Two decades on from 9/11 and a Pacific newsroom sense of dread

Reflections on 9/11 from a Fiji newsroom ... warnings about scapegoats and the media.
IMAGE: Al Jazeera screenshot APR

FLASHBACK TO 9/11: By David Robie

WHEN I arrived at my office at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji on the morning of 12 September 2001 (9/11, NY Time), I was oblivious to reality.

I had dragged myself home to bed a few hours earlier at 2am as usual, after another long day working on our students’ Wansolwara Online website providing coverage of the Fiji general election.

One day after being sworn in as the country’s fifth real (elected) prime minister, it seemed that Laisenia Qarase was playing another dirty trick on Mahendra Chaudhry’s Labour Party, which had earned the constitutional right to be included in the multi-party government supposed to lead the country back to democracy.

• READ MORE: 9/11 killed it, but 20 years on global justice movement is poised for revival
• ‘Fortress USA’: How 9/11 produced a military industrial juggernaut
• Jason Brown: 9/11 and a mango dawn – and here’s to the end of being Pacific pawns
• Other 9/11 reports

Stepping into my office, I encountered a colleague. He looked wild-eyed and said: “It’s the end of the world.”

Politicians, educators, advocates blast Fiji’s ‘barbaric’ deportation of USP academic head

USP's Australian Professor Pal Ahluwalia ... deported today on a flight to Brisbane.
Image: PMW

By Pacific Media Watch

POLITICIANS, educators and civil society advocates around the region today condemned the “barbaric” and “shameful” detention and deportation of the regional University of the South Pacific’s vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia and his wife.

Reformist Professor Ahluwalia, an Australian, and his wife, Sandra, were detained by Fiji authorities at their Suva home late last night and deported on a flight to Brisbane this morning.

The USP Council is due to meet in Suva tomorrow and the chancellor, Nauru Lionel Aingimea said today a statement would be made later.

• READ MORE: Fiji immigration officials, police deport USP chief Ahluwalia in swoop
• Response from USP staff, students - Wansolwara
  
• More articles on the USP saga

In Rarotonga, the director of USP’s Cook Islands campus, Dr Debbie Futter-Puati, said the university’s independence was under threat in Fiji.

Responding to questions from The Fiji Times, she questioned how the university’s vice chancellor’s deportation would advantage the Fijian government.

“The University is a private, independent educational facility owned by 12 member countries who must surely take exception to this action,” she said.

“I sincerely hope member countries make a strong and united stance back to Fiji government on this aggressive and inappropriate action.”

‘Outrageous’ act
Human rights activist and former human rights commissioner Shamima Ali described the forceful removal and deportation as “shameful, outrageous and not the Pacific way”.

National Federation Party leader Professor Biman Prasad said at a time when Fiji should be supporting victims of cyclones Yasa and Ana, government was “instead focused [on] its own petty jealousies”.

#Fiji immigration officials, police deport #USP's reformist vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia and wife in swoop @pal_vcp @USPEmaluscampus @wansolwara @USPWansolwara @ShailendraBSing #HumanRights #education #AsiaPacificReport #PacificMediaWatchhttps://t.co/vJQGMWeXqK pic.twitter.com/8Gb2R7lHO8

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) February 4, 2021

Social Democratic Liberal Party leader Viliame Gavoka condemned the arrest and deportation of Professor Ahluwalia and his wife as “barbaric treatment”.

The University of the South Pacific Staff Union and Association of USP Staff issued a joint statement today expressing “grave concern and disgust at the FijiFirst government’s” action.

“We are alarmed by the way that the government of Fiji broke into the vice-chancellor’s residence in the middle of the night (03.02.21) and orchestrated the removal of VCP Pal and his wife,” the unions said.

“The manner in which the VCP and his wife were removed is a violation of human rights and due process.

“Given the seriousness of the decision, we demand the Fiji government … provide the justification for this Gestapo tactic.”

The unions said USP was a regional organisation like Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, SPREP, FFA, SPC and demanded the same respect given to any regional organisation.

A future in Pacific journalism in the age of 'media phobia' - USP media awards

Fiji Sun managing editor business Maraia Vula (middle) flanked by USP Journalism coordinator
Dr Shailendra Singh (left), joint winners Koroi Tadulala and Elizabeth Osifelo
and Professor David Robie (right). Image: Harry Selmen/Wansolwara

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.

Kia Ora Tatou and Ni Sa Bula

For many of you millennials, you’re graduating and entering a Brave New World of Journalism … Embarking on a professional journalism career that is changing technologies at the speed of light, and facing a future full of treacherous quicksands like never before.

When I started in journalism, as a fresh 18-year-old in 1964 it was the year after President Kennedy was assassinated and I naively thought my hopeful world had ended, Beatlemania was in overdrive and New Zealand had been sucked into the Vietnam War.

And my journalism career actually started four years before the University of the South Pacific was founded in 1968.

Being a journalist was much simpler back then – as a young cadet on the capital city Wellington’s Dominion daily newspaper, I found the choices were straight forward. Did we want to be a print, radio or television journalist?

The internet was unheard of then – it took a further 15 years before the rudimentary “network of networks” emerged, and then another seven before computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web and complicated journalism.

The digital media revolution, a free press and student journalism

Keynote speaker and former University of the South Pacific Journalism Programme head Professor David Robie with the FALE Storyboard Award winner for best regional reporting, ‘Ana Uili. David and his wife, Del, donated this West Sepik storyboard for the awards. Photo: Lowen Sei/USP

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.

Finally a review for the Fiji Media Council - but will it do the job?

HARD on the heels of the Fiji regime's latest PR debacle this week by kicking out one of the finest Pacific journos - TVNZ's Barbara Dreaver (pictured) - a review of the Media Council is finally officially on the table. This is something that has been drastically needed for some time to restore some balance into the Fiji media landscape - and to help blunt the regime's continued assault on media freedom. The $10,000 Ausaid-funded exercise will have a reasonable three-member team on the job. Australian Press Council executive secretary Jack Herman, lawyer and former Fiji Electoral and Boundaries Commissioner Barrie Sweetman and the chairperson of the Pacific Centre for Public Integrity, Suliana Siwatibau, will begin the four-day review on January 19. But will four days and a limited terms of reference allow them do justice to the task? Hardly. Café Pacific has previously pointed to the 2007 New Zealand Press Council review (first in 30 years) as a good benchmark for such a controversial mission. (A research paper comparing the Fiji and New Zealand self-regulatory media climates is being published in the next edition of Fijian Studies.)

Undoubtedly, this Fiji panel will come up with a far more robust report and recommendations than the discredited Jim Anthony report. But its limited brief is unlikely to satisfy those civil society groups and commentators who are highly critical of the Fiji media, nor is it likely to quell the regime's frustration with what it sees as a one-sided news media industry.

The muted terms for reference for the Fiji media review include looking into:

• how the Fiji Media Council has carried out its responsibilities as provided for under the constitution
• the complaints process
• the relationship with the government
• its responsibilities to the public
• the administration of the council and the role and remuneration of the chairman and secretary
• the funding of the council

Probably the most insightful commentary about what ought to be done with the Fiji Media Council was presented last month by Fiji Times associate editor Sophie Foster at the University of the South Pacific journalism awards.

• Barbara Dreaver tells her story
• Fiji media group up for review
• Alarm sounds again for media freedom in Fiji

Pacific j-schools and the sad fate of UPNG

Hard to believe, but the South Pacific has just had its first regional journalism school
workshop - 33 years after the first j-school was established. The University of Papua New Guinea led the way in 1975 - the heady year of independence - with a j-school established with NZ aid by the late Ross Stevens. Sadly, Ross would have turned in his grave if he saw the state of UPNG's j-school today. In his time (1975-77) on the Waigani campus, the teaching was in a creative "dungeon" in the bowels of the Michael Somare library. Today, journalism is housed in the relatively recent Ulli Beier building - in an air conditioned multi-purpose lab - but with no sign of actual journalism. Five e-Macs lacking a printer and a network. Hardly the stuff of a newsroom. Gone is any sign of the history and tradition of what was once the finest journalism school newspaper in the Pacific - Uni Tavur (first Pacific j-paper to win the Ossie award for newspapers in 1995, competing against Australian and NZ publications). That success was during my era at UPNG when I negotiated with the Post-Courier to print the paper every fortnight for 12 editions a year. Thanks OP for your great support in those days!

What is a journalism school without its own press and broadcast programmes? It's hard to imagine that UPNG has 100 j-students plus these days. What do they do? And what is their employment ratio? There are simply not enough jobs. Still, I was pleased to see many of my former students doing so well in the media, people like Titi Gabi, news director at PNGFM Ltd, and Jackie Kapigeno, news editor at The National, and her deputy, Christine Pakakota. Well done team! Good to see Freddy Hernandez still going strong in The National newsroom - check out his letters from Moresby. And a delight to see Jada and team at Wantok.

Now let's not get too nostalgic about PNG. Back to UNESCO and Abel Caine - they deserve a big bouquet for getting this much belated workshop off the ground. And already the second such workshop is in their sights for next August at the PINA convention in Vanuatu. Although some j-schools are more fortunate than others in the region, many of the issues about facilities and resources (including human) are familiar to everybody. And a sharing of issues and a draft plan for the future is encouraging for Pacific j-education. In my book, the only downside of the workshop was the failure of the new polytechnic j-schools to get their act together (apart from Fiji Institute of Technology, which was well-represented by Elia Vesikula) and be represented. Invitations to Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu were wasted. I wonder what possessed AusAID to lash out money on establishing these new schools when the existing j-programmes are so under-resourced as it is. There are simply not enough facilities and human resources to go around all the Pacific schools. The University of the South Pacific with the only regional regional j-programme has the capacity to continue running courses for everybody, providing the industry backs USP to the hilt. Its postgraduate programme is also developing quite nicely. The sheer scale of PNG means both Divine Word (especially) and UPNG have much to offer. But UPNG needs a huge injection of assistance to get it back to anywhere near its former status as the leading j-school in the region (see my book Mekim Nius for the history). Maybe UNESCO could offer a volunteer for a two-year project as well as resources?

Pictured: Top: "Behind bars" - symbolic of post-coup Fiji today. But this is now a sign of the security times in PNG. USP's Shailendra Singh and FIT's Elia Vesikula offer us the caged look at a downtown Moresby jewellery store. Above: Earlier in the day, Vesikula and PINA's Matai Akauola left us in no doubt with Fiji TV's ownership of EmTV when they took over the news readers desk for a laugh! Photos: David Robie

• PNG minister calls for more investigative journalism for the Pacific
• Journalism school lacks resources, lecturer
• Wantok's Jada and two of his characters - Kanage and Toro