Pacific Journalism Review Research Articles

Challenging the Pacific ‘blind spots’ through images

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 (Ngāpuhi), 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 Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand during eight months of Israel’s War on Gaza.

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

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.

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

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. EDITORIAL NOTE: After the editorial of Pacific Journalism Review and the lead article in this edition (Vol 30, No 1&2) about the fate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange were printed, the Australian journalist was set free and he arrived back in Australia after a plea bargain. The winner of his country’s Walkley Award for journalism excellence, Assange was freed by a US federal court in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, on 26 June 2024 after a plea bargain to plead guilty to one charge of violating the US Espionage Act and the judge sentenced him to 62 months, jail time already served in the UK on remand. His 14-year struggle for freedom was over, but his lawyers say they will press for a full US presidential pardon.

REVIEW: Defending the right to confidential sources and whistleblowers

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’.

War on Palestine: How the fates of Gaza and Julian Assange are sealed together

Commentary: Were they being properly reported, two critically important court hearings in February 2024, in London and The Hague, would expose the US ‘rules-based order’ as a hollow sham. Both posed globe-spanning threats to our most basic freedoms. Neither received more than perfunctory coverage in Western establishment media such as the BBC. One was a week-long hearing by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over a United Nations General Assembly request for an advisory opinion over Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and the other was a last-ditch appeal of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange against efforts by the United States to extradite him so that he can be locked away for the rest of his life. EDITORIAL NOTE: After the editorial of Pacific Journalism Review and the lead article in this edition (Vol 30, No 1&2) about the fate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange were printed, the Australian journalist was set free and he arrived back in Australia after a plea bargain. The winner of his country’s Walkley Award for journalism excellence, Assange was freed by a US federal court in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, on 26 June 2024 after a plea bargain to plead guilty to one charge of violating the US Espionage Act and the judge sentenced him to 62 months, jail time already served in the UK on remand. His 14-year struggle for freedom was over, but his lawyers say they will press for a full US presidential pardon.

War on Palestine: How the fates of Gaza and Julian Assange are sealed together

Commentary: Were they being properly reported, two critically important court hearings in February 2024, in London and The Hague, would expose the US ‘rules-based order’ as a hollow sham. Both posed globe-spanning threats to our most basic freedoms. Neither received more than perfunctory coverage in Western establishment media such as the BBC. One was a week-long hearing by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over a United Nations General Assembly request for an advisory opinion over Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and the other was a last-ditch appeal of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange against efforts by the United States to extradite him so that he can be locked away for the rest of his life. EDITORIAL NOTE: After the editorial of Pacific Journalism Review and the lead article in this edition (Vol 30, No 1&2) about the fate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange were printed, the Australian journalist was set free and he arrived back in Australia after a plea bargain. The winner of his country’s Walkley Award for journalism excellence, Assange was freed by a US federal court in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, on 26 June 2024 after a plea bargain to plead guilty to one charge of violating the US Espionage Act and the judge sentenced him to 62 months, jail time already served in the UK on remand. His 14-year struggle for freedom was over, but his lawyers say they will press for a full US presidential pardon.

Tapping on Collective National Trauma

Tapping on Collective National Trauma

EDITORIAL: He waka eke noa: 'In a time of crisis, we're all in this together'

Our roots are firmly based in the Wansolwara—the Pacific—but this edition truly reflects our global range of interests, with contributions from authors in Indonesia, Malaysia, Fiji, Hawai’i, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. We are delighted to bring you a range of global perspectives on the media and journalism and to connect scholars and practitioners, covering everything from conspiracy theories and corruption to newsroom practice, employment, training and much more in between. Although we are separated geographically we all share common interests and common concerns. As this edition of Pacific Journalism Review, once again produced under the auspices of the Asia Pacific Media Network, goes out, the world continues to face threats from war, climate change, disease and the resurgence of rightwing regimes.

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

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

OBITUARY: Tui Rererangi Walsh O’Sullivan: The ‘flying bird in the sky’

In 1977, Tui O’Sullivan became the first woman and the first Māori appointed to a permanent position at what was then the Auckland Technical Institute (it became Auckland University of Technology in 2000). At AUT, she developed the first Women on Campus group. She helped establish the newspaper Password, a publication introducing new English speakers to New Zealand society and culture. She taught courses on the Treaty of Waitangi when the treaty was a subversive idea. She contributed to the change in social and political thought that has brought the treaty—that her tupuna signed—to greater public influence. The justice it promises was a major theme in Tui’s working life. She was also a founding member of the Pacific Media Centre advisory board and advocate for Pacific Journalism Review from 2007 until she retired in 2018.

Fashion, Thresholds, and Borders

Fashion, Thresholds, and Borders

FRONTLINE 4: The murmuration of information disorders: Aotearoa New Zealand‚ mis- and disinformation ecologies and the Parliament Protest

The Parliament Protest from February 2022 to March 2022 was a significant online and offline event in Aotearoa New Zealand. Offline, its physical presence captured the attention of the nation and fuelled debates about ideas of legitimate protest in Aotearoa New Zealand. Online, its data signatures showed never-seen-before popularity with misinformation, disinformation, and extremist thought. In this article The Disinformation Project (https://thedisinfoproject.org/) incorporates quantitative and qualitative data analysis to explore the role misinformation and disinformation played in the nurture and nature of the protest on Parliament grounds. The article also explores how the protest was projected on social media, disinformation and misinformation ecologies associated with it, and lasting impacts on social cohesion, identity, news media and democracy in Aotearoa New Zealand.
 This article has been published with permission from The Disinformation Project (https://thedisinfoproject.org/), Te Pūnaha Matatini, and Centre for Science in Society, Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington as a collaboration with Pacific Journalism Review: Te Koakoa under the umbrella of PJR’s Frontline critical reflexive journalism programme.

REVIEW: Noted: Disease, drugs and valuable lessons on the hippie trail

Me. And me now. A 1970s Kiwi hippie trail adventure, by Alan Samson. Auckland: Writers Ink, 2021. 296 pages.
 FOR young New Zealanders the OE (Overseas Experience, often pronounced ‘oey’) is a part of their life. The point, however, is that they return. It is a strange phenomenon, but it seems that for many young New Zealanders, there is something inexplicable that calls them back. So it was with Alan Samson, a former Pacific Journalism Review books editor among many journalistic accomplishments,whose wanderings around Asia make up the bulk of this book.

REVIEW: Parents’ letters trace story of triumph and tragedy from Egypt to New Zealand

IN HIS newly released Wars Apart: WWII Letters of Love and Anguish From Cairo to Christchurch, retired award-winning New Zealand journalist and academic Alan Samson tells the love story of his parents through the letters and photographs they exchanged while they were stationed in the Middle East during the Second World War. They later migrated to New Zealand and their story continued from Cairo to Christchurch. Cairo was the place in which his parents began their story, which continued as they adapted to the diversity and triumphs of a new life in New Zealand. A journalism lecturer who taught at Wellington’s Massey University for more than a decade and is a former Pacific Journalism Review reviews editor, Samson uses his academic research skills and journalistic expertise in telling this story of love and anguish, hope and despair, of his own mother and father who had distinguished service records with the South African and British armies.

EDITORIAL: Fighting self-delusion and lies

WELCOME to this double edition of Pacific Journalism Review, the second to appear as an independent publication. Since we last appeared, a world already groaning under the weight of COVID and climate change has had to endure the added burden of Russia’s murderous and totally unjustified attack on Ukraine. Ukraine has found allies all over the world, not least from those concerned that Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who now apparently thinks of himself as a Tsar, has used the war as an excuse to try to crush even further the few remaining free journalists and artists surviving in his mafia fiefdom.

REVIEW: Bookshelf: Reading something as flimsy as a novel

In this section of Pacific Journalism Review we ask our regular contributors to pick three books that have played an important part of their academic, professional or writing lives. In this issue, the selection is by veteran Pacific affairs reporter MICHAEL FIELD.
 Tales of the Tikongs, by Epeli Hau’ofa. Honolulu, US: University of Hawai’i Press. 1994. 104 pages. ISBN 9780824815943.
 Man Alone, by John Mulgan. Auckland, NZ: Penguin Random House. 1939/2002. 224 pages. ISBN: 9780143020011.
 Typee, by Herman Melville. Auckland, NZ: Penguin Random House. 1846/2001. 116 pages. ISBN: 9780375757457.
 NON-FICTION is, mostly, my thing. It takes a bit to persuade me to devote precious book time to something as flimsy as a novel. Yet, at the top of my list of influential books is Epeli Hau’ofa’s Tales of the Tikongs, published in 1994. The one defence for its inclusion in this list is that it never felt like fiction: it was unerringly accurate when it came to the world of Pacific states and foreign aid. Hau’ofa followed it with Kisses in the Nederends in 1995. Five years later, on the Suva campus at the University of the South Pacific, I asked him why his satire ran to only two volumes. He replied that he had no desire to be the Pacific Salman Rushdie.

EDITORIAL: Under the pandemic siege

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.

REVIEW: Bookshelf: Guide to best practice journalism in the future

IN THIS edition of Pacific Journalism Review we begin a new section, Bookshelf, where we ask our regular contributors to pick three books that have played an important part of their academic, professional and writing lives. We begin with this selection by retired journalism academic, blogger and regular contributor to these pages, LEE DUFFIELD.
 SuperMedia: Saving Journalism so it can Save the World, by Charlie Beckett. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. 2008. 216 pages. ISBN 9781405179249.
 The Paradox of Power for Journalists: back to the future of news, by Charlie Beckett. London, UK: London School of Economics, 2018. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/2018/11/23/the-paradox-of-power-for-journalism-back-to-the-future-of-news-new-book/

EDITORIAL: Terrorism and democracy

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.

EDITORIAL: Killing the messenger

The statistics globally are chilling. And the Asia-Pacific region bears the brunt of the killing of journalists with impunity disproportionately. Revelations in research published in this edition of Pacific Journalism Review on the trauma experienced by television journalists in the Philippines covering President Rodrigo Duterte’s so-called ‘war on drugs’, or as many describe it, a ‘war on poverty’, with more that 12,000 dead is deeply disturbing (Amnesty International, 2017). While these deaths, allegedly mostly extrajudicial killings, do not relate directly to the murders of journalists, the highest death toll ever of journalists in a mass execution took place in the southern Philippines almost nine years ago.