PACIFIC ISSUES
TERRORISM TAKES TOLL ON POLITICS

Politics in the South Pacific is increasingly determined by terrorism and this puts a greater demand on the region's media and journalists for more training and professionalism.

By NICOLE JELLARD

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Politics in the South Pacific is increasingly determined by terrorism, a media academic told a meeting of the New Zealand Federation of Graduate Women in Takapuna.

David Robie, a senior journalism lecturer at Auckland University of Technology, said that reality posed a significant challenge to the region's media.

"And yet the New Zealand media's fixation with perceived terrorism abroad blinds us to the very real threats right here on the doorstep in our own region," he said.

Robie, 57, recently returned to Auckland after a decade coordinating journalism programmes at the Universities of the South Pacific (Fiji) and Papua New Guinea.

He was invited to speak by the NZ Federation of Graduate Women in Takapuna in late May.

Federation members further their knowledge by inviting experts, who are leaders in their field, to speak.

Robie went on to talk of a "greater demand on the region's media and journalists for more training and professionalism".

Most Pacific journalists were young, relatively inexperienced and lowly paid, he said.

"Since George Speight's illegal seizure of Parliament, politics in Fiji has remained under the spectre of terrorism," he said.

"While the Speight upheaval cost a relatively modest 15 lives, all Fijian, the fear of it happening again, and the next time being even bloodier, is still a concern today."

Coups or attempted coups, mutinies and internal terrorism were becoming increasingly common, resulting in "government collapse and social despair", he said.

Robie headed a team of student journalists in Suva. The team won several awards from the Journalism Education Association (JEA) of Australia for their coverage of Speight's attempted Fiji coup in May 2000.

His students in Papua New Guinea covered elections and mercenary crises.

Robie is also author of several books, including The Pacific Journalist and Eyes of Fire, about the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.

Nicole Jellard is a North Shore Times Advertiser staff reporter.