West Papuan journalist Victor Mambor visiting the Pacific Media Centre this week. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Anna Majavu

The first West Papuan journalist to visit New Zealand has made a call for freedom for West Papua, and for the Indonesian government occupiers to lift the ban on foreign journalists.

Victor Mambor, 39, editor of the Jayapura-based newspaper and website Tabloid Jubi, has spent a week in the country lobbying for support for freedom of media visits to West Papua.

The chairperson of West Papua’s branch of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), Mambor has been travelling around with human rights activist Maire Leadbeater of West Papua Action Auckland and Paul Bensemann, the only New Zealand journalist to have reported from West Papua in recent years. Read more »

Tempo Semanal editor Jose Belo … Timor-Leste heading into a state of self-censorship. Image: Shannon Gillies/PMC

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Shannon Gillies

Media will be silenced and the people will lose their voice if a controversial new Media Law is ratified in one of the Asia Pacific’s newest countries.

Timor Leste’s Parliament on May 6 passed a law that could see local journalists forced to be licensed and foreign reporters blocked at the border.

It has not yet been ratified by President Taur Matan Ruak who has referred the legislation to the Court of Appeal to review the legislation’s constitutionality. Read more »

West Papua journalist and editor Victor Mambor (second from left) with members of the West Papua Action Auckland and Pacific Media Centre during a visit to the PMC office in Auckland. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Anna Majavu

New Zealand Police Minister Anne Tolley and Defence Minister Dr Jonathan Coleman must meet with the first West Papuan journalist to visit New Zealand, says a spokesperson for West Papua Action Auckland.

Victor Mambor, 39, editor of the Jayapura-based newspaper and website Tabloid Jubi, and chairperson of West Papua’s Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) is in New Zealand this week and visited the Pacific Media Centre yesterday.

He will also address a seminar on “West Papua: The Pacific’s secret shame” in Auckland at the weekend. Read more »

Kanak environmental campaigner Florent Eurisouké tells of mining company “dirty tricks” at premiere of Cap Bocage. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Anna Majavu

Indigenous Kanak people in the Cap Bocage area of New Caledonia have “lived in mud and shit for 30 years” as a result of the actions of the Ballande family mining group, a new environmental documentary film reveals.

Cap Bocage: When A Mountain Fell Into The Sea held its world premiere in Auckland at the New Zealand International Film Festival this week.

Directed by AUT television and screen production lecturer and filmmaker Jim Marbrook, the documentary features Kanak environmental activist Florent Eurisouké as he campaigns in an attempt to hold Ballande accountable over a devastating mudslide which polluted a pristine coral reef. Read more »

FLNKS representative Jimmy Naouma and MSG Corporate Development Officer Rose Wete. Image: Jane Mahoney/QUT Journalism

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Harriet Harvey in Noumea

The Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) wants joint action within the Pacific region on three key issues - independence for New Caledonia, reviving the denuclearisation debate, and pressing for international action on climate change.

It is a so-called “mini United Nations”, taking in four governments – Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu – together with the Kanak liberation movement from New Caledonia, the FLNKS. The MSG credo is that each country needs the others, especially to have any kind of voice in world forums, where major powers dominate.

The body got into dispute with the French government ruling New Caledonia, by deciding as early as 1988 that the FLNKS, not France, would be admitted to membership. Read more »

Inside the televised media debate in the Timor-Leste capital of Dili. Image: Shannon Gillies/PMC

Pacific Scoop:
Special Report – By Shannon Gillies in Dili

Confusion reigns over a controversial media law adopted by Parliament but yet to be promulgated in the fledgling Asia-Pacific democracy of Timor-Leste.

Timor-Leste parliamentarians have adopted a new media law that does not differentiate between journalists and social media users, will impose licensing for journalists and a narrow definition of a “journalist” and potentially bars foreign journalists.

Journalists are expected to fall into line with the government’s media definitions and foreign reporters could be blocked at the country’s borders. Read more »

A documentary crew and Pacific Media Watch editor Anna Majavu (left) at the book launching in Auckland tonight. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Anna Majavu

A groundbreaking new book covering Pacific journalism over the past 30 years reveals so many human rights abuses that it has been likened to “an entire series of Game of Thrones”.

Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific, by Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie, was launched at the Auckland University of Technology tonight.

Its publisher, Tony Murrow of Little Island Press, described the book as “like an entire series of Game of Thrones. The shame of it is that it is not a work of fiction”. Read more »

David Robie talks to Te Waha Nui’s Monique McKenzie about the new book.

Pacific Scoop:
News review – By Patrick Craddock in Suva

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”. Read more »

A live audio report of MIDA chairman Ashwin Raj’s press conference today in Suva. Multimedia: PMC

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Anna Majavu

The Fiji state-controlled Media Industry Development Authority (MIDA) has ruled that a Fiji Television is guilty of “hate speech” and could be fined for broadcasting a public meeting at which politicians spoke.

MIDA chairman Ashwin Raj said at a press conference in Suva today he was taking legal advice about the kind of fines that he might levy against Fiji One News, and that the television station would have to issue a public retraction after he ruled that the TV station was in breach of the Media Industry Development Authority (MIDA) decree.

Fiji faces a general election to restore democratic rule on September 17. Read more »

PMC’s Dr David Robie speaking at the climate change seminar. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

Pacific Media Centre:
Report – By Anna Majavu

Journalists must support new models of deliberative journalism and the revival of participatory democracy if they are to play a role in helping combat climate change in the Pacific.

Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie told a seminar at Auckland University of Technology last night that Pacific nations were already in the grip of climate change, unlike the scenarios depicted in Hollywood blockbuster movies which showed climate change as a phenomenon impacting on cities like New York and London in 50 years time.

A major problem in the Pacific is that much climate change reporting comes from Western news agencies and from news sources based in Australia. He cited Australian research indicating at least one major Australian media group giving disproportionate space to climate change denialists. Read more »