A snippett about the ChatGPT debate from one of the gurus of investigative journalism, Sheila Coronel, at New York’s Columbia School of Journalism. She reports on social media about a recent assignment brief given by a student to ChatGPT: “Write an obituary for journalism.”
Pacific Beat interviews journalists, including TDB contributor David Robie, on how Fiji has fared under the draconian Media Act that has restricted media freedom over the past decade – and the moves to change the law.
David Robie also blogs at Café Pacific: A veteran journalist known for covering rights abuses in Indonesia’s militarised Papua region says a bomb exploded outside his home yesterday and a journalists group has called it an act of “intimidation” threatening press freedom.
The national news team of Papua New Guinea’s major television channel, EMTV, has walked out in protest over a decision earlier this month to suspend head of news Sincha Dimara for 21 days without pay for alleged insubordination. This is the third ousting of a news manager in five years at EMTV with PNG facing a critical national election in June.
The more that universities can do to equip media graduates with advanced problem-solving skills, the more adept they will be at developing advanced ways of reporting on the pandemic – and other likely pandemics of the future – contesting the merchants of disinformation and reporting on the climate crisis.
A West Papuan envoy who was gagged while addressing the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues two years ago has been blocked again while trying to speak out.
Pushed into the background by the relentless sad statistics and pandemic doomsday stories around the globe are some other stories in the Pacific that normally struggle to get an airing in mainstream media.
Sri Krishnamurthi: “The catalyst for Pacific Media Watch was the jailing of the “Tongan Three” – founding editor of Taimi ‘o Tonga Kalafi Moala, his deputy Filokalafi Akau’ola, and pro-democracy MP ‘Akilisi Pohiva, now Prime Minister of Tonga – for contempt of Parliament in 1996.”
“It is a crime against journalism as these people have seized the power of the editor-in-chief for exercising their political interests.”
A Fretilin-appointed head of Timor-Leste’s public television broadcaster who has been sacked after a change of government says he has been fighting against political interference for years.