Asia Pacific Media Network News Updates #1/2023 – 4 January 2023

Kia Ora Whānau,
Hepi Niu Yia Olgeta!

A few quick updates on Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) activities, happenings and future events:

Key upcoming dates:
APMN AGM (date TBC in early April)
Submissions for next PJR edition close: March 31, 2023
Publication of next PJR edition: July 2023
Note: Illustrations are on the newsletter PDF. Email the APMN secretary, Khairiah Rahman, if you would like a copy.

1 Tatatarakihi: The Children of Parihaka, 5 November 2022
To commemorate the anniversary of the invasion by the British militia in 1881 of the peaceful settlement of Parihaka, events are held throughout Aotearoa around the date of November 5.  Last year APMN’s chair, Heather Devere, was privileged to be at the free screening of the film  Tatatarakihi:The Children of Parihaka organised at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth. 

This documentary is only available for viewing if there is someone authorised by the Parihaka community to present and tautoko the participants and ancestors whose message of peace resistance is upheld to this day. Attendees were asked to bring homemade bread to share symbolising the bread baked  as a peaceful gift for the invaders in 1881.

Te Kawenata o Rongo Deed of Settlement of 2017 records the beginning of a reconciliation process between Parihaka and the Crown and gives an historical account in Māori and English.More information http://www.justice.govt.nz

Image: Heather Devere

2 Independent Australia report features APMN, 4 December 2022
Member Lee Duffield’s report in the Independent Australia, “Pacific Media Centre gutted in blow to journalism in the Pacific Islands”, about the development of APMN out of the ashes of the Pacific Media Centre has been well received and has been widely republished around the region. Lee noted:

“The centre along with its counterpart at the University of Technology Sydney, called the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (ACIJ) [which featured other APMN members Wendy Bacon and Chris Nash] worked in the area of journalism as research, applying journalistic skills and methods, especially exercises in investigative journalism. The ACIJ produced among many investigations, work on the reporting of climate policy and climate science and the News of the World phone hacking scandal. It also was peremptorily shut down, three years ahead of the PMC. 

“Both centres were placed in the journalism academic discipline, a ‘professional’ and ‘teaching’ discipline that traditionally draws in high-achieving students interested in its practice-led approach …

“The new NGO in Auckland, the APMN, has found a good base of support across the Pacific communities, limbering up for a future free of interference, outside the former university base.”

Lee reflected on the implications for future journalism, academic as well as media freedom, and the quality of media? “Hostility towards specific professional education for journalism exists fairly widely.
Link to the article: https://bit.ly/3ClBG4u

Image: Khairiah A. Rahman

3 APMN at the JEANZ 2022 conference, Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau, 7/8 December 2022
The 2022 Journalism Education and Research Association of New Zealand (JEANZ) annual conference, was facilitated by Massey University and held at AUT on 7-8 December, 2022. Laurens Ikinia, Khairiah A Rahman and Phillip Cass (pictured above centre) represented APMN at the conference. Laurens Ikinia attended and participated in the session on the first day, and media columnist Gavin Ellis (also an APMN member) attended on the first day as well.

Philip Cass, editor of Pacific Journalism Review, presented his paper on “Pacific Islander communities and anti-vaccination theories”. He discussed how the Tongan diasporic community in New Zealand is vulnerable to online financial scams and also makes a case for the community’s vulnerability to anti-vaccination theories.

APMN secretary and PJR assistant editor Khairiah A Rahman presented her research on “Terror reportage and representation of the Muslim identity in New Zealand Media three years on from the Christchurch mosque attacks”. There was inappropriate focus on the Muslim identity in the narratives that appeared to link Islam to terrorism, despite information to the contrary. 

She noted that order and headlines are key to accurate representation and recommends that media consult key contacts in Muslim organisations for accuracy when terror reportage involves the Muslim identity.

Khairiah was recently appointed as a  research committee member of Aotearoa New Zealand’s National Centre for Research Excellence (He Whenua Taurikura) on Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism. The Committee comprises eight academics from across the country with a portfolio duration of two years.
More information: http://bit.ly/3GeQwLp

Screenshot: JMAD Report 2022

4 Aotearoa New Zealand Media Ownership 2022 Report, December 2022
Our associated current affairs publication, Asia Pacific Report, a portal partnership between APMN members Selwyn Manning and David Robie, was covered in two sections of the latest survey, in the Print and Online Media section (p. 60) and the Pacific media section (p. 79):

“The Asia Pacific Report news website (asiapacificreport.nz) was launched by AUT’s Pacific Media Centre in 2016 in a joint venture with journalist Selwyn Manning’s company, Multimedia Investments Ltd. The site was edited by Professor David Robie and included work produced by postgraduate journalism students. After the departure of Robie from Auckland University of Technology in 2020, the not-for-profit site became owned by Robie’s Asia Pacific Network and Multimedia Investments Ltd. Robie remains editor and the site attracts work from journalists, student journalists, and
academics from around the Asia-Pacific region. It aims to provide an independent Asia-Pacific voice telling stories that address justice issues for the marginalised and providing an educational media resource and Asia-Pacific journalism experience for students and graduates (Asia Pacific Report, n.d.)” (p. 60)

It would have been nice of the JMAD team to have cited an actual comprehensive academic journal article about APR rather than just citing the “About” webpage. Incidentally, the JMAD report got it wrong that the site became “owned” after David’s retirement. It was always owned by David and Selwyn. JMAD has confused APR with the Pacific Media Centre’s own media website:  https://pmc.aut.ac.nz/ -- they could have checked with us.

The 2018 APR academic article: https://doi.org/10.22146/ikat.v2i1.37395
The latest JMAD media report: http://bit.ly/3X6shWq

Image: Del Abcede/APMN

5 Launch of ‘Peacemonger: Owen Wilkes: International Peace Researcher’, December 16
APMN member David Robie spoke at the Auckland launch of this book, dedicated to the life and mahi of the extraordinary peace researcher Owen Wilkes, who was a key person in the movement for a nuclear-free Aotearoa and a nuclear-free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement in the 1980s and died suddenly in 2005. Peace campaigners, activists and NFIP stalwarts were among those who gathered at the launch in Grey Lynn’s Trades Hall. A further launch featuring co-author May Bass and investigative journalist Nicky Hager will be held in Wellington on February 14. David also published an end-of-year Pacific Wrap.
More information: http://bit.ly/3VHypne

6 Pax Christi newsletters and peace social media, 2022
Member Del Abcede continued her collaborative work with other NGOs such as Pax Christi Aotearoa and WILPF and with peacemaker social media editing. Pax Christi linked to Benny Wenda’s West Papuan Christmas message. Support has also been given to the activities of our Mt Roskill partner and hosts, Whānau Community Centre and Hub. Thanks to Rachael Mario, Nik Naidu, Red Tsounga, Laurens Ikinia and many others.

Keep the vision!

Ngā mihi

David Robie
Deputy Chair (APMN)