Preface

Lord, said David, since you do not needus, why did you create these two worlds?Reality replied: O prisoner of time, Iwas a secret treasure of kindness andgenerosity, and I wished this treasureto be known, so I created a mirror: itsshining face, the heart; its darkened back,the world; The back would please you ifyou've never seen the face. (…)Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, from the poem ‘Be Lost in a Call’ in Love is a Stranger (translated by Kabir Helminski). Threshold Books, 1993.

Roimata Toroa

I n Te Ao Mãori, the Toroa (albatross) is sacred. Roimata Toroa, albatross tears, is a widely used tukutuku pattern. Derived from the Te Tairawhiti Ngati Porou story of Pourangahua, the pattern speaks of themisadventures of travelers who take shortcuts in haste to get to port. Pourangahua was an agriculturist who traveling a return journey to Aotearoa to grow kumara, gifted to him by Ruakapenga, a tohunga and learned scientist. Lent two pet albatrosses, Harongarangi and Tiungarangi, by Ruakapenga, Pourangahua is given strict instructions on which hazards to avoid, the care of the birds, and a karakia to give thanksgiving for their safe return. In his hurriedness to see his wife Kaniowai, Pourangahua takes a shortcut, runs into a taniwha (a denotation of hazards), and forgets the karakia and fails to care for the birds,leading to their grief and eventual demise. Realising he has dishonoured Ruakapenga, Pourangahua tries to cover his mistake, by belatedly doing the karakia, but it is too late. The damage was done...

Voice of the Voiceless

'The Pacific Islands have long been a refuge,’ wrote celebrated Vanuatu-based investigative photojournalist Ben Bohane in the introduction to his extraordinary 2013 collection The Black Islands, ‘for eccentricforeigners and castaways too, who often fell into one (or several) of these categories: mercenary, missionary or misfit.’...

Pacific Journalism Monographs: Conflict, Custom & Conscience

A group of Melanesian women march behind an anti-mining "NO BCL, NO MINING" banner, across a small field in the now-autonomous region of Bougainville. Their protest is ostensibly unseen by the rest of the world. Their protest efforts are local, gender-specific, indigenous, and part of a wider movement to stop any production on the Panguna copper mine. This conflict claimed an estimated 10,000 lives in the 1990s civil war. This photograph is one of the many that we have selected to mark the 10th anniversary of the Pacific Media Centre in Auckland University of Technology's School of Communication Studies. Fifteen photojournalists and photographers who have worked with the Pacific Media Centre for the past decade have donated their images for this book project. Although the book is not actually for sale, it has been produced as a limited edition for those who have contributed to the PMC. It will also be available in libraries

Conflict, Custom & Conscience

A group of Melanesian women march behind an anti-mining ‘No BCL No Mining’ banner, across a small field in the now-autonomous region of Bougainville. Their protest is ostensibly unseen by the rest of the world. Their protest efforts are local, gender-specific, indigenous, and part of a wider movement to stop any production on the Panguna copper mine. This conflict claimed an estimated 10,000 lives in the 1990s civil war. This photograph is one of the many that we have selected to mark the 10th anniversary of the Pacific Media Centre in Auckland University of Technology’s School of Communication Studies...

Pacific Journalism Monographs No 1: Pacific Media Freedom 2011: A status report

Pacific media freedom has been under siege for more than a decade, particularly since an attempted coup in Fiji in May 2000, when a television station was attacked and ransacked, a foreign journalist was shot and wounded and a local journalist ended up being imprisoned for treason. Since then various Pacific countries, notably Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Vanuatu have faced various periods of media repression. Since the military coup in December 2006, Fiji has faced arguably its worst sustained pressure on the media since the original two Rabuka coups in 1987. The Bainimarama regime in June 2010 imposed a Media Industry Development Decree that enforced draconian curbs on journalists and restrictive controls on foreign ownership of the press. This consolidated systematic state censorship of news organisations that had been imposed in April 2009 with the Public Emergency Regulations that have been rolled over on a monthly basis ever since. Promised relaxation of state censorship after the imposition of the Decree never eventuated. This research monograph covers the period 1 July 2010-30 June 2011 and examines the trends in the Pacific region. In addition to Pacific Islands Forum member nations, it covers the French Pacific territories and the former Indonesian colony of East Timor and current twin provinces known collectively as West Papua.

Pacific Journalism Monographs No. 6: Watching Our Words: Perceptions of self-censorship and media freedom in Fiji

Ricardo Morris, a journalist and Thomson Reuters fellow from Fiji, has studied the perceptions and practice of self-censorship among journalists from his country in the years following the military coup in December 2006. He focused particularly on the period after the 2014 general election that returned Fiji to democratic rule. In this research monograph, Morris examines how willing Fiji’s media workers are to self-censor, how self-censorship works in newsrooms, and what factors are influential on journalists’ work. The research monograph was first published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and has been published by the Pacific Journalism Monograph series at the Pacific Media Centre by arrangement with the author and institute. Morris is the founder, publisher and editor of independent media company Republika Media Limited in Fiji, which publishes the magazine Repúblika.

Pacific Journalism Monographs No 5: Pacific Way: Auckland's Pasifika community diaspora media

This monograph is the first comprehensive survey of the Pasifika diaspora media in Auckland, the world’s largest ‘Pacific’ city. It starts with a discussion of the concept of ‘diaspora’ and how minority communities have been represented in mainstream media around the world. It then gives a portrait of the Pasifika population of New Zealand, how it has historically been depicted in New Zealand’s various media, and what attempts have been made to improve coverage. The bulk of the report consists of profiles of and interviews with Auckland’s various Pasifika newspapers, radio stations, magazines, TV shows and online media.

Pacific Journalism Monographs No 4: Twentieth anniversary of Pacific Journalism Review

Conference proceedings of the "Political journalism in the Asia-Pacific" conference marking 20 years of publication of Pacific Journalism Review, Auckland University of Technology, 27-29 November 2014. The conference combined presentations and papers by journalists, media educators, human rights advocates and investigative documentary makers. This includes the full conference paper on post-elections in Fiji following eight years of military backed rule since the 2006 coup that caused controversy with the Fiji Media Industry Development Authority (MIDA). The proceedings includes messages from the Vice-Chancellor and Head of Pacific Advancement, full abstracts and programme. The full peer-reviewed papers will be published in the May and October 2015 editions of PJR.

Pacific Journalism Monographs No 3: Kiribati media, science and politics

By Taberannang Korauaba Although the Pacific nation of Kiribati has been identified as one of the most vulnerable countries to the impact of climate change, little is known about the attitudes of the local media and the public toward this issue. This is in contrast to empirical study findings which have shown that the public and the media were aware of the threats posed by climate change. This monograph extracted from the author’s thesis argues that the people of Kiribati are not united over climate change. Browse the author's MCS thesis on Kiribati