Café Pacific: Asia-Pacific Network: Books

Pacific Islands Report, the [Fiji] Sunday Times and The National (PNG): May 2001

MEDIA: THE PACIFIC JOURNALIST

Editor and David Robie and contributors Richard Dinnen and Philip Cass hit back at Islands Business editor Laisa Taga's distorted and prejudice review of this book.

Other reviews:
Dec: Ruth Thomas, NZJTO's Noted: "The Pacific Journalist - valuable insights"
Dec: Professor John Herbert, AsiaPacific MediaEducator: "The Pacific Journalist"
Dec 31: Siau Smith, Kiribati Newstar: "Insights into the Pacific media"
July: Professor Mark Pearson, Australian Journalism Review: "The Pacific Journalist" Vol 23 (1) 264-266
July 18: Anthony Mason, Campus Review: "A Pacific point of view"
July 8: Russell Brown, Radio NZ's Mediawatch: "Pacific Report"
June 8: Sam Kaima, TUTW (PNG): "Journalism textbook for the region"
June 1: Ian Boden, executive editor of The National (PNG): "An unusual and insightful book" May 2: Bonner Tito, FM100 (PNG) Breakfast Talkback
May 23: Richard Dinnen, The National (PNG): "Judge a book by its contents"
May 13: David Robie, The Fiji Sunday Times: "Judge a book by its contents"
May: Laisa Taga, Islands Business/Pacific (Fiji): "When a USP book is not necessarily a Pacific book"
April 4: Michael Field, Agence France Press (NZ/Hawai'i): "Pacific reporters play balancing act between culture and stories"
April: Vicky Lepou, Wansolwara (Fiji): "Mangoes, colonists and media"

PHILIP CASS, one of the contributors to The Pacific Journalist, replies to Laisa Taga's Islands Business article in an open letter posted on Pacific Islands Report: RESPONSE TO LAISA TAGA, 12 May 2001.

Laisa Taga's recent article about David Robie's latest book, The Pacific Journalist: A Practical Guide, to which I contributed a chapter, has just come to my attention.

While purporting to review the book, her article is merely the latest in a long series of unwarranted and deeply personal attacks on the USP journalism programme made by a clique of Suva-based journalists.

These people, all of whom have been closely associated with PINA over the years, have taken every and any opportunity over the past few years to attack the programme and its leader, David Robie. It is high time that the media, especially in Fiji, stopped giving credence to every whine that emanates from these people. It is a whine that can be heard clearly behind Laisa Taga's article.

What I find particularly offensive about her article is that she accuses David Robie of being prejudiced, while simultaneously making some very racist arguments about who should be allowed to write about journalism in the Pacific.

She appears to have a very narrow idea about who is acceptable. Certainly nobody deemed an expatriate (which is, let's face it, a polite way of saying white) should be heard and any Pacific Islanders should, on the evidence of her article, come from only a limited number of islands.

Among the list of names she suggested as possible contributors to a book on Pacific journalism I didn't notice anybody from New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Rapa Nui or any of the Micronesian states; nor any Maori, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander journalists. Perhaps they don't count as Pacific Islanders in her eyes.

When I started the journalism student newspaper Wansolwara at USP I chose the name because it meant that everybody who lives in the Pacific is related because they share the same ocean. I believe that very strongly. If you live in the Pacific, or were born there or simply love it, you are bound by the Wansolwara.It doesn't matter if you are Maori, Pakeha, Samoan or Tongan, a Chimbu or from Choiseul, from Truk or Tahiti, kai viti or kai valagi. It doesn't matter if your ancestors were Fijian, Chinese, European or Indian. If you think it does, if you think that the opportunity to write about the Islands should be determined by skin colour, by blood or racial origin, then you are treading the same hate filled path as George Speight.

I carry an Australian passport, but I was born and raised in PNG and have spent half my life working and living in the Pacific. I am proud to call PNG my arsples and I think I have more right to comment on Pacific journalism than anybody from Mauritius that Laisa Taga cares to quote. I certainly have as much right to comment as any of the white expatriates lurking in the PINA undergrowth.

I know that a number of Islander journalists were asked to contribute to the book. Very few of them did. Those who did contribute were joined by journalists who have years of experience in the Pacific and are expert in their field. This is how it should be in a university that strives to meet regional needs and international standards: A marriage of local and global views and skills.

Taga's complaints about the number of Islander journalists represented in its pages are simply a smokescreen. The real complaint is that this is another example of the kind of work that the ageing Suva clique cannot and will never do. They cannot match what has been started at USP, nor the energy and drive of its staff, so they complain instead.

If The Pacific Journalist: A Practical Guide does not satisfy Laisa Taga and those behind her, let them spend a year or two organising and editing a book. Let them start a university course good enough to attract students from all over the Pacific. Let them win awards for their student paper. Let them make sure that their students are exposed to the best of local and international expertise.

If they cannot do these things, then for pity's sake let them shut up and have done.

Yours,

Philip Cass
College of Communication and Media Sciences
Zayed University
P.O. Box 4783
Abu Dhabi
United Arab Emirates
(Lecturer in journalism USP - 1995-97)
Email: Philip.Cass@zu.ac.ae

BOOK REVIEW, published in the [Fiji] Sunday Times on 13 May 2001 in response to a reprint of Laisa Taga's article in that paper on May 6.

I REFER to your feature (ST, 6/5) "When a book is not a book' by Laisa Taga and would like to correct several misrepresentations.

This book, The Practical Journalist: A Practical Guide was produced by the University of the South Pacific Journalism Programme for the benefit of our students undertaking courses and for other Pacific journalists interested in being informed.

Had Ms Taga actually read the book and not just the chapter on Fiji, she would have found the contributors are from the Pacific region and have had a deep and long commitment to regional journalism.

Their common ground is that almost all of them are professional journalism educators and/or working journalists involved in developing the USP journalism programme, or have contributed expertise from the University of Papua New Guinea and Divine Word University journalism programmes.

If Ms Taga was open-minded, she would learn from these contributors.

Three other Pacific Island contributors, including two from Ms Taga's "preferred" list did not produce planned chapters in time for the publishing deadline.

There is plenty of scope for other books on Pacific media.

I suggest she gets together with some of the people she lists and produces her own contribution.

David Robie
Journalism Coordinator
University of the South Pacific
Suva, Fiji

JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS CONTENTS, letter to the editor by Richard Dinnen in The National (PNG) on 23 May 2001 in reply to Laisa Taga's republished Islands Business article.

I NOTE the review of the book The Pacific Journalist, published in The National on May 8. As one of the "expatriate" contributors to the book maligned in this review, I feel moved to make a few points.

All contributors are from the Pacific region, and all have demonstrated a commitment to Pacific journalism for many years. Three other Pacific journalists, including two on the list of names published in your review, were asked to contribute to the book but did not deliver in time for publication.

The review does not address the content of the book, and instead dismisses it as unworthy because the reviewer disapproves of the contributors. In my view, her disapproval stems from prejudices she holds against the contributors, which she should have disclosed in your review but but did not.

The tone of the review has more to do with long-running tension between media organisations in the region that it does with the content of the book. That is unfair.

Ms Taga's preference for strictly local writers tends to undermine The National's use of her review. If we accept her reasoning, we must ask why The National chose to publish a review written by a Fijian. Ms Taga would surely have preferred it is a Papua New Guinean journalist had written your review.

The book was intended to be a means by which journalists in the Pacific region can share their skills and experiences, to help each other and the next generation of journalists now learning the craft. It would be a great shame if the book is to be rubbished for reasons that don't stand up to the journalistic scrutiny we all believe is appropriate in our daily work.

I urge Papua New Guineans to make up their own minds.

Richard Dinnen
Port Moresby

'The Pacific Journalist -- A Practical Guide' edited by David Robie ISBN 982 01 0385 1, is 374 pages and liberally illustrated. The cost is US$25 and the book can be ordered online at The University of the South Pacific Book Centre or by fax to (679) 303265.Ê

David Robie is editor of this book and journalism coordinator at the University of the South Pacific; Richard Dinnen is the ABC's correspondent in Papua New Guinea.

Return to Asia-Pacific Network index