fast forward 2015 pacific islands media

fast forward . twenty fifteen

ff.2015
DRAFT news paradigm for pima

Overview of proposed long term programmes under an expanded Pacific Islands Media Association, focused on emerging opportunities in foreign assistance.

2015 is target date for tripling of foreign aid spending by Australia and New Zealand.

PIMA can facilitate this if a news paradigm is adopted towards ongoing assessment, research and evaluation.

summary
background
fast forward to 2015
from here … to there
next step
next steps …
biggest challenge
transparency tools
case study
aid targets
weakness, strength
conclusion
references

by jason brown, acting secretary, pima

march 2008

summary (draft)

After six years of solid if relatively low key activity, PIMA, the Pacific Islands Media Association faces issues familiar to many non-governmental organisations.

Low membership. Almost zero funds. Absence of capacity at secretariat level. Serious time constraints among voluntary executives and members. Industry sector fragmentation.

Answers to those challenges may lie in partnering with homeland Pacific Islands ahead of OECD aid targets signed by New Zealand and Australia.

background (draft)

Accepted or conventional wisdom is that PIMA exists in a highly competitive civic sector.

What little funding has been accessed is seen as part of a generally difficult environment for NGO capacity building.

Currently, there are few if any sources of major funding seen as being accessible, easily or otherwise.

fast forward to 2015 (draft)

By 2015, PIMA co-manages multimillion programmes in the island region, partnering with homelands; breaking ground across all sectors of the media industry – news, music, and arts generally.

Journalists use their own regional body to regain independence of information flows.

Reinvigorated public broadcasters build training hubs for ethics-based ITT, information transformation techniques, leading to an explosion of e-commerce creativity in Aotearoa and across the island region.

from here … to there (draft)

As it currently stands, PIMA lacks anything near enough technical capacity to manage multimillion programmes and projects.

What PIMA can do, however, is work towards a role where we facilitate funding towards projects that, properly resourced, form part of long term programmes.

In other words, PIMA provides policy and funding – other people, businesses, NGOs, and so forth provide the technical expertise and detail.

next step (draft)

There is a natural – and healthy – caution when it comes to think-big projects. But there are signs that New Zealand, for one, is being overly cautious – it is one of just six countries without even a schedule for meeting 2015 targets towards 0.7% of gross domestic product being spent on official development assistance.

The next step for PIMA executives is to decide whether or not this kind of proposal merits further debate. 

Caution is wise, but New Zealand and Australia will triple their aid budgets, existing groups seize opportunities, and new groups created to fill gaps not being plugged.

next steps … (draft)

Executive members of PIMA may agree with elements of this proposal and decide there is some merit to looking further into suggestions here.

If so, then a second step would be for members to begin outlining, through executive meetings, email, online wiki and other forums, what areas and activities PIMA could get involved in regionally – an industry wish list.

A third step would be for PIMA to formally seek funding for the executive to conduct a scoping exercise of media futures here and around the region, and how PIMA might continue enhancing the media and arts industry.

“biggest challenge” (draft)

Millions of aid dollars are already piling up across the region due to a lack of "technical capacity."

“The biggest challenge is having the systems and human resources required for effective financial oversight. To some extent there appears to be a tension or conflict between fiscal responsibility and control and performance management in relation to functions,” states NZAID, in a peer review of aid processes last year. 

In 2005, there was close to $10 million unspent across Pacific Islands. 

applying transparency tools (draft)

Ten million dollars is a lot of money for small island communities to miss out on due to a lack of “effective” financial oversight.

As the 2015 deadline looms closer, an option may be for Australia and New Zealand to ‘spend’ aid dollars safely by depositing funds into third party accounts, any pay-out depending on aid recipients putting proper finance protocols into place.

This is where organisations like PIMA can step in – by providing access to emerging technologies like RSS and email-2-web auto-publishing tools of total transparency as an interim and radical new method of finance monitoring.

what a PIMA project might look like / case study (draft)

An immediate past president, John Utanga, for example, might remain sufficiently enthused by PIMA to make a donation, straight into our bank account.

His donation triggers an email from our bank account, automatically publishing as a webpage, all within seconds of the deposit being made. 

Technology for such transparency already exists and is in use by one agency - imagine if PIMA took a leadership role in promoting such transparencies among media, arts and community groups? 

aid targets (draft)

That’s one example of a project. Again, how do we get from here to there? Not by waiting for government. Ahead of its biggest ever expansion of aid spending, NZAID’s strategic plan for 2005 to 2010 is just five pages long – two if you take away opening index and title pages.

As indicated, New Zealand must triple its aid spend within the next seven years, Australia required to cough up similar amounts. It bears repeating that this represents an increase from roughly one billion to three billion dollars.

First steps outlined above refer to process – perhaps the most difficult part will be in making enough room in our minds for potential outcomes.

weakness as strength (draft)

There has been some frustration expressed by former executives at the difficulties of applying volunteer paradigms to a nascent industry like ours.

In one respect, however, this weakness is also a strength – former PIMA executives have done the hard yards, stayed on track and on message for more than half a decade – no small feat – and this provides donors and other ‘stakeholders’ compelling evidence of commitment. 

Now is the time to capitalise on those solid foundations and welcome partnerships between ourselves, home island organisations and donor communities.

Conclusion (draft)

A mantra coined for 2008 by new PIMA president Aaron Taouma was “think big, act small and fill out forms” – here is a draft framework.

• Supporting development of industry capacity
  
• Anticipating trends towards greater regionalism
  
• Advocating media centrality in foreign assistance 
  
• Facilitating aid targets set for 2015

As a journalist, I see value in arguing for media centrality and strategic importance of ethically-based independent information. Not so much new paradigms, then, as a news paradigm for PIMA.

references (draft)

www.poverty.com
avaiki - aid levels put nz, oz in dirty half dozen

oecd - dac peer review of new zealand 2005

nzaid - improving service delivery - vanuatu 2007

nzaid - improving service delivery – vanuatu (html link)
nzaid - towards excellence in aid delivery 2005

nzaid - towards a strategy for the pacific islands region 2002

nzaid - ministerial review of progress 2006

nzaid - the pacific strategy 2007-2015

pacific strategy 2007 – 2015 (PDF)

. . .

letter: is it news or not?

LETTER

to the editor, Matangi Tonga
22 Jun 2007, 10:11
Suva, Fiji:

Editor,

I am annoyed at your rebuttle to Ngalu Fusimalohi and Peter Lomas' letter without actually answering the question.

Ngalu simply points out whether or not his father's award merits news. You have gone to a lengthy explanation on what took place at the PINA Congress and the cross firing of the Board members. Peter Lomas with hindsight furnishes you with the missing pieces and how the Board came about making its decision. I can only assume that you did not agree with the decision to award to Tavake Fusimalohi the PINA Media Freedom Award. Tavake Fusimalohi is a pioneer broadcaster and was once labelled by Islands Business as the region's Radio King. His reputation speaks for itself. However, as Ngalu puts it, the media can agree to disagree on any issues, but the media is still obligated to report what is news. The only fact that prevents you from reporting what is news is if the news itself is false. I cannot agree that this news piece is false as it was widely covered here in Fiji by Fiji Times, Fiji Sun, Islands Business, Pacnews and Sky TV. In the region, this item was covered by Radio New Zealand, Radio Australia, Solomon Star, PNG Post Courier, Samoa Observer and Media Watch. As a Tongan I am proud to read and to listen to news of Tongan people's achievements, hence I too am skeptical at your decision not to cover this item in your news service. I hope the current political situation in Tonga is not affecting your better judgement as a journalist.

Piveni Piukala

piveni@hotmail.com

Editor's note:
We believe that the news of the controversial Honiara award was the fact that it was NOT awarded by the 2006-07 PINA Board. The presentation was out of order, as I explained in my note to Peter Lomas's letter.

It was because Tavake was an innocent bystander, as I repeat, caught in the crossfire between the PINA Board and the people who decided to give him an award, that we did not seek to embarrass him by publishing the news story that the award was NOT presented by the PINA Board who had carefully considered and made the awards decisions in April, appropriately, before the conference.

The fact that many of the board members were unable to attend the Honiara conference should not have made any difference to the decisions that had already been made. The people who decided not to respect those decisions should have considered the effect their actions would have on Tavake.

News is not a public relations exercise to flatter people, but we had let the public relations people from Honiara have their say in the region, unchallenged, until Ngalu insisted that we reveal the fact that his father's award was out of order.

The threats of physical violence and threats of punishment that we have received from people who are insisting that we publish the public relations version of the story, simply reflects the sad state of journalism in Tonga, where denunciation of individuals by certain media has become commonplace. These threats have become so blatant that they have been reported to the police. - Editor, Matangi Tonga Online.

PINA controversy: the honiara award

The Honiara Award

15 Jun 2007, 12:15


Honiara, Solomon Islands:

Editor,

Your response to Ngalu Fusimalohi's letter about his father Tavake Fusimalohi getting the 2007 PINA Pacific Media Freedom Award tells only part of the story. This is probably because, unfortunately, you were not able to be in Honiara for the biennial Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) convention.

The reality is:
Five of the six members of the 2005-2007 PINA board did not attend the convention and biennial general meeting. Members were not happy about this. An almost entirely new board was then elected for 2007-2009. The decision to award the 2007 PINA Pacific Media Freedom Award was made after discussions at the Honiara convention.

This was then unanimously awarded to Tavake after consultation between:
a. the new PINA president, Joseph Ealedona, managing director of Papua New Guinea's National Broadcasting Corporation.
b. the only member of the 2005-2007 PINA board reelected, Matai Akauola, editor of the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation;
c. the president of the convention hosts and organisers, Media Association of Solomon (MASI), John Lamani. John, as you know, is publisher of the Solomon Star, and like you a previous winner of the PINA Pacific Media Freedom Award. He is also a former PINA vice president and one of those who built PINA.

There was also disappointment in Honiara during the planned special convention session on the media freedom situation in Tonga. The Tongan news media were conspicuous by their absence. Steven Vete was the only Tongan to be found in the convention hall when this session took place.
Those from Tonga who stayed away from the Solomons missed an outstanding convention, and warm non-stop MASI hospitality. MASI, in organising the convention, set a new high standard for future hosts to aim for.

The next PINA convention is in Port Vila, Vanuatu, in July 2009. Hopefully, you and others from the Tongan news media will be able to rejoin your colleagues from around the region at this.

It would be good to see you all there.

With best regards,

Peter Lomas
peteralomas@hotmail.com

Editor's note:
The presentation was out of order, and the new Board should wait for their turn at the 2009 Vanuatu PINA Convention, when they can present awards.

PINA controversy: editor response

My father:

Editor's note: I sympathize with your sentiment about your father's Media Freedom Award, but Tavake is an innocent bystander who has been caught in a cross fire between the PINA Board and the organising committee of the 2007 PINA convention in Honiara.

I was a member of the PINA Board, representing the national media organisations in the board when we finalised the program and all the media awards for this year at the end of April. It was agreed upon by the PINA Board that there would be no Media Freedom Award this year. Unfortunately, the decision of the board was changed by some people in Honiara who decided to award a Media Freedom Award to Tavake. Following the awards night, which was the last night of the convention, our Board expressed our disappointment over the presentation of the award without the consent of the Board, and its implications for Tavake who is currently awaiting trial charged with defamation and sedition.

So there is nothing personal between me, you and your father and his award. Our position is that it is unfortunate that Tavake was caught in a cross fire between our Board and the people in Honiara who decided to give Tavake a Media Freedom Award."