealand’s 23-day Parliament siege: QAnon and how social media disinformation manufactured an ‘alternate reality’

Pacific Journalism Review, Jul 31, 2022

Fires burned across Aotearoa New Zealand's Parliament grounds and violent clashes broke out betwe... more Fires burned across Aotearoa New Zealand's Parliament grounds and violent clashes broke out between protesters and police on the day the law enforcement officers moved to quell a 23-day anti-vaccination mandate siege of the House in February-March 2022 in scenes rarely witnessed in this country (Fires and clashes, 2022). The riot climaxed a mounting campaign of disinformation and hate speech on social media fuelled by conspiracy theories circulated by New Zealand activist media such as Counterspin, which emulated their counterparts in Australia and the United States. Vitriolic death threats against political leaders and attacks on journalists and the media on an unprecedented scale were a feature of the protests. Anti-government messages were imported alongside white supremacist ideologies. Researchers have described the events as a 'tectonic shift' that will have a significant and lasting impact on Aotearoa New Zealand's democratic institutions This commentary introduces three perspectives about the protests and disinformation ecology framed in the journal's reflexive series Frontline.

Journalism education ‘truth’ challenges: An age of growing hate, intolerance and disinformation

Pacific Journalism Review, Jul 31, 2022

This keynote commentary at the 2021 Asian Congress for Media and Communication (ACMC) conference ... more This keynote commentary at the 2021 Asian Congress for Media and Communication (ACMC) conference with the theme Change, Adaptation and Culture: Media and Communication in Pandemic Times is addressed through a discussion of three main issues: 1. The COVID-19 Pandemic and how it is being coped with; 2. A parallel Infodemic-a crisis of communication, and the surge of 'disinformation' and truth challenges in this 'age of hatred and intolerance'; and 3. The global Climate Emergency and the disproportionate impact this is having on the Asia-Pacific region. Finally the author concludes with an overview of some helpful strategies for communicators and educators from his perspective as a journalist and media academic with a mission.

Cyberspace News on Campus: The South Pacific Experience

Asia-Pacific Media Educator, 2002

A Wansolwara reporter was threatened at Parliament this afternoon and ordered out of the parliame... more A Wansolwara reporter was threatened at Parliament this afternoon and ordered out of the parliamentary complex. He described the scene as tense. A 48-hour military curfew was imposed from 6pm tonight. This was followed by a declaration of martial law. The Pacific Journalism Online website communications have been temporarily suspended by university authorities. (Pacific Journalism Online, 2000) A rguments over whether journalism education should be more theory based with the ideal of "reflective practitioners" (Reese, 1999: 13) or grounded mostly in sound practice have long been a feature of contemporary professional pedagogy debates. The contrasting views are not necessarily contradictory. According to Deuze (2000: 8), debate on journalism education goals should "not

Crisis communication and COVID-19: Covering two Pacific tragedies with storytelling

Pacific Journalism Review, Sep 30, 2021

Commentary: Frontline journalism in the age of COVID-19 has posed particular challenges in dealin... more Commentary: Frontline journalism in the age of COVID-19 has posed particular challenges in dealing with personal risk, tackling an 'infodemic' of misinformation, and providing valuable news that can be used in vulnerable Pacific countries that have struggled with soaring infections and limited health infrastructure and resources. Five Pacific countries or territories have borne the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic-Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Papua New Guinea, and Timor-Leste. This article introduces two examples of public health storytelling in crisis communication, one being a pregnant Papua New Guinea woman who walked 25 kilometres to the nearest hospital-and died on reaching her destination; the other a pregnant Fijian nurse who died after battling COVID-19.

Political Journalism in the Asia Pacific

by Barry King and David Robie

(New) Ecological Problems: Post-pandemic Climate Change Remains an Oceania Existential Threat

Ikat : The Indonesian Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Jul 2020

Environmental damage, climate change, and increasingly intense natural disasters are serious prob... more Environmental damage, climate change, and increasingly intense natural disasters are serious problems faced by humanity in this millennium. More ecological damage occurs due to expensive and destructive human activities. Illegal logging, expansion of mining areas, pollution of water sources, overfishing, trade-in protected wildlife continue to happen, and the scale is even greater. Meanwhile, climate change is increasingly visible and impacting communities in urban to rural areas. Coastal cities in the United States to coastal villages in the north of Java and the microstates of the South Pacific facing the real impact of sea-level rise. Disasters that occur bring not only material losses but also socioeconomic consequences for people affected. The emergence of new ecological problems is being faced by humanity. The complexity of ecological problems is nonlinear, turbulent, and dynamic. This was the theme of the panel (New) Ecological Problems: Defining the Relationship between Humans and the Environment at the Symposium on Social Science 2020. This paper, part of the SOSS 2020 panel on ecological problems, argues for countries to overhaul and "reset" their public health and economic systems to ones based on strengthening multilateral institutions and collaboration, and to abandon or seriously curtail neoliberalism models that have failed. It also argues that the profession of journalism also needs to approach climate change strategies with as much urgency as for addressing the global COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. The current crisis is a precursor to further crises unless the globe changes its ways to heal both people and the planet.

The sociology of a pandemic Countering a COVID 'disinfodemic' with a campus media initiative

Pacific Journalism Review, Nov 30, 2020

Parallel with the global spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic, a dangerous ‘disinfodemic’ has... more Parallel with the global spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic, a dangerous ‘disinfodemic’ has been infecting the flow of information worldwide. Communication and media outlets have faced a new challenge with not only being responsible for reportage and analysis of a fast-moving public health emergency—the biggest this century, but forced to sift through the mass circulation of falsehoods that have spread as rapidly as the virus. Concerned about the risks for both health and public responses to disinformation, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres identified the ‘new enemy’ as a ‘growing surge of disinformation’. The UN launched a COVID-19 Communications for Solidarity Initiative to rapidly inform people about facts and science and to ‘promote and inspire acts of humanity’ globally. New Zealand is one of the few countries in the world whose strategy of COVID elimination has been a sustained approach to ‘keep the virus out, find it and stamp it out’. Evoking a theme of ‘our team of five million’ and national kindness, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has led a remarkable campaign blending decisive action and transparency. In this context, this article critically examines a four-month ‘Coronavirus Plus’ initiative conducted by the Pacific Media Centre at a communication programme in one of the New Zealand’s universities in response to the pandemic, deploying the Asia Pacific Report website, asiapacificreport.nz.

Exposing reality about the mythic ‘age of truth’

Pacific Journalism Review, Nov 30, 2020

POST-TRUTH? Was there ever really such a thing as the Golden Age of Truth as trumpeted by the lib... more POST-TRUTH? Was there ever really such a thing as the Golden Age of Truth as trumpeted by the liberal Western press? According to Kalinga Seneviratne in his latest challenging book, quite simply ‘no’. In some countries, such as New Zealand, fake news and the manipulation of half-truths and disinformation has been dismissed as a by-product of the Trump era in the White House and the Brexit debacle. [Review]

EDITORIAL: Under the pandemic siege

Pacific Journalism Review, Nov 30, 2020

It is possible that future generations will think that BC stands for Before Coronavirus—and possi... more It is possible that future generations will think that BC stands for Before Coronavirus—and possibly that AD stands for After the Donald. All joking aside, here in Aotearoa New Zealand we have been far luckier than most countries, with early and decisive action by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her advisers rapidly bringing the pandemic threat under control. Several Island nations remain COVID-free, thanks again to early intervention and strong measures, including border control. In countries which did not react properly, the results have been catastrophic. The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2019) has predicted that the appalling death toll in the United States will reach and possibly surpass 250,000 by the time Donald Trump is finally ejected from the White House. Comparatively safe as we are in New Zealand, this is still the second edition of Pacific Journalism Review we have produced with COVID-19 in the background and even when the pandemic is over, or at least brought under control, we will still be threatened by a host of challenges—not least that of climate change, which has already forced internal migration in Papua New Guinea and Fiji and threatens to do the same in the ASEAN region, with its incomparably larger population. [Editorial]

Bearing Witness: A Pacific climate crisis documentary and journalism development project

Asia Pacific Media Educator, Sep 15, 2020

A three-year Pacific climate research and storytelling documentary and journalism project has con... more A three-year Pacific climate research and storytelling documentary and journalism project has contributed to a disruption and renewal theme in Pacific Island Countries (PIC) development. Focused initially on Fiji, the project has involved three pairs of postgraduate students engaging with climate crisis challenges. Responding originally to the devastation and tragedy wrought in Fiji by Severe Tropical Cyclone Winston in 2016, the Pacific Media Centre embarked on the Bearing Witness journalism project by sending two postgraduate students to Viti Levu to document and report on the impact of climate change (Robie & Chand, 2017). Their main component was a multimedia report on Daku village in the Rewa River delta area. This was followed in 2017 with a series of reports leading to a multimedia package on the relocation of the remote inland village of Tukuraki (Robie, 2018). The third episode focused far more strongly on documentary with reports on waka navigation and climate change, the ‘ghost village’ of Vunidogoloa and a ‘homecoming’ short feature about the Banaban people of Rabi and the impact on them caused by climate change. The project explores Friere’s notions of ‘critical consciousness’ as they might relate to teaching documentary making and also draw on the concept of talanoa journalism.

EDITORIAL: Melanesian media freedom

by David Robie and Tess Newton Cain

Pacific Journalism Review, Jul 31, 2020

The sovereign states of Melanesia are countries where the yoke of colonialism and struggles for i... more The sovereign states of Melanesia are countries where the yoke of colonialism and struggles for independence are still within living memory. There are territories within Melanesia where the questions and complexities associated with achieving self-determination are very much live issues. In West Papua, this issue is one over which blood continues to be spilt. As these countries, and the communities within them, grapple with political-economic and technical shifts, the need for independent journalism is self-evident. However, journalists, editors, publishers and media owners face a barrage of challenges to their ability to operate free from repression or coercion by those who wield power in their societies. Some of these challenges are overt and can extend to threats or physical intimidation. Others are more subtle but no less pervasive and damaging. They lead to a narrowing of the media landscape, the loss of talented professionals to other areas, the rise of self-censorship, and more. [Editorial by: Kasun Ubayasiri, Faith Vlencia-Forrester, Tess Newton Cain and David Robie].

Key Melanesian media freedom challenges: Climate crisis, internet freedoms, fake news and West Papua

Pacific Journalism Review, Jul 31, 2020

Melanesia, and the microstates of the Pacific generally, face the growing influence of authoritar... more Melanesia, and the microstates of the Pacific generally, face the growing influence of authoritarian and secretive values in the region—projected by both China and Indonesia and with behind-the-scenes manipulation. There is also a growing tendency for Pacific governments to use unconstitutional, bureaucratic or legal tools to silence media and questioning journalists. Frequent threats of closing Facebook and other social media platforms and curbs on online freedom of information are another issue. While Pacific news media face these challenges, their support networks are being shaken by the decline of Australia as a so-called ‘liberal democracy’ and through the undermining of its traditional region-wide public interest media values with the axing of Radio Australia and Australia Network television. Reporting climate change is the Pacific’s most critical challenge while Australian intransigence over the issue is subverting the region’s media. This article engages with and examines these challenges and also concludes that the case of West Papua is a vitally important self-determination issue that left unresolved threatens the security of the region.

EDITORIAL: Terrorism and democracy

Pacific Journalism Review, Jul 31, 2019

THIS edition of Pacific Journalism Review is a special issue on several fronts in our 25th year. ... more THIS edition of Pacific Journalism Review is a special issue on several fronts in our 25th year. First, it is a double issue—the first in our history. Second, it began production as an ‘unthemed’ issue, partly to catch up with a backlog of accepted peer-reviewed papers that had missed recent themed editions. However, the tragic mosque massacre in the New Zealand city of Christchurch in March, and recent ballot box expressions over political futures and independence meant a group of papers emerged with a ‘terrorism dilemmas and democracy’ theme. New Zealand will be learning to live with its ‘loss of innocence’, as Mediawatch presenter Colin Peacock describes it, for the months ahead after the shock of a gunman launching his obscene act of livestreamed terrorism with a bloody assault on two mosques in Christchurch during Friday prayers on 15 March 2019 designed to go viral on global social media. Fifty people were killed that day, with another dying from his wounds several weeks later, unleashing an extraordinary and emotional wave of #TheyAreUs solidarity across the country

Amnesty International doubles down on Israeli Gaza ‘genocide, atrocities’ report at NZ rally

Café Pacific : Media Freedom and Transparency, Dec 7, 2024

Amnesty International officials at a rally in Auckland today doubled down on their global report ... more Amnesty International officials at a rally in Auckland today doubled down on their global report this week accusing Israel of genocide and called on Aotearoa New Zealand to take more action over the atrocities in the besieged enclave of Gaza. The global human rights movement’s 296-page fully documented report says Israel has “unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity”. The allegations have enraged the Tel Aviv government and stirred the unaffiliated Israeli chapter of Amnesty International to distance itself from the “genocide” allegation while admitting “serious crimes are being committed in Gaza, that must be investigated”.
https://davidrobie.nz/2024/12/amnesty-international-doubles-down-on-israeli-gaza-genocide-atrocities-report-at-nz-rally/

RSF tackles Taiwan’s media freedom ‘Achilles heel’, boosts Asia Pacific monitoring action

Cafe Pacific : Media Freedom and Transparency, Oct 26, 2024

It was a heady week for the Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (... more It was a heady week for the Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) — celebration of seven years of its Taipei office, presenting a raft of proposals to the Taiwan government, and hosting its Asia-Pacific network of correspondents. Director general Thibaut Bruttin and the Taipei bureau chief Cedric Alviani primed the Taipei media scene before last week’s RSF initiatives with an op-ed in the Taiwan Times by acknowledging the country’s media freedom advances in the face of Chinese propaganda. Taiwan rose eight places to 27th in the RSF World Press Freedom Index this year — second only to Timor-Leste in the Asia-Pacific region.
https://davidrobie.nz/2024/10/rsf-tackles-taiwans-media-freedom-achilles-heel-boosts-asia-pacific-monitoring-action/

Pacific Journalism Review at 30: a strong media legacy

Devpolicy Blog, Aug 1, 2024

Pacific Journalism Review (PJR) began life three decades ago in Papua New Guinea and recently cel... more Pacific Journalism Review (PJR) began life three decades ago in Papua New Guinea and recently celebrated a remarkable milestone in Fiji with its 30th anniversary edition and its 47th issue. Remarkable because it is the longest surviving media, journalism and development journal published in the Global South. It is also remarkable because at its birthday event held in early July at the Pacific International Media Conference, no fewer than two cabinet ministers were present — from Fiji and Papua New Guinea — in spite of the journal’s long track record of truth-to-power criticism. Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister Biman Prasad, a former economics professor at The University of the South Pacific (USP) and a champion of free media, singled out the journal for praise at the event, which was also the occasion of the launch of a landmark new book.
https://devpolicy.org/pacific-journalism-review-at-30-a-strong-media-legacy-20240802/

Labour’s Parker critical of weak NZ response to ICJ ruling against Israel over Gaza

Café Pacific : Media Freedom and Transparency, Jul 28, 2024

Former New Zealand attorney-general David Parker spoke on day 295 of Israel' genocidal war on Gaz... more Former New Zealand attorney-general David Parker spoke on day 295 of Israel' genocidal war on Gaza in Auckland today, condemning the National-led government's inaction over the ongoing crisis. Responding to the recent International Court of Justice's landmark advisory ruling that Israel's occupation of Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem-Occupied Palestine-was illegal and must end as soon as possible, Parker said he was disappointed in New Zealand's "equivocal" response. He also called on the government to recognise the state of Palestine, along with some 145 countries around the world that have already done so.
https://davidrobie.nz/2024/07/labours-parker-critical-of-weak-nz-response-to-icj-ruling-against-israel-over-gaza/

When media freedom as the ‘oxygen of democracy’ and political hypocrisy share the same Pacific arena

Café Pacific : Media Freedom and Transparency, Jun 14, 2024

Many platitudes about media freedom and democracy laced last week’s Pacific International Media C... more Many platitudes about media freedom and democracy laced last week’s Pacific International Media Conference in the Fijian capital of Suva. There was a mood of euphoria at the impressive event, especially from politicians who talked about journalism being the “oxygen of democracy”. Last year’s dumping of the draconian and widely hated Fiji Media Industry Development Act that had started life as a military decree in 2010, four years after former military commander Voreqe Bainimarama seized power, and was then enacted in the first post-coup elections in 2014, was seen as having restored media freedom for the first time in almost two decades. As a result, Fiji had bounced back 45 places to 44th on this year’s Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index – by far the biggest climb of any nation in Oceania, where most countries, including Australia and New Zealand, have been sliding downhill.
https://davidrobie.nz/2024/07/when-media-freedom-as-the-oxygen-of-democracy-and-political-hypocrisy-share-the-same-pacific-arena/

Palestinian visionary who fights Israel's ecocide with biodiversity and sustainability resistance

Café Pacific, May 20, 2024

For more than 76 years, Palestinians have resisted occupation, dispossession and ethnic cleansing... more For more than 76 years, Palestinians have resisted occupation, dispossession and ethnic cleansing, culminating in Israel's genocidal war on Gaza. Yet in the midst of this catastrophic seven months of "hell on earth", it is a paradox that there exists an extraordinary oasis of peace and nature. Nestling in an Al-Karkarfa hillside at the University of Bethlehem is the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability (PIBS), a remarkable botanical garden and animal rehabilitation unit that is an antidote for conflict and destruction.
https://davidrobie.nz/2024/05/palestinian-visionary-who-fights-israels-ecocide-with-biodiversity-and-sustainability-resistance/

Kanaky in flames: Five takeaways from the New Caledonia independence riots

Café Pacific , May 18, 2024

Jean-Marie Tjibaou, a revered Kanak visionary, was inspirational to indigenous Pacific political ... more Jean-Marie Tjibaou, a revered Kanak visionary, was inspirational to indigenous Pacific political activists across Oceania, just like Tongan anthropologist and writer Epeli Hau'ofa was to cultural advocates. Tragically, he was assassinated in 1989 by an opponent within the independence movement during the so-called "les événements" in New Caledonia, the last time the "French" Pacific territory was engulfed in a political upheaval such as experienced this week.
https://davidrobie.nz/2024/05/kanaky-in-flames-five-takeaways-from-the-new-caledonia-independence-riots/

From Gaza to West Papua, the long struggle for justice and freedom

Café Pacific, Apr 1, 2024

ANALYSIS: By David Robie On my office wall hangs a framed portrait of Shireen Abu Akleh, the insp... more ANALYSIS: By David Robie On my office wall hangs a framed portrait of Shireen Abu Akleh, the inspiring and celebrated American-Palestinian journalist known across the Middle East to watchers of Al Jazeera Arabic, who was assassinated by an Israeli military sniper with impunity. State murder. She was gunned down in full blue "press" kit almost two years ago while reporting on a raid in the occupied West Bank's Jenin refugee camp, clearly targeted for her influence as a media witness to Israeli atrocities.
https://davidrobie.nz/2024/04/from-gaza-to-west-papua-the-long-struggle-for-justice-and-freedom/

NZ protesters call for expulsion of Israeli ambassador over Gaza atrocities

Café Pacific, Mar 24, 2024

A leader of one of New Zealand’s main Palestine solidarity groups today called on the government ... more A leader of one of New Zealand’s main Palestine solidarity groups today called on the government to expel the Israeli ambassador and call for an immediate ceasefire in the genocidal war on Gaza. “We know what the crimes are — occupation. Land theft. Ethnic cleansing. Apartheid. Genocide. All crimes against humanity,” Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) secretary Neil Scott told a cheering protest rally in Auckland’s Te Komititanga (Britomart) Square. “My challenge to the politicians of Aotearoa is stand up for international law. Oppose Israeli crimes against humanity. Speak up.”
https://davidrobie.nz/2024/03/nz-protesters-call-for-expulsion-of-israeli-ambassador-over-gaza-atrocities/

Silencing the messenger: Israel kills journalists, while the West merely censors them

Declassified Australia, Jan 26, 2024

Western journalists taking a stand against their media outlets’ biased coverage of the Israeli wa... more Western journalists taking a stand against their media outlets’ biased coverage of the Israeli war on Gaza are being targeted with career threats and even dismissal. But their colleagues in Palestine are suffering a worse fate. Israeli forces explicitly warned newsrooms in Gaza they “cannot guarantee” the safety of their employees from airstrikes. Taken with a decades-long pattern of lethally targeting journalists, Israel’s actions show wide scale lethal suppression of speech. Israel has blocked foreign press entry, heavily restricted telecommunications and bombed press offices. Some 50 media headquarters in Gaza have been hit in the past month. Reporting Israel’s war on Gaza has become the greatest credibility challenge for journalists and media of our times. The latest assassination of an Al Jazeera photojournalist while documenting atrocities has prompted an appeal to global journalists to “take a stand” to protect the profession.

Back South Africa over genocide case, 'don't yield to pressure', Hania tells NZ

Café Pacific, Jan 22, 2024

A Palestinian advocate has appealed to the New Zealand government to call for a permanent ceasefi... more A Palestinian advocate has appealed to the New Zealand government to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and to back the South African genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). “A sovereign state like New Zealand that has historically stood for what is morally correct must not bend to foreign pressure, and must reject policies aligned with the United Kingdom of Israel and the United States of Israel which blindly endorse and support the apartheid regime,” said Billy Hania of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA). He was speaking at the pro-Palestinian rally and march in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau yesterday as the Gaza death toll rose above 25,000 dead, mostly women and children. Belgium is among the latest of 61 countries — and the first European nation — to support the genocide case and a growing number of other lawsuits are also being brought against Israel.

Fiji human rights activists pay tribute to slain Gaza journalists, but shunned by local media

The Daily Blog, Jan 15, 2024

Fiji human rights activists have paid tribute in a Suva vigil to the more than 100 journalists — ... more Fiji human rights activists have paid tribute in a Suva vigil to the more than 100 journalists — most of them Palestinian — killed in Israel’s War on Gaza. The NGO Coalition on Human Rights (NGOCHR) staged a #ThursdaysInBlack vigil last week to remember the dead journalists, but only one local Fiji reporter turned up (from The Fiji Times). The coalition had invited local journalists to attend and share their views. However, according to coalition chair Shamima Ali (of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre), Fiji media is reluctant to engage with the global crisis over the war.

Journalists need to ‘take a stand’ over the Gaza carnage after latest killings

Café Pacific : Media freedom and transparency, Jan 8, 2024

Reporting Israel’s war on Gaza has become the greatest credibility challenge for journalists and ... more Reporting Israel’s war on Gaza has become the greatest credibility challenge for journalists and media of our times. The latest assassination of an Al Jazeera photojournalist while documenting atrocities has prompted a leading analyst to appeal to global journalists to “take a stand” to protect the profession. The killing of Hamza Dahdoud, the 27-year-old eldest son of Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, along with freelancer Mustafa Thuraya, has taken the death toll of Palestinian journalists to 109 (according to Al Jazeera sources while global media freedom watchdogs report slightly lower figures). Emotional responses and a wave of condemnation has thrown the spotlight on the toll faced by reporters and their families.
https://asiapacificreport.nz/2024/01/08/journalists-need-to-take-a-stand-over-the-gaza-carnage-after-latest-killing/

Behind the war on Gaza -how Israel profits globally from repression

Asia Pacific Report, Nov 24, 2023

Just months before the outbreak of the genocidal Israeli war on Gaza after the deadly assault on ... more Just months before the outbreak of the genocidal Israeli war on Gaza after the deadly assault on southern Israel by Hamas resistance fighters, Australian investigative journalist and researcher Antony Loewenstein published an extraordinarily timely book, The Palestine Laboratory. In it he warned that a worst-case scenario — “long feared but never realised, is ethnic cleansing against occupied Palestinians or population transfer, forcible expulsion under the guise of national security”. Or the claimed fig leaf of “self defence”, the obscene justification offered by beleaguered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his two-month war of vengeance, death and destruction unleashed upon the people of Palestine, both in the Gaza Strip and the Occupied West Bank that has killed at least 14,850 Gazans — the majority of them women and children — and more than 218 West Bank Palestinians.

PNG’s Marape makes foreign policy gaffes over Israel, West Papua

Asia Pacific Report, Sep 14, 2023

Prime Minister James Marape has made two foreign policy gaffes in the space of a week that may co... more Prime Minister James Marape has made two foreign policy gaffes in the space of a week that may come back to bite him as Papua New Guinea prepares for its 48th anniversary of independence on 16 September 2023. Critics have been stunned by the opening of a PNG embassy in Jerusalem in defiance of international law-when only three countries have done this other than the United States amid strong Palestinian condemnation-and days later a communique from his office appeared to have indicated he had turned his back on West Papuan self-determination aspirations. Marape was reported to have told President Joko Widodo that PNG had no right to criticise.
https://asiapacificreport.nz/2023/09/14/pngs-marape-makes-foreign-policy-gaffes-over-israel-west-papua/

MSG throws away golden chance to reset peace and justice for West Papua

Asia Pacific Report, Aug 26, 2023

The Melanesian Spearhead Group has thrown away a golden chance for achieving a historical step to... more The Melanesian Spearhead Group has thrown away a golden chance for achieving a historical step towards justice and peace in West Papua by lacking the courage to accept the main Papuan self-determination advocacy movement as full members. Membership had been widely expected across the Pacific region and the MSG's silence and failure to explain West Papua's fate at the end of the two-day leaders' summit this week was a tragic anticlimax. Many see this as a terrible betrayal of West Papuan aspirations and an undermining of Melanesian credibility and solidarity as well as an ongoing threat to the region's security and human rights.
https://asiapacificreport.nz/2023/08/26/msg-throws-away-golden-chance-to-reset-peace-and-justice-for-west-papua/

Moce Sri Krishnamurthi . . . sports journalist, democracy activist, storyteller and advocate

Asia Pacific Report, Aug 7, 2023

New Zealand-adopted Fiji journalist, sports writer, national news agency reporter, anti-coup acti... more New Zealand-adopted Fiji journalist, sports writer, national news agency reporter, anti-coup activist, media freedom advocate, storyteller and mentor Sri Krishnamurthi has died. He was just two weeks shy of his 60th birthday. Born on 15 August 1963, just after his twin brother Murali, Sri grew up in the port city of Lautoka, Fiji’s second largest in the west of Viti Levu island. His family were originally Girmitya, indentured Indian plantation workers shipped out to Fiji under under harsh conditions by the British colonial rulers. “My grandmother, Bonamma, came from India with my grandfather and came to work in the sugar cane fields under the indentured system,” Sri recalled in a recent RNZ interview with Blessen Tom.
https://asiapacificreport.nz/2023/08/07/moce-sri-krishnamurthi-sports-journalist-democracy-activist-storyteller-and-advocate/

Researchers warn over climate crisis 'fringe views' danger as NZ election nears

Asia Pacific Report, Aug 6, 2023

Two researchers examining responses to conspiratorial pandemic narratives have warned Aotearoa Ne... more Two researchers examining responses to conspiratorial pandemic narratives have warned Aotearoa New Zealand not to be complacent over the risk of fringe views over climate crisis becoming populist. Byron C. Clark, a video essayist and author of the recent book Fear: New Zealand’s Hostile Underworld of Extremists, and Emmanuel Stokes, a postgraduate student at the University of Canterbury, argue in a paper in the latest Pacific Journalism Review that policymakers and community stakeholders need to be ready to counter politicised disinformation with a general election looming. They say that in their case study, Intersections of media influence: Radical conspiracist ‘alt-media’ narratives and the climate crisis in Aotearoa, has demonstrated that “explicit references to US narratives about stolen elections, communist plots and existential dangers to society – many of which bear the hallmarks of American far-right narratives, such as those of the John Birch Society” – are part of the NZ climate discourse.
https://asiapacificreport.nz/2023/08/06/researchers-warn-over-climate-crisis-fringe-views-danger-as-nz-election-nears/

New documentary, human rights report allege Indonesian atrocities in West Papua

Café Pacific, Aug 5, 2023

A new documentary and human rights report have documented savage attacks in 2021 by Indonesian se... more A new documentary and human rights report have documented savage attacks in 2021 by Indonesian security forces on a remote West Papuan village close to the Papua New Guinea border as part of an ongoing crackdown against growing calls for independence. The documentary, Paradise Bombed, and the research report made public yesterday [4 August 2023] allege that six Papuan villagers were killed in the initial attacks, a further seven were killed later when fleeing to safety, and 284 people were recorded by witnesses to have died from starvation in the months since then. The researchers also allege that the security forces used bombs and rockets fired by helicopters and drones in the Indonesian attacks.
https://davidrobie.nz/2023/08/new-documentary-human-rights-report-allege-indonesian-atrocities-in-west-papua/

OPM leader calls on Biden to take proactive role in ending West Papuan 'holocaust'

Café Pacific, May 17, 2023

By David Robie Free Papua Organisation (OPM) leader Jeffrey Bomanak has appealed to US President ... more By David Robie Free Papua Organisation (OPM) leader Jeffrey Bomanak has appealed to US President Joe Biden for a “proactive role” in ending Indonesia’s “unlawful military occupation and annexation” of West Papua. He claims this illegal occupation led to the subsequent US “foreign policy failure” in protecting six decades of crimes against humanity. Bomanak made this appeal in an open letter to the President — a harrowing 22-page document citing a litany of alleged human rights violations against Papuan men, women and children by Indonesian security forces — days before Biden’s arrival in the Papua New Guinea capital Port Moresby next week for a vital summit with Pacific leaders.

Media plurality, independence and talanoa, an alternative Pacific journalism education model

JERAA, 2023

The shrinking mainstream media plurality in Aotearoa New Zealand provides a context for examining... more The shrinking mainstream media plurality in Aotearoa New Zealand provides a context for examining publication of campus-based media where student and faculty editorial staff have successfully established an independent Asia-Pacific digital and print press over the past two decades. New Zealand’s largest city Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) has the largest urban population of Pacific Islanders globally – more than 300,000 people in a total of 1.7 million (Pasifika New Zealand, n.d.), earning the moniker ‘Polynesian capital of the world’. The presenter has had a pioneering role with four university-based journalism publications in the Pacific region as key adviser/publisher in Papua New Guinea (Uni Tavur, 1993-1998); Fiji (Wansolwara, 1998-2002); and Aotearoa/New Zealand (Pacific Scoop, 2009-2015; Asia Pacific Report, 2016 onwards), and also with two journalism school-based publications in Australia (Reportage, 1996, and The Junction, 2018-2020) (Robie, 2018). In early 2021, he was a co-founder of the Asia Pacific Media Network | Te Koakoa Incorporated which has emerged as a collective umbrella for academics, student journalists and independent reporters and writers producing several innovative publications, including the research journal Pacific Journalism Review and a strengthened Asia Pacific Report, which draw on a cross-disciplinary range of media contributors and scholars in other professions. These contributors are mindful of the challenges of reportage about the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This section of the panel explores an independent journalism model drawing on professional outlets especially for Asia-Pacific students and how such an investigative and storytelling model as ‘Talanoa Journalism’ can be an effective bridge to alternative media careers and addressing ‘blind spots’ in legacy news media.

Reference:
Robie, D. (2018). Asia Pacific Report: A New Zealand Nonprofit Journalism Model for Campus-based Social Justice Media. Ikat: The Indonesian Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 2(1), 119-146. https://doi.org/10.22146/ikat.v2i1.37395

Ma'ohi Nui: Game changer over nuclear justice

Mai Te Paura, 2021

FROM a journalist’s perspective, particular events or developments are sprung across us to create... more FROM a journalist’s perspective, particular events or developments are sprung across us to create a “game changer”, a catalyst for ending an unjust status quo. For more than three decades Mā’ohi Nui suffered from this nuclear status quo – and then a further two decades since then. The 193 nuclear tests in the Pacific conducted by France in Polynesia between 1966 and 1996 were a crime against humanity. Of this, there is no doubt. Of course, proving it for international courts has been another matter. This is where a game changer comes in. And there have been many of these over the years – courageous Mā’ohi such as the beloved “metua” Pouvanaa a Oopa, who was exiled in the 1950s on trumped up charges (but later pardoned), and Francis Sanford, who was territorial president when I first began reporting from Aotearoa New Zealand on French nuclear testing and colonialism in the late 1970s.
Address at the Mai te Paura Ātōmī i te Tiāmara’a / From Bomb contamination to self determination, 17/18 July 2021

The sociology of a pandemic: Countering a COVID 'disinfodemic' with a campus media initiative

Social Sciences Symposium 2020, 2020

Parallel with the global spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic, a dangerous ‘disinfodemic’ has... more Parallel with the global spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic, a dangerous ‘disinfodemic’ has been infecting the flow of information worldwide. Communication and media outlets have faced a new challenge with not only being responsible for reportage and analysis of a fast-moving public health emergency – the biggest this century, but forced to sift through the mass circulation of falsehoods that have spread as rapidly as the virus. Concerned about the risks for both health and public responses to disinformation, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres identified the ‘new enemy’ as a ‘growing surge of disinformation’. The UN launched a COVID-19 Communications for Solidarity Initiative to rapidly inform people about facts and science and to ‘promote and inspire acts of humanity’ globally. Also alarmed by the growing disinformation trend, the World Health Organisation warned that the ‘same enemy’ also involved ‘an increase in stigma, hate speech and hate crimes’ over the pandemic. New Zealand is one of the few countries in the world whose strategy of covid elimination has been a sustained approach to ‘keep the virus out, find it and stamp it out’. Evoking a theme of ‘our team of five million’ and national kindness, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has led a remarkable campaign blending decisive action and transparency. Currently the country has only 22 deaths and 114 active cases, many contained in quarantine or managed isolation at the border. In this context, this paper examines a four-month ‘Coronavirus Plus’ initiative conducted by the Pacific Media Centre at one of the New Zealand’s universities in response to the pandemic, deploying the Asia Pacific Report website.
https://soss.ugm.ac.id/
The “Sociology of a pandemic” paper – video streaming on YouTube:
https://bit.ly/2FFWrxD

(New) ecological problems: Post-pandemic climate change an Oceania existential threat

Social Sciences Symposium 2020 , 2020

Environmental damage, climate change and increasingly intense natural disasters are serious probl... more Environmental damage, climate change and increasingly intense natural disasters are serious problems faced by humanity in this millennium. More ecological damage occurs due to expensive and destructive human activities. Illegal logging, expansion of mining areas, pollution of water sources, overfishing, trade in protected wildlife continue to happen, and the scale is even greater. Meanwhile climate change is increasingly visible and impacting on communities in urban to rural areas. Coastal cities in the United States to coastal villages in the north of Java and the microstates of the South Pacific are facing the real impact of sea-level rise. Disasters that occur bring not only material losses but also socioeconomic consequences for those affected. The emergence of new ecological problems is being faced by humanity. The complexity of ecological problems is nonlinear, turbulent and dynamic. This is the theme of the panel (New) Ecological Problems: Defining the Relationship between Humans and the Environment. This presentation as part of the panel argues for countries to overhaul and "reset" their public health and economic systems to ones based on strengthening multilateral institutions and collaboration, and to abandon or seriously curtail neoliberalism models that have failed. They need to approach climate change strategies with as much urgency as for addressing the global COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. The current crisis is a precursor to further crises unless the globe changes its ways to heal both people and the planet.
https://soss.ugm.ac.id/
Social Sciences Symposium, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 24-25 August 2020 The "Ecological problems" keynote Panel-video streaming on YouTube: https://bit.ly/32w5IB8

West Papua and human rights journalism A Melanesian media freedom case study

While preparing this pre-Melanesia Media Freedom Forum (MMFF) conference keynote, I have just ret... more While preparing this pre-Melanesia Media Freedom Forum (MMFF) conference keynote, I have just returned to the Pacific from four weeks in Iran where media freedom is in dire straits. Iran has been described by the latest Reporters Without Borders global index on press freedom as “one of world’s most repressive countries for journalists for the past 40 years”. State control of news and information is unrelenting and at least 860 journalists and citizen-reporters have been imprisoned or executed since the 1979 Islamic Revolution (RSF, 2019a). Media within the country lack the resources to report freely and independently with journalists subjected to intimidation, arbitrary arrest and unfair trials by revolutionary courts. Iran is ranked 170th among 180 countries, a drop of six places since last year. Just three months ago, RSF protested against the arrest of Farangis Mazloom, mother of the watchdog’s 2017 press freedom laureate Soheil Arabi (RSF. 2019b). In fact, Iran is currently the world’s worst jailer of women journalists – 10 currently are behind bars (RSF, 2019c). However, barely had I had been back in New Zealand for a few days than the major Australian newspapers were self-censoring their front pages, redacting complete sections stamped with red “secret – not for release” logos. In a rare demonstration of unanimity, the news media were protesting against strict national security legislation. - Pre-conference address for the Melanesia Media Freedom Forum (MMFF), South Bank Campus, Griffith University, Brisbane.

West Papua and the challenges for Pacific news media

West Papua: The Pacific’s secret shame: The challenges for Pacific news media Professor David R... more West Papua: The Pacific’s secret shame: The challenges for Pacific news media
Professor David Robie
Director, Pacific Media Centre, Auckland University of Technology

Abstract: On the fringe of the South Pacific geopolitical region are the independent state of Timor-Leste and two contested Melanesian provinces of Indonesia known collectively within Oceania as “West Papua”. A Pacific media freedom report in October 2011 raised an unprecedented profile for both Timor-Leste and West Papua in the region, describing the latter in particular as a media “blind spot” (Perrottet & Robie, 2011). Both territories experienced elections during 2012 and in West Papua a controversy over a protracted miners’ strike and the future of the Freeport mine have been issues where the performance of the Pacific region’s news media has been under scrutiny. In spite of prolonged reports that journalists were virtually barred from West Papua by Indonesian authorities (Chesterfield, 2011a), there appeared to be a loosening of barriers to reporting the territory. However, such optimism has been greeted with scepticism (Bachelard, 2013, 2014). This paper examines the conflict reporting framework in the South Pacific, and articulates two case studies in Timor-Leste and West Papua within the context of a widening global debate about reporting of conflict.

Deliberative journalism, environmental risk and media credibility

Classic liberalism evolved in response to political revolution against authoritarianism in Europe... more Classic liberalism evolved in response to political revolution against authoritarianism in European nation states. Its rationale was to help foster political stability and developed ‘professional’ characteristics for a free press to protect this. Three key notions of a professional free media that emerged more than two centuries ago were that the press should be 1) watchdogs on political abuse of power, 2) provide accurate facts for citizens to make informed choices in general elections, and 3) provide a platform for critical and informed debate. These traditionally fundamental attributes of a free press with declining credibility have been under question in Western democracies for the past few decades (McChesney, 1999. McChesney & Pickard, 2011; Peters & Broersma, 2013), but nowhere has the legitimacy of the twin assumptions of ‘impartial reporting’ and ‘objectivity’ been more severely tested than with environmental journalism and evaluating risk. The new risks involve issues such as climate change, extraction industries degradation, depleted fisheries, genetically modified (GM) food and crops, nuclear waste and oil spills. Living in one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to the impact of climate change and the challenges of aid effectiveness and adaptation funding (Coates et al, 2012), journalists are at a critical crossroads. This paper explores traditional journalism values and the Pacific profession’s own challenges of ‘adaptation’.

An Asia-Pacific free media paradigm Challenging a parochial news ethos in Aotearoa

News media coverage of the Asia-Pacific region in Aotearoa/New Zealand has been traditionally lim... more News media coverage of the Asia-Pacific region in Aotearoa/New Zealand has been traditionally limited and parochial, apart from Polynesia which has been regarded as an extension of the country with a significant Pacific Islander urban and rural population in the largest city of Auckland. Indonesia and the Philippines, New Zealand’s closest neighbours among Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), rarely have serious coverage or current affairs analysis. When Asia-Pacific reporting does get some exposure, it is often reflecting an Australian perspective rather than Asian, or even New Zealand. Few specialist political and current affairs media exist in the country and it is left to small special interest news services such as the state-funded public broadcaster Radio New Zealand International and the independent Scoop, both in the capital of Wellington, to provide critical coverage. This paper provides a case study of a small university-based media freedom advocacy and analysis service that has reported media developments in the region for almost two decades. Pacific Media Watch was founded as an independent, non-profit and non-government network by two journalism academics. Its genesis was the jailing of two Taimi ‘o Tonga journalists, ‘Ekalafi Moala and Filokalafi ‘Akau’ola, and a ‘whistleblowing’ pro-democracy member of Parliament in Tonga, ‘Akilisi Pohiva, for alleged contempt in September 1996. They were later freed by the Pacific kingdom’s Supreme Court which ruled their imprisonment was unconstitutional. PMW played an important role in the campaign to free the three men, including organising an international petition seeking their release. Since then, the agency has developed a strategy to challenge issues of parochial news-generation by reporting on the region’s media developments, including Indonesia and the Philippines in particular. At times it has also reported on China, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Ethics, media freedom, industry ownership, cross-cultural diversity and media plurality have featured in the service’s reports. PMW has also been involved in reporting coups d’etat, civil conflict, climate change, health, social activism and media independence. The paper examines the PMW project, history and purpose as a catalyst for activist journalists, educator journalists, citizen journalists and critical journalists in a broader trajectory of Asia-Pacific protest.

Pacific Media Watch and protest in Oceania: A case study of a campus-based free media collective

"In the past three decades, global and regional media freedom advocacy and activist groups have m... more "In the past three decades, global and regional media freedom advocacy and activist groups have multiplied as risks to journalists and media workers have escalated. Nowhere has this trend been so marked as in the Oceania region where some four organisations have developed a media freedom role. Of these, one is unique in that while it has had a regional mission for almost two decades, it has been continuously based at four university journalism schools in a quartet of countries, Australia, Fiji, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. Pacific Media Watch was founded as an independent, non-profit and non-government network by two journalism academics. Its genesis was the jailing of two Taimi ‘o Tonga journalists, ‘Ekalafi Moala and Filokalafi ‘Akau’ola, and a ‘whistleblowing’ pro-democracy member of Parliament in Tonga, ‘Akilisi Pohiva, for alleged contempt in September 1996. They were later freed by the Pacific kingdom’s Supreme Court which ruled their imprisonment was unconstitutional. PMW played an important role in the campaign to free the three men, including organising an international petition seeking their release. Since then, the agency has developed a strategy to challenge issues of ethics, media freedom, industry ownership, cross-cultural diversity and media plurality and has been involved in reporting and analysing coups d’etat, civil conflict and media independence. This paper presents a case study of the PMW project and examines its history and purpose as a catalyst for independent journalists, educator journalists, citizen journalists and critical journalists in a broader trajectory of Pacific protest.

Pacific Media Watch: www.pacmediawatch.aut.ac.nz
"

Peace journalism in the South Pacific: A media and democracy frame in Timor-Leste, West Papua

'Four Worlds' news values revisited: A deliberative journalism paradigm for Pacific media

Peace journalism or ‘conflict-sensitive journalism’, as it is sometimes referred to in the Philip... more Peace journalism or ‘conflict-sensitive journalism’, as it is sometimes referred to in the Philippines, has emerged belatedly in the context of critical studies in Oceania, notably at the University of the South Pacific in the Fiji Islands, where seminars over the past two years have addressed conflict reporting and the notion of peace journalism (Robie, 2011; Singh, 2011). This academic field (Keeble et al., 2010; Shaw at al., 2011) has become increasingly addressed as an appropriate paradigm in a South Pacific context, following a 10-year civil war in Bougainville in the 1990s and an ethnic conflict in the Solomon Islands in the early 2000s. With other political upheavals such as four coups d’état in Fiji in two decades, paramilitary revolts in Vanuatu, riots in Tahiti and Tonga, protracted conflict in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands, and an earlier pro-independence insurrection in New Caledonia in the 1980s, conflict resolution poses challenges for the region’s journalists and their education and training. On the fringe of the South Pacific geopolitical region are the independent state of Timor-Leste and two contested Melanesian provinces of Indonesia known collectively within Oceania as ‘West Papua’. A Pacific media freedom report in October 2011 raised an unprecedented profile for both Timor-Leste and West Papua in the region, describing the latter in particular as a media ‘blind spot’ (Perrottet & Robie, 2011). Both territories experienced recent elections and in West Papua a controversy over a protracted miners’ strike and the future of the Freeport mine have been issues where the performance of the Pacific region’s news media has been under scrutiny. This paper examines the conflict reporting framework in the South Pacific, and articulates two case studies in Timor-Leste and West Papua within the context of a widening global debate about peace journalism.

The talanoa and the tribal paradigm: Reflections on cross-cultural reporting in the Pacific

At the time of the French revolution, the estates general comprised the clergy, the nobles and th... more At the time of the French revolution, the estates general comprised the clergy, the nobles and the commoners. As British politician Edmund Burke expressed it in post-revolutionary times, acknowledging three estates in Parliament, looked up at the press gallery, saying: ‘Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all’. In the context of the South Pacific, and particularly Fiji Islands in the wake of virtually five coups
, there is a notion of a ‘fifth estate’, a traditional cultural pillar, which is a counterbalance to all other forms of power, including the news media. This paper explores traditional political power, the i-Taukei ethno-nationalist movement and the dilemmas of cross-cultural reporting with a particular reference to the current Fiji impasse after 21 years of coup cycles. It also discusses a tanoa model incorporating culture as part of talanoa, or a more nuanced, approach to journalism in the Pacific based on dialogue.

The Rainbow Warrior bombers, media and the judiciary: Public interest v privacy

In July 1985, the Greenpeace environmental flagship Rainbow Warrior was moored in Auckland’s Wait... more In July 1985, the Greenpeace environmental flagship Rainbow Warrior was moored in Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour about to embark on a protest campaign voyage against French nuclear testing at Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia. Secret agents of the French external intelligence service DGSE planted two limpet mines on the ship’s hull on the night of July 10, sinking it and killing Portuguese-born photojournalist Fernando Pereira. Two of the secret agents were arrested on July 12 during an exhaustive police investigation. The Rainbow Warrior affair, involving state terrorism by a friendly nation, became iconic in New Zealand history because it highlighted NZ opposition to nuclear testing in the Pacific. New Zealand High Court closed circuit television (CCTV) footage of the criminal proceedings showed the two French agents—Major Alain Mafart and Captain Dominique Prieur—pleading guilty to manslaughter after being charged with murder. During the next two decades, five separate attempts were made to gain legal access to the videotape for news and current affairs programmes. For the first four attempts, lawyers acting for agents Mafart and Prieur succeeded in blocking public release of the footage on privacy and administration of justice grounds. However, the fifth attempt, by state-owned public broadcaster Television New Zealand, was finally successful in the Court of Appeal and the footage was broadcast on 7 August 2006. A further appeal to the Supreme Court by the agents was dismissed. This paper analyses a case study of the 20-year struggle to broadcast this historic footage and how a remarkable triumph in the public right to know was achieved and balanced against privacy values.

Go to the Australian Journalism Review for the full published paper: http://www.academia.edu/1416895/The_Rainbow_Warrior_bombers_media_and_the_judiciary

From campus to newsroom in the South Pacific: Credible media career paths versus ‘academic anaemia’

The University of the South Pacific’s Regional Journalism Programme, a course catering for 12 mem... more The University of the South Pacific’s Regional Journalism Programme, a course catering for 12 member countries1 from the Cook Islands in the east to the Solomon Islands in the west, was founded in 1994 with French Government aid. It began producing double major graduate journalists for the South Pacific three years
later. Two-thirds of the graduates live and work in Fiji. While some news media organisations in Fiji have generally recruited graduates, others have preferred to hire untrained school leavers. The media industry has provided some training schemes, but the USP programme has the only regional vocational and educational
strategy that involves regular radio broadcasting (Radio Pasifik), website news (Wansolwara Online and Pacific Journalism Online), newspaper publishing (Wansolwara and Spicol Daily), and television news bulletins (WansolVisin) for tertiary trainees and students. Increasingly in recent months, parallel with draft
legislation designed to turn the self-regulating Fiji Media Council into a statutory body, there have been public calls for higher media standards and more professional training and education. This paper explores the career attitudes and destination of the university’s 68 journalism graduates between 1996 and 2002
based on empirical data from a six-year monitoring project that started in 1998. It also examines the policies of the Fiji media industry towards graduates and education.

The invasion of Iraq — and how the media war was won and lost

Recently a revealing book was published in the United States and, as far as I know, it was never ... more Recently a revealing book was published in the United States and, as far as I know, it was never reviewed, or barely mentioned, in the New Zealand media. But its message
was a salutary lesson for us here, half a globe away from the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols have argued for an honest debate over a
total rethink of policy for media if it is to continue to have an effective role in democracy, if it is to remain a genuine Fourth Estate.

REVIEW: Like the pandemic, climate action is urgent

Pacific Journalism Review, 2021

Review of: Climate Aotearoa: What’s happening and what we can do about it, edited by Helen Clark.... more Review of: Climate Aotearoa: What’s happening and what we can do about it, edited by Helen Clark. Auckland: Allen & Unwin, 2021. 327 pages. ISBN 9781988547633 WHEN the publication of Climate Aotearoa was heralded by Radio New Zealand in April 2021 it was featured along with a striking image and a quote from the collection editor, former prime minister Helen Clark. The illustration by Vinay Ranchhod was a dazzling red lobster in a boiling pot. 'I would liken [the challenge of climate change] to being the lobster in the pot and the pot starts to heat, and by the time it’s realised it’s being cooked, it’s too late to change. Its fate is sealed. 'That’s in essence the message: you’ve got time to act, the window is closing. And if you don’t, you’re going to get over those tipping points from which there’s no return.' (‘Time for action’, 2021)

Refreshed digital journalism education mission needed [Review]

Pacific Journalism Review, 2017

Br(e)aking the News: Journalism, Politics and New Media, edited by Janey Gordon, Paul Rowinski an... more Br(e)aking the News: Journalism, Politics and New Media, edited by Janey Gordon, Paul Rowinski and Gavin Stewart. Berne, Switzerland: Peter Lang AC. 2013. 308 pages. ISBN 978-3-034-3090-4-2

TWO DECADES ago, United States media ecologist Neil Postman posed critical questions about the ‘mission of education’ in his book The End of Education. Detailing the failings of American education faced with encroaching corporate and managerial strategies that did not tackle the real problem—an ‘identity crisis’—he ironically heralded the coming challenges over journalism education. It has outgrown the rationales of the past.

Timely strategic research spotlights killings of journalists [Review]

Pacific Journalism Review, 2017

The Assault on Journalism: Building Knowledge to Protect Freedom of Expression, edited by Ulla Ca... more The Assault on Journalism: Building Knowledge to Protect Freedom of Expression, edited by Ulla Carlsson and Reeta Pöyhtäri. Gothenburg, Sweden: Nordic Information Centre for Media and Communication Research (Nordicom). 2017. 363 pages. ISBN 9789187957505

THE GHANAIAN investigative journalist summed up the mood among some 1500 media people with the beaded face veil rather well—a facial security screen symbolising both the safety of the reporter and his sources. But this was no empty gesture. It is characteristic of Anas Aremeyaw Anas who has captured judges on tape allegedly taking bribes. As the result of his celebrated documentary, Ghana in the Eyes of God: Epic of Injustice, more than 30 judges and 170 judicial officers were implicated in Ghana’s biggest corruption scandal.

Endangered – the frontline journalism of outrage [Review]

Asia Pacific Report, Jan 15, 2017

Media coverage of the decapitation and other atrocities against journalists has heightened global... more Media coverage of the decapitation and other atrocities against journalists has heightened global awareness of just how dangerous the profession of journalists is when covering war zones, corruption and human rights violations under dictatorships. “Although violence against journalists is not a new phenomenon, the trend has worsened,” writes New Zealand-based media academic, political scientist and analyst Maria Armoudian in her new book Reporting from the Danger Zone: Frontline journalists, their jobs, and an increasingly perilous future. Researcher Dr Armoudian, lecturer in politics and international relations at the University of Auckland and author of the 2011 book Kill the Messenger, provides sobering statistics in her “danger zone for journalists” analysis.

Pacific insights into the Rainbow Warrior legacy [Review]

Review by Michael Segel: The 1985 bombing of the Rainbow Warrior is often remembered as the deadl... more Review by Michael Segel: The 1985 bombing of the Rainbow Warrior is often remembered as the deadly consequence of a small Pacific nation taking a defiant stance against nuclear testing by major powers. Thirty years on, the updated edition of David Robie’s Eyes of Fire moves beyond the David and Goliath narrative that puts New Zealand at the centre of the story. Prime Minister David Lange called the bombing a ‘sordid act of international statebacked terrorism’ and an ‘unprecedented affront to sovereignty’ (p. 128). Months earlier, he had defended New Zealand’s anti-nuclear position at the Oxford Union. Years later, he said the lack of international support had only strenthened the country’s resolve (Young, 2005). But Robie reminds us the bombing was far more than a key date on New Zealand’s political timeline. The former British fishing trawler had been part of missions to stop whalers, sealers and nuclear warships in Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, the United States and Peru. It had even been at the centre of a diplomatic Cold War clash during a visit to Siberia.

The struggle for media freedom amid jihadists, gaggers and ‘democratators’ [Review]

One of the ironies of the digital revolution is that there is an illusion of growing freedom of e... more One of the ironies of the digital revolution is that there is an illusion of growing freedom of expression and information in the world, when in fact the reverse is true. These are bleak times with growing numbers of journalists being murdered with impunity, from the Philippines to Somalia and Syria. The world’s worst mass killing of journalists was the so-called Maguindanao, or Ampatuan (named after the town whose dynastic family ordered the killings), massacre when 32 journalists were brutally murdered in the Philippines in November 2009.

DSMBF: Investigative journalism at its best [Review]

Media International Australia, Mar 31, 2015

Review by Associate Professor Pradip Thomas, University of Queensland: This book is a compendium ... more Review by Associate Professor Pradip Thomas, University of Queensland: This book is a compendium of writings by David Robie and is a reflection of his long and eventful career as a journalist, media educator, political commentator and human rights activist in the Asia-Pacific region. To cite this article: Thomas, Pradip. Don't spoil my beautiful face: Media, mayhem and human rights in the Pacific [Book Review] [online]. Media International Australia, Incorporating Culture & Policy, No. 154, Mar 2015: 157. Availability: <http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=997097374109002;res=IELLCC> ISSN: 1329-878X. [cited 31 Mar 15].

DSMBF: A tribute to human rights [Review]

Media Asia, 41(4), p. 324, Dec 31, 2014

As its title suggests, the book is a tribute to human rights in the Pacific but much more than th... more As its title suggests, the book is a tribute to human rights in the Pacific but much more than this, it takes a critical look at the role of journalism in the scheme of things. With a career in journalism and teaching that spans 35 years, Professor Robie presents his journalistic adventures in the Pacific, capturing the struggles of the oppressed and the pivotal role that journalism can play to initiate positive change.

DSMBF: Three stories interwoven [Review]

Australian Journalism Review, 36(2): 190-191., Dec 31, 2014

There are almost three books in David Robie's recent scholarly work, Don't Spoil My Beautiful Fac... more There are almost three books in David Robie's recent scholarly work, Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific - the story of his life, the story behind some of the most important reports he has done in the Pacific (and in Africa) over the past 30 years, and the story of, or at least his repeated call for, better journalism and journalism education in the region. It is a book destined to be referenced by generations of scholars of journalism and politics in the Pacific.

Media: Development journalism [Review]

New Zealand Books: A quarterly review, Sep 2014

By Alex Perrottet: It's easy to read a book written by a journalist, especially of it covers wars... more By Alex Perrottet: It's easy to read a book written by a journalist, especially of it covers wars, environmental disasters, independence struggles, and what happens when you try to report on them. In this book, David Robie includes a bundle of his own articles and how he got them published (or how he didn't) over a career spanning four decades. The Pacific journalist and educator makes no apology for walking down his own memory lane, but just as well, as it gives a clear idea of his motivations by the time he arrives at the final chapter: his theory on media models and journalism education.

Exploring the challenges confronting the 21st century Pacific [Review]

NZ Listener, Aug 8, 2014

Review by Christopher Moore (p39): "In Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rig... more Review by Christopher Moore (p39): "In Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific, journalist and educator David Robie explores the challenges that confront the 21st century Pacific and the forces that have shaped the region during the past 50 years. Robie, arguably New Zealand's foremost Pacific [media] commentator, writes from long first-hand experience of events and places all too frequently overlooked by the wider New Zealand and Australian media."

Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific [Review]

Spasifik Magazine Autumn edition 2014, Jun 2014

(pp54-55): "A leading advocate for media freedom and quality journalism for almost three decades,... more (pp54-55): "A leading advocate for media freedom and quality journalism for almost three decades, Professor David Robie remains as incisive as ever with his new book, Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face : Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific. Director of AUT University's Pacific Media Centre, and former Head of Journalism at the University of the South Pacific, he focuses on a region and issues largely ignored by the New Zealand media. Below is an extract from his speech at the book launch at AUT Library in April."

The complex notion of news in the Pacific [Review]

The Walkley Magazine [Australia], Jul 31, 2014

Brent Edwards looks at journalist and academic David Robie’s scrutiny of the Pacific region’s gov... more Brent Edwards looks at journalist and academic David Robie’s scrutiny of the Pacific region’s governance and journalism. Cartoon by David Pope: "David Robie has spent 35 years working as a journalist and journalism teacher in the Asia- Pacific region. In Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, mayhem and human rights in the Pacific, Robie summarises his reportage on many of the significant events that have marked his years working in the Pacific. It is part autobiography, part history and part journalism treatise. As well as providing his perceptive analysis of human rights and democracy, or lack of, in the Pacific, Robie also spends time commenting on journalistic practices, particularly as they relate to reporting on our immediate neighbourhood."

Lies, media integrity and the new digital environment [Review]

Pacific Journalism Review, May 31, 2014

When Rachel Buchanan penned a commissioned article entitled ‘From the classroom to the scrapheap’... more When Rachel Buchanan penned a commissioned article entitled ‘From the classroom to the scrapheap’ for The Age last September, she railed against Australian journalism schools, in particular, against an alleged ‘lie’ and ‘little integrity’ of journalism education. ‘Between 2002 and 2012, enrolments in journalism degrees almost doubled,’ she noted about what was troubling her across the Tasman. ‘We now have the bizarre situation where there are more people studying journalism than there are working journalists.’

The quality of Pacific news: The mantra of a free press and the Pacific's political spoilers [Review]

Wansolwara/Fiji Sun, May 2014

Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific is being published t... more Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific is being published today while Fiji is voicing the mantra of the “free press” at the same time as it continues to ban experienced Pacific reporters such as Barbara Dreaver and Michael Field from New Zealand and Sean Dorney of the ABC. Ashwin Raj, chairman of the new Media Industry Development Authority (MIDA) is haranguing journalists at public media meetings using expressions such as “…the complicity of select Fijian journalists and media either wittingly or those that remain oblivious to the laws of Fiji…” The same MIDA that is so upset with Sean Dorney’s mild comment that “there was a feeling in the room anyway that the situation in Fiji wasn’t as free and open for the media as it should be” is also asking for “an ethos of robust debate”. MIDA might strengthen its interpretation of robustness by reading David Robie’s arguments for improving journalism education rather than putting media training on hold.

Ouvéa massacre film gripping tale of betrayal and political opportunism [Review]

The 1988 Ouvéa massacre triggered a series of events that led to the Matignon Accord to open the ... more The 1988 Ouvéa massacre triggered a series of events that led to the Matignon Accord to open the door to self-government and self-determination in New Caledonia and hope for a Kanak future. But it also led to the assassination of key pro-independence leaders Jean-Marie Tjibaou and his deputy Yéiwene Yéiwene a year later at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the martyrs. David Robie reviews the impact of a new film about the Ouvéa tragedy.

Bearing witness in 40 years of Greenpeace chronicles

MY DOG-EARED yellow-covered copy of the late Robert Hunter’s Warriors of the Rainbow still has pr... more MY DOG-EARED yellow-covered copy of the late Robert Hunter’s Warriors of the Rainbow still has pride of place among my bookshelves. It was inspirational in many respects before I embarked on Rainbow Warrior I’s journey to the Marshall Islands in May 1985 which led to the bombing in Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour two months later and my own book Eyes of Fire about that ill-fated humanitarian voyage, so very different from most Greenpeace campaigns.One of the original Greenpeace environmental crusaders, journalist Hunter provided a powerful and insightful tale of the Canadian birth and early years of the global movement ‘from Amchitka to Moruroa’. Even before the corporate trend to mission statements, Greenpeace had one provided by the Cree Indians and popularised by Hunter.

Behind the leis and smiles [Review]

A group of villagers declaring their people's independence by raising a flag on a homemade pole h... more A group of villagers declaring their people's independence by raising a flag on a homemade pole has become more common in our region over the past 15 years. The West Papuans have done it, as have the East Timorese, Kanaks, Tahitians and, more recently, the Bougainvilleans. Yet while such people appear to have every right to political autonomy, their flags have seldom been allowed to fly outside UN headquarters in New York. Worse, most of the movements have been outlawed and their supporters persecuted and killed. Hence the title of David Robie's book.

French repressive policies in New Caledonia have ‘betrayed’ Kanak hopes

Café Pacific | Green Left Show, May 27, 2024

Indigenous Kanaks in Kanaky New Caledonia have revolted in the last two weeks in response to move... more Indigenous Kanaks in Kanaky New Caledonia have revolted in the last two weeks in response to moves by the colonial power France to undermine moves towards independence in the Pacific territory. Journalist David Robie from Aotearoa New Zealand spoke to the Green Left Show today about the issues involved. We acknowledge that this video was produced on stolen Aboriginal land. We express solidarity with ongoing struggles for justice for First Nations people and pay our respects to Elders past and present.
https://youtu.be/ZPWw2oSUGFs

APR editor criticises NZ media coverage over Israel's war on Gaza

Café Pacific, Apr 1, 2024

Pacific media commentator and Asia Pacific Report editor David Robie has criticised New Zealand m... more Pacific media commentator and Asia Pacific Report editor David Robie has criticised New Zealand media coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, describing it as “lopsided” in favour of Tel Aviv. He said New Zealand media was too dependent on American and British news services, which were based in two of the countries most committed to Israel and in denial of the genocide that was happening. New Zealand media were tending to treat the conflict as “just another war” instead of the reality of a “horrendous” series of massacres with a long-lasting impact on Western credibility and commitment to a global rules-based order.
Second part of a two-part interview with Earthwise.
Broadcast on Plains 96.9 FM radio on 1 April 2024
https://youtu.be/3QG9OGeS4d0

Earthwise talks to David Robie on Pacific issues and news media

Café Pacific, Mar 19, 2024

Earthwise presenters Lois and Martin Griffiths on Plains FM 96.9 community radio talk to Dr David... more Earthwise presenters Lois and Martin Griffiths on Plains FM 96.9 community radio talk to Dr David Robie, a New Zealand author, independent journalist and media educator with a passion for the Asia-Pacific region. Dr Robie, deputy chair of Asia Pacific Media Network and editor of Asia Pacific Report, talks about the struggle to raise awareness of critical Pacific issues such as West Papuan self-determination and the fight for an independent “Pacific voice” in New Zealand media. He outlines some of the challenges in the region and what motivated him to work on Pacific issues.
Part 1 of a two-part interview.
Audio/Video at YouTube: https://youtu.be/ueVlWkSN0yo
Broadcast on Plains FM 96.9 on 18 March 2024

David Robie: Pacific lessons in climate crisis journalism and combating disinformation [With video]

Asia Pacific Report, Oct 20, 2022

New Zealand journalist and academic David Robie has covered the Asia-Pacific region for internati... more New Zealand journalist and academic David Robie has covered the Asia-Pacific region for international media for more than four decades. An advocate for media freedom in the Pacific region, he is the author of several books on South Pacific media and politics, including an account of the French bombing of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour in 1985which took place while he was on the last voyage. In 1994 he founded the journal Pacific Journalism Review examining media issues and communication in the South Pacific, Asia-Pacific, Australia and New Zealand. He was also convenor of the Pacific Media Watch media freedom collective, which collaborates with Reporters Without Borders in Paris, France.

Interview took place on 17 October 2022 at the 13th Asian Conference on Media, Communication and Film, Kyoto, Japan. https://mediasia.iafor.org/programme/

https://vimeo.com/761329590

https://asiapacificreport.nz/2022/10/20/pacific-lessons-in-climate-change-journalism-and-combating-disinformation/

https://eyes-of-fire.littleisland.co.nz/

Journalism education 'truth' challenges in an age of growing hate, intolerance and disinformation

Asian Congress for Media and Communication, Nov 25, 2021

Professor David Robie's keynote address entitled "Journalism education 'truth' challenges in an a... more Professor David Robie's keynote address entitled "Journalism education 'truth' challenges in an age of growing hate, intolerance and disinformation" at the Asian Congress for Media and Communication (ACMC) global virtual conference at Auckland University of Technology on 25-27 November 2021. Dr Robie is founder of the Pacific Media Centre: https://pmc.aut.ac.nz/

News report here: https://bit.ly/3ovo0gZ
Missing video clips can be viewed here:
Papua New Guinea and COVID-19 at 10m43s: https://youtu.be/fzjdSNOIqdw
Pacific Climate Warriors at 18m44s: https://youtu.be/9Y12ezfEZBA
ACMC website: https://www.asianmediacongress.org/

Video of the lecture on YouTube: https://youtu.be/9ehqVkSerpQ

Journalism education 'truth' challenges in an age of growing hate

Professor David Robie's keynote address entitled "Journalism education 'truth' challenges in an a... more Professor David Robie's keynote address entitled "Journalism education 'truth' challenges in an age of growing hate, intolerance and disinformation" at the Asian Congress for Media and Communication (ACMC) global virtual conference at Auckland University of Technology on 25-27 November 2021. Dr Robie is founder of the Pacific Media Centre: https://pmc.aut.ac.nz/

News report here: https://bit.ly/3ovo0gZ
Missing video clips can be viewed here:
Papua New Guinea and COVID-19 at 10m43s: https://youtu.be/fzjdSNOIqdw
Pacific Climate Warriors at 18m44s: https://youtu.be/9Y12ezfEZBA
ACMC website: https://www.asianmediacongress.org/

Video of lecture: https://youtu.be/9ehqVkSerpQ

A future in Pacific journalism in the age of 'media phobia'

Pacific Media Centre Online, 2018

Keynote address by Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie at The University of the S... more Keynote address by Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie at The University of the South Pacific Journalism Awards,19 October 2018, celebrating 50 years of the university's existence. Wide-ranging speech covers core values of journalism, global threats to journalists and press freedom, political leaders fueling "media phobia", the Jamal Khashoggi assassination in Turkey on 2 October 2018, Pacific media whistleblowers and the history of the University of the South Pacific journalism.

From Uni Tavur to Asia Pacific Report: Case studies in campus-based social justice media

For two decades, this paper presenter has been an initiator of a series of independent newspapers... more For two decades, this paper presenter has been an initiator of a series of independent newspapers based in prominent South Pacific journalism programmes hosted in three universities. All of the publications have played an ‘activist’ role in raising issues of social justice and campaigning for more critical and challenging assignments for student media in the context of coups, civil war, climate change, development and neo-colonialism. All of the publications have won awards for their brand of journalism. Starting with the University of Papua New Guinea’s Uni Tavur in 1994 and the Sandline mercenary crisis, the models have progressed through Wansolwara at the University of the South Pacific (award-winning coverage of the 2000 George Speight attempted coup), to Pacific Scoop for six years at Auckland University of Technology with extensive coverage of human rights violations in Fiji and West Papua. The Pacific Scoop venture has now morphed into a new and distinctive independent venture for the digital era, Asia Pacific Report launched in January 2016. This series of case studies will sketch out the evolution of these newspapers and how the collective experience of citizen journalism, digital engagement and an innovative public empowerment journalism course based at AUT’s Pacific Media Centre has developed a unique social change publication. The presentation will traverse some of the region’s thorny political and social issues, and engage with the evolving theory behind the publications (Robie, 2004, 2006, 2012, 2014) such as reflected in deliberative journalism, human rights and other models (Obijiofor & Hanusch, 2011; Romano, 2010).

The digital media revolution, a free press and student journalism

Professor David Robie's speech at the University of the South Pacific 21st Anniversary Journalism... more Professor David Robie's speech at the University of the South Pacific 21st Anniversary Journalism Awards on 30 October 2015: "Kia ora tatou and ni sa bula vinaka, FIRSTLY, I wish to acknowledge the people of Fiji for returning this wonderful country to democracy last year, and also to the University of the South Pacific and Dr Shailendra Singh and his team for inviting me here to speak at this 21st Anniversary Journalism Awards event. [Acknowledgements to various university and media VIPs]. As I started off these awards here at the University of the South Pacific in 1999 during an incredibly interesting and challenging time, it is a great honour to return for this event marking the 21st anniversary of the founding of the regional Pacific journalism programme. Thus it is also an honour to be sharing the event with Monsieur Michel Djokovic, the Ambassador of France given how important French aid has been for this programme.

An Asia-Pacific free media paradigm: A Pacific Media Watch case study

News media coverage of the Asia-Pacific region in Aotearoa/New Zealand has been traditionally lim... more News media coverage of the Asia-Pacific region in Aotearoa/New Zealand has been traditionally limited and parochial, apart from Polynesia which has been regarded as an extension of the country with a significant Pacific Islander urban and rural population in the largest city of Auckland. Indonesia and the Philippines, New Zealand’s closest neighbours among Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), rarely have serious coverage or current affairs analysis. When Asia-Pacific reporting does get some exposure, it is often reflecting an Australian perspective rather than Asian, or even New Zealand. Few specialist political and current affairs media exist in the country and it is left to small special interest news services such as the state-funded public broadcaster Radio New Zealand International and the independent Scoop, both in the capital of Wellington, to provide critical coverage. This paper provides a case study of a small university-based media freedom advocacy and analysis service that has reported media developments in the region for almost two decades.Pacific Media Watchwas founded as an independent, non-profit and non-government network by two journalism academics. Its genesis was the jailing of two Taimi ‘o Tonga journalists, ‘Ekalafi Moala and Filokalafi ‘Akau’ola, and a ‘whistleblowing’ pro-democracy member of Parliament in Tonga, ‘Akilisi Pohiva, for alleged contempt in September 1996. They were later freed by the Pacific kingdom’s Supreme Court which ruled their imprisonment was unconstitutional. PMW played an important role in the campaign to free the three men, including organising an international petition seeking their release. Since then, the agency has developed a strategy to challenge issues of parochial news-generation by reporting on the region’s media developments, including Indonesia and the Philippines in particular. At times it has also reported on Burma, China, Thailand and Vietnam. Ethics, media freedom, industry ownership, cross-cultural diversity and media plurality have featured in the service’s reports. PMW has also been involved in reporting coups d’etat, civil conflict, climate change, health, social activism and media independence. The paper examines the PMW project, history and purpose as a catalyst for activist journalists, educator journalists, citizen journalists and critical journalists in a broader trajectory of Asia-Pacific protest.

Dr David Robie is Professor of Journalism and Director of the Pacific Media Centre in the School of Communication Studies at Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand. He is also a former head of journalism at both the University of Papua New Guinea and the University of the South Pacific, and the author of Mekim Nius: South Pacific media, politics and education and The Pacific Journalist.
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Pacific Journalism Monograph No 2: Coups, conflicts and human rights

At the heart of a global crisis over news media credibility and trust is Britain’s so-called Hack... more At the heart of a global crisis over news media credibility and trust is Britain’s so-called Hackgate scandal involving the widespread allegations of phone-hacking and corruption against the now defunct Rupert Murdoch tabloid newspaper News Of The World. Major inquiries on media ethics, professionalism and accountability have been examining the state of the press in New Zealand, Britain and Australia. The Murdoch media empire has stretched into the South Pacific with the sale of one major title being forced by political pressure. The role of news media in global South nations and the declining credibility of some sectors of the developed world’s Fourth Estate also pose challenges for the future of democracy. Truth, censorship, ethics and corporate integrity are increasingly critical media issues in the digital age for a region faced with coups, conflicts and human rights violations, such as in West Papua. In this address, Professor David Robie reflects on the challenges in the context of the political economy of the media and journalism education in the Asia-Pacific region. He also engages with emerging disciplines such as deliberative journalism, peace journalism, human rights journalism, and revisits notions of critical development journalism and citizen journalism.

Coups, conflicts and human rights: Pacific media challenges in the digital age [AUT inaugural professorial lecture]

Journalism Education in the South Pacific, 1975-2003: Politics, policy and practice

Policy and Practice. Unpublished PhD thesis. Suva: …, Jan 1, 2003

University education for South Pacific journalists is a relatively recent development. It has exi... more University education for South Pacific journalists is a relatively recent development. It has existed in Papua New Guinea for merely a generation; it is less than a decade old at degree level in Fiji, and in the former colonies in Polynesia. At the same time, mean age, experience and educational qualifications have been rising among journalists in the major Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) member countries, Australia and New Zealand, as the news media has become more professionalised. While the Papua New Guinea media has largely depended on journalism education to provide the foundation for its professionalism, Fiji has focused on a system of ad hoc short course training funded by international donors.

This thesis examines the history of South Pacific university media education and its impact on the region’s journalism. Its first objective is to test the hypothesis that tertiary education has a critical influence on how Pacific journalists practise their profession and perceive their political and social role in a developing society faced with the challenges of globalisation. Secondly, the thesis aims to analyse the political, economic and legal frameworks in which the media have operated in Papua New Guinea and Fiji since independence. Third, the thesis aims to explain and assess in detail the development of journalism education in the South Pacific since independence.

The theoretical framework is from a critical political economy perspective. It also assesses whether the concept of development journalism, which had its roots in the 1980s debate calling for a ‘New International Information and Communication Order’ (NWICO), has had an influence on a Pacific style of journalism. The thesis argues within a context where journalists can be considered to be professionals with some degree of autonomy within the confines set by a capitalist and often transnational-owned media, and within those established by governments and media companies. Journalists are not solely ‘governed’ by these confines; they still have some freedom to act, and journalism education can deliver some of the resources to make the most of that freedom.

The thesis includes historical case studies of the region’s three main journalism schools, Divine Word University (PNG), University of Papua New Guinea and the University of the South Pacific. It demonstrates some of the dilemmas faced by the three schools, student journalists and graduates while exercising media freedom. Research was conducted using the triangulation method, incorporating in-depth interviews with 57 editors, media managers, journalists and policy makers; two newsroom staff surveys of 15 news organisations in Fiji and Papua New Guinea in 1998/9 (124 journalists) and 2001 (106); and library and archives study. It also draws on the author’s personal experience as coordinator of the UPNG (1993-1997) and USP (1998-2002) journalism programmes for more than nine years.

The thesis concludes that journalists in Papua New Guinea (where university education has played a vital role for a generation) are more highly educated, have a higher mean experience and age, and a more critically sophisticated perception of themselves and their media role in Pacific societies than in Fiji (where almost half the journalists have no formal tertiary education or training). Journalists in Fiji are also more influenced by race, cultural and religious factors. Conversely, PNG journalists are poorly paid even when compared with their Fiji colleagues. There are serious questions about the impact that this may have on the autonomy of journalists and the Fourth Estate role of news media in a South Pacific democracy.

REVIEW: Defending the right to confidential sources and whistleblowers

Pacific Journalism Review, Jul 2024

A review of: Journalists and Confidential Sources: Colliding Public Interests in the Age of the L... more A review of: Journalists and Confidential Sources: Colliding Public Interests in the Age of the Leak, by Joseph M Fernandez. Routledge Research on Journalism Series. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2021. 287 pages. ISBN 9780367474126

IN 2015, media law professor Joseph M. Fernandez co-authored a comprehensive article for Pacific Journalism Review (Fernandez & Pearson, 2015) about the status of Australia’s shield law regime, drawing on his research to see whether it met journalists’ expectations and whistleblower needs in an era of unprecedented official capabilities. It didn’t, as can be seen from growing concerns over court cases that, according to the peak journalists’ organisation Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), ‘clearly demonstrate Australia’s patchy and desperate journalist shields fail to do their job’.
https://ojs.aut.ac.nz/pacific-journalism-review/article/view/1364

REVIEW: Behind the war on Gaza – how Israel profits globally from repression

Pacific Journalism Review, Jul 1, 2024

The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel exports the technology of occupation around the world, by An... more The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel exports the technology of occupation around the world, by Antony Loewenstein. Melbourne: Scribe Publications, 2023. 265 pages. ISBN 9781922310408.

JUST MONTHS before the outbreak of the genocidal Israeli war on Gaza after the deadly assault on southern Israel by Hamas resistance fighters on 7 October 2023, Australian-German investigative journalist and researcher Antony Loewenstein published an extraordinarily timely book, The Palestine Laboratory. In it he warned that a worst-case scenario—‘long feared but never realised, is ethnic cleansing against occupied Palestinians or population transfer, forcible expulsion under the guise of national security’.
https://ojs.aut.ac.nz/pacific-journalism-review/article/view/1341

REVIEW: Disinformation and the end of democracy?

Pacific Journalism Review, Jul 31, 2023

How to Stand up to a Dictator: The Fight for our Future, By Maria Ressa. London: Penguin Random H... more How to Stand up to a Dictator: The Fight for our Future, By Maria Ressa. London: Penguin Random House, 2022. 301 pages. ISBN 978073559208.

AS WE marched in our pink tee-shirts in solidarity with the diaspora supporting outgoing Vice-President and opposition leader Leni Robredo in Auckland’s Centennial Park in the lead up to the Philippine presidential election in May 2022, the thought weighed heavily on our minds: ‘Surely, Filipinos wouldn’t elect the son of dictator Ferdinand Marcos just 38 years after his corrupt father had been ousted by People Power.’
https://doi.org/10.24135/pjr.v29i1and2.1322

REVIEW: A symbol of all that is wrong with the ‘war on terror’

Pacific Journalism Review, 2020

Review of Prisoner 345: My 2330 days in Guantánamo, by Sami Alhaj. Doha, Qatar: Al Jazeera Media ... more Review of Prisoner 345: My 2330 days in Guantánamo, by Sami Alhaj. Doha, Qatar: Al Jazeera Media Network, 2019. 126 pages. No ISBN.
The Refugee’s Messenger: Lost Stories Retold, edited by Tarek Cherkaoui. Istanbul, Turkey: TRT World Research Centre, 2019. 192 Pages. ISBN 978-605-9984-28-7

A RECENT article in the Middle East Eye pilloried the United States lack of preparedness for the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic. Lamenting that if only the world’s richest democracy could have instead of frittering away trillions of dollars on ‘endless wars’ invested in the country’s health infrastructure, the world would be in a better place today. Washington had ‘built an entire infrastructure to counter terrorism and criminalise Muslim communities’, spending almost $6.4 trillion on pointless wars that had killed off half a million people since September 11 2011 (Hilal & Raja, 2020). Yet, which was the biggest threat – the elusive target of the so-called ‘war on terror’, or the pandemic, which killed more than 20,000 Americans and infected a further 500,000 (with numbers still rising when this edition of PJR went to press)?

REVIEW: Safeguarding press freedom, ending impunity in the Philippines

Pacific Journalism Review, 2020

Review of Philippine Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists. Manila: Asian Institute of Jour... more Review of Philippine Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists. Manila: Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication and International Media Support. 2019. 45 pages. ISBN 9789718502204

A DECADE after the world’s worst atrocity inflicted on journalists in a single event, a remarkable publishing event happened in Manila that could set a trend in the global fight against impunity for the killers of journalists. On the eve of the date marking the massacre of 58 people—including 32 journalists, a broad coalition launched a strategic blueprint for the survival of news workers. I was privileged to be present at this stellar event, the only New Zealand journalist or media academic to be invited to the launch of the Philippine Plan of Action in the Safety of Journalists (PPASJ).

REVIEW: West Papua’s highway of blood and betrayal

Pacific Journalism Review, 2020

Review of The Road: Uprising in West Papua, by John Martinkus. Carlton, Vic: Black Books Inc. 202... more Review of The Road: Uprising in West Papua, by John Martinkus. Carlton, Vic: Black Books Inc. 2020. 114 pages. 978-1-760-64242-6

The rugged mountainous highlands of New Guinea stretch from the Owen Stanley range in the east of the independent state of Papua New Guinea through the Star mountains straddling the border with Indonesian-ruled West Papua westwards through the perpetually snow-capped Puncak Jaya, at 4884m the highest peak.

Indonesian repression and betrayal in West Papua [Review]

Pacific Journalism Review, 2018

Papua Blood: A Photographer’s Eyewitness Account of West Papua Over 30 Years, by Peter Bang. Cope... more Papua Blood: A Photographer’s Eyewitness Account of West Papua Over 30 Years, by Peter Bang. Copenhagen, Denmark: Remote Frontlines, 2018. 248 pages. ISBN 978-87-430-0101-0
See No Evil: New Zealand’s Betrayal of the People of West Papua, by Maire Leadbeater. Dunedin, NZ: Otago University Press, 2018. 310 pages. ISBN 978-1-98-853121-2

TWO damning and contrasting books about Indonesian colonialism in the Pacific, both by activist participants in Europe and New Zealand, have recently been published. Overall, they are excellent exposés of the harsh repression of the Melanesian people of West Papua and a world that has largely turned a blind eye to to human rights violations.

A crusade for media truth and justice [Review]

Pacific Journalism Review, 2018

The First Casualty: From the Front Lines of the Global War on Journalism, by Peter Greste. Sydney... more The First Casualty: From the Front Lines of the Global War on Journalism, by Peter Greste. Sydney: Viking. 2017. 335 pages. ISBN 9780670079261.

PETER GRESTE, the Australian journalist who became a thorn in the side of the harsh Egyptian authorities from the inside of prison cells and in a courtroom cage for 400 days, hasn’t wasted opportunities since he became the UNESCO chair of journalism and communication at the University of Queensland earlier this year. He chose World Press Freedom Day as the moment to launch a new independent body dedicated to campaigning for reporters whose ‘voices have been stifled’ by regimes around the world.

REVIEW: Charlie Hebdo and the free speech conflict

Pacific Journalism Review, Jul 17, 2018

After Charlie Hebdo: Terror, Racism and Free Speech, edited by Gavan Titley, Des Freedman, Gholam... more After Charlie Hebdo: Terror, Racism and Free Speech, edited by Gavan Titley, Des Freedman, Gholam Khiabany and Aurélien Mondon. London: Zed Books. 2017. 313 pages. ISBN 9781783609383

IN OCTOBER 2016, I returned to that stunning and iconic French eighth monastery Mont St Michel, once also a post-Revolution jail for political prisoners, and was struck by the sight of a garrison of soldiers – part of the Vigipirate programme. Vigipirate has parallels with the US Homeland Security Advisor system and has now been in place in various forms for almost 26 years, since Bush’s Gulf War in 1991. Based on laws adopted in 1959 during the Algerian War of Independence, it was first suspended for a while after the Gulf War and then introduced again in 1995 after a car bomb blew up outside a Jewish school in Lyon. Vigipirate has since then gone through various phases and updates with the 1995 Paris Metro bombing, 2004 Madrid terror train attack and the 2005 London underground bombing. Official documents now designate the programme as ‘permanent’.

A damning indictment of the parlous state of affairs in the Pacific

Book review by Shailendra Singh. Above all, David Robie’s Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, M... more Book review by Shailendra Singh. Above all, David Robie’s Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific is a damning indictment of the parlous state of affairs in parts of this region. The book is also a telling account of the continuous failure of leadership on a fairly grand scale, with ordinary people bearing the brunt of it.

Eyes Of Fire : 30 Years On [Microsite publication]

Eyes Of Fire, Jul 10, 2015

David Robie's book, Eyes of Fire, tells the story of the last voyage of the original Rainbow Warr... more David Robie's book, Eyes of Fire, tells the story of the last voyage of the original Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace campaign vessel bombed by French secret agents on 10 July 1985. Thirty years ago, the Rainbow Warrior and her crew were invited to help the people of Rongelap Atoll escape from their nuclear contaminated island. The events that followed still haunt the Pacific. On this Little Island microsite, we look at the legacy of this vessel, its small crew of resourceful Greenpeace activists and the Pacific Island communities they tried to help. Main article by David Robie: "Rainbow Warrior redux: French terrorism in the Pacific". Plus other video and image resources and oral histories.