EDITORIAL: Terrorism and democracy

Abstract

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.