Pacific Islands: Media on a short leash

Media Helping Media - a free, global resource for media development - Pacific media on a short leash

By Alex Kirby
Wednesday, 24 September 2008

Never having been to the South Pacific, I’d imagined it a sleepy, peaceful region without a care in the world (aside perhaps from rising sea levels). If only... It’s certainly a place where many journalists have learnt the hard way to tread carefully, and where a night-time knock on the door can still send a real shiver down the spine.

I was put right about local realities when a meeting of Pacific journalists I was attending, the Pacific Media and Human Rights Summit, held in April, ended by declaring its "grave concern about incidents of violence and intimidation directed at Pacific media workers in the course of their job".

The meeting was held in Apia, the capital of Samoa, and was part of a project organised jointly by the New Zealand Human Rights Commission and the Pacific Co-operation Foundation .

"Report something someone powerful doesn’t like, and you may find a fist in your face", one delegate told the meeting.

"If you refuse to disclose your sources, you are liable to find yourself behind bars within 24 hours. And don’t even bother to think about due process."
"If you refuse to disclose your sources, you are liable to find yourself behind bars within 24 hours. And don’t even bother to think about due process."

First-hand accounts from other Pacific nations showed that similar repression is relatively widespread, prompting the summit communique to condemn political interference in editorial decision-making.

Beyond that, it called for better resources for journalists, and for governments to abandon the constraints some impose on reporters who try to reach and question officials.

This sort of repression-by-obstruction amounts sometimes to a blank refusal by government delegates to tell journalists back home what is happening at international conferences they are attending.

The summit’s proposals included freedom of information legislation, and better training for journalists, provided in partnership with Pacific media associations. It urged an independent news and current affairs service as an essential tool for democracy. I wonder who’s listening?