Lisa Williams-Lahari is a Pacific journalist and media activist, and is a presenter at the UNESCO World Press Freedom Day events in Queensland Australia. (Photo: World Press Freedom Day 2010 website: www.wpfd2010.org.)

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Lisa Williams in Brisbane.

Pacific women in news journalism, advocacy and media studies are making history in Brisbane, Australia this week. In the first ever meeting of its kind, more than 20 women from 12 Pacific nations are meeting in a ‘Media Freedom@Work’ event aimed at building safety, excellence and leadership networks for Pacific women in media.

The two-day meeting, which began today at the Centre for Communication and Social Change at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, will round off with a mini-workshop on ICTs and online advocacy this Friday, April 30.

The Pacific women will then join more than 300 delegates from around the world attending the UNESCO World Press Freedom Day events being hosted in 2010 in Australia.

“World Press Freedom Day every May 3 is a key date for all journalists, everywhere, and it’s an important chance for regional delegates to introduce the world to the media freedom issues in our own backyard,” says WAVE coordinator Ulamila Wragg.

WAVE, an online network of women in Pacific media, is partnering with the WPFD 2010 organisers at the University of Queensland to lead the Media Freedom@Work activity.

The key objective of the WAVE pre-WPFD activity is to support awareness, understanding, ownership and debate by Pacific women in media of the global and regional commitments to gender and journalism ethics. The meeting will discuss the Brussels Declaration on Ethics, Gender and Equality in the newsroom, along with other global and regional commitments relevant to that outcome, including the SPC/UNESCO and PINA Pacific Women in the Media Action Plan, 2006.

Leading Pacific women in media – including Sharon Baghwan Rolls of FemLINKpacific, Sophie Foster of the Fiji Times, Nanette Woonton of SPREP and Tione Chinula of SPC – will be discussing their experiences in news and media advocacy and rubbing shoulders with journalism students and trainers from PNG, Samoa and Fiji.

“As an inaugural meeting for the Pacific WAVE network, we are keen to benefit from fresh thinking, real experience, and ideas for developing the media industry and its place in the kind of Pacific future which we are seeking,” says Wragg.

“We’re really pleased with the support from AusAID, UQ, and other partners willing to help Pacific women media practitioners develop their awareness of the links between news production, information, choices, human rights and governance,” she says.

Source: Pacific Media Watch.

For More, See the World Press Freedom Day 2010 website.