Papua New Guinea’s rising voice as opposition candidate for prime minister, East Sepik Governor Allan Bird, has pushed back after addressing recent death threats.
Bird told RNZ Pacific he has declined police protection and is opting to use his own security after his nomination as opposition candidate for prime minister resulted in alleged threats to his personal safety.
“I was informed about 10 days ago of the threats against my life. I’ve heard a few more threats are in fact active,” he said.
“So I thought, probably the best way to declare it would be to put it out in the public domain.”
He said three senior government ministers informed him about the death threats and were no longer contacting him, due to concerns his phone was “being monitored”.
Bird was confident in his security to keep him safe and said whoever was behind the threats had picked on the wrong person.
“My people served with the allied forces in the Second World War. So my grandfather did that. He was uneducated. So picking on me is not a smart thing to do.”
RNZ Pacific has contacted the PNG police for comment after Bird accused authorities of illegally monitoring his phone and looking for dirt to charge and arrest him.
“I have nothing to hide. So, apparently, they haven’t found any dirt.”
PNG riots aftermath “I do understand that they’re trying to connect me as one of the masterminds behind the Black Wednesday day events in Port Moresby.”
He said it would be “almost impossible because I was out of the country prior to that happening. And then I understand they’re looking now at all my travel allowances, so they’re looking at that to see what they can find.”
Regarding the threats, he said: “I’m not too stressed. These are some of the things you expect in PNG, otherwise you wouldn’t be in PNG.”
Bird said he did not trust the country’s police and declined their offer for protection, opting to use his own personal security instead.
“If things get pretty bad in the capital, I will just go back home. But for now, I’m just keeping a low profile, not really moving around, just restricting movements.”
He addressed sceptics who criticised him for attempting to boost his profile to become PNG’s next prime minister.
Bird said he had accepted the nomination as candidate out of “respect to his colleagues.”
‘Asked by my caucus’
“I didn’t put my hand up. I was asked by my caucus.”
He said, the country needed change, even if it was at the expense of his safety.
“Who wants to run around with security guards all the time?
“Whoever gets into the hot seat, whether it’s me or someone else, in all seriousness and honesty will soon to have to deal with these problems, the problems that are begging for solutions, and these are personal criticisms of Prime Minister Marape.”
He said supporters of the nation’s current leader James Marape lacked proper education and said it was “like a cult following”.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
A Papua New Guinea MP who is being touted by the opposition as the next prime minister of the country says “my life is under threat”.
East Sepik governor Allan Bird said that since his nomination, he had been advised of this by a deputy police commissioner, who said they were monitoring the situation.
“All the apparatus of state have been put on full alert to hunt down the most dangerous criminal in PNG: his name is Allan Bird,” he wrote on Facebook.
“This is not the country I was born into, this is not the country the founding fathers envisioned.”
He said “reliable sources” had told him various state institutions had been instructed to try and find anything illegal on him, and charge and arrest him.
Last week, Bird told RNZ Pacific the country needed to decentralise power to deal with its challenges.
He said PNG had “very serious challenges”.
“Anyone who fixes these problems will be hated just like Sir Mekere [Morauta] did 25 years ago. Doing what needs to be done is not pretty, but it has to be done. Someone has to be willing to do the hard things.
“Many countries have problems, but not many countries have all those challenges all at the same time. PNG does so right now.
“If the problems aren’t fixed quickly then they will continue to get worse. Most of our people experience these problems every day now. It’s a struggle for survival.”
Part of Governor Bird’s FB posting about threats to his life on 9 March 2024. Image: Screenshot APR
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Television New Zealand’s proposals to balance its worsening books by killing news and current affairs programmes mean New Zealanders could end up with almost no national current affairs on TV within weeks.
It is a response to digital era changes in technology, viewing and advertising — but also the consequence of political choices.
“I can see that I’ve chosen a good night to come on,” TVNZ presenter Jack Tame said mournfully on his stint as a Newstalk ZB panelist last Wednesday.
The news that TVNZ news staff had been told to “watch their inboxes” the next morning had just broken.
It was less than a week since Newshub’s owners had announced a plan to close it completely in mid-year and TVNZ had reported bad financial figures for the last half of 2023.
The following day — last Thursday — TVNZ’s Midday News told viewers 9 percent of TVNZ staff — 68 people in total — would go in a plan to balance the books.
“The broadcaster has told staff that its headcount is high and so are costs,” said reporter Kim Baker-Wilson starkly on TVNZ’s Midday.
On chopping block
Twenty-four hours later, it was one of the shows on the chopping block — along with late news show Tonight and TVNZ’s flagship weekly current affairs show Sunday.
“As the last of its kind — is that what we want in our media landscape . . . to have no in-depth current affairs show?” said Sunday presenter Miriama Kamo (also the host of the weekend show Marae).
Consumers investigator Fair Go — with a 47-year track record as one of TVNZ’s most popular local shows — will also be gone by the end of May under this plan.
People at TVNZ’s building in central Auckland. Photo: RNZ/Marika Khabazi
If Newshub vanishes from rival channel Three by mid year, there will be just one national daily TV news bulletin left — TVNZ’s 1News — and no long form current affairs at all, except TVNZ’s Q+A and others funded from the public purse by NZ on Air and Te Mangai Paho.
Tellingly, weekday TVNZ shows which will carry on — Breakfast and Seven Sharp — are ones which generate income from “partner content” deals and “integrated advertising” — effectively paid-for slots within the programmes.
TVNZ had made it known cuts were coming months ago because costs were outstripping fast-falling revenue as advertisers tightened their belts or spent elsewhere.
TVNZ executives had also made it clear that reinforcing TVNZ’s digital-first strategy would be a key goal as well as just cutting costs.
Other notable cut
So the other notable service to be cut was a surprise — the youth-focused digital-native outlet Re: News.
After its launch in 2017, its young staff revived a mothballed studio and gained a reputation for hard work — and then for the quality of its work.
It won national journalism awards in the past two years and reached younger people who rarely if ever turn on a television set.
Reportedly, the staff of Re: News staff is to be halved and lose some of its leaders.
The main media workers’ union E tū said it will fight to save jobs and extend the short consultation period.
Some staff made it plain that they weren’t giving up just yet either and would present counter-proposals to save shows and jobs.
In a statement, TVNZ said the proposals “in no way relate to the immense contribution of the teams that work on those shows and the significant journalistic value they’ve provided over the years”.
Money-spinners
But some were money-spinners too.
Fair Go and Sunday still pull in big six-figure live primetime TV audiences and more views now on TVNZ+. Its marketers frequently tell the advertisers that.
TVNZ chief executive Jodi O’Donnell knows all about that. She was previously TVNZ’s commercial director.
So why kill off these programmes now?
TVNZ chief executive Jodi O’Donnell . . . “I’ve been quite open with the fact that there are no sacred cows.” Image: TVNZ
Mediawatch’s requests to talk to O’Donnell and TVNZ’s executive editor of news Phil O’Sullivan were unsuccessful.
But O’Donnell did talk to Newstalk ZB on Friday night.
“I’ve been quite open with the fact that there are no sacred cows. And we need to find some ways to stop doing some things for us to reduce our costs,” O’Donnell told Newstalk ZB.
“TVNZ’s still investing over $40 million in news and current affairs — so we absolutely believe in the future of news and current affairs. But we have a situation right now that our operating model is more expensive than the revenue that we’re making. And we have to make some really tough, tough decisions,” she said.
“We’ll constantly be looking at things to keep the operating model in line with what our revenue is. Within the TVNZ Act it’s clear that we need to be a commercial broadcaster, We are a commercial business, so that’s the remit that we need to work on.
“Our competitors these days are not (Newstalk ZB) or Sky or Warner Brothers (Discovery) but Google and Meta. These are multi-trillion dollar organisations. Ninety cents of every dollar spent in digital news advertising is going offshore. That’s 10 cents left for the likes of NZME, TVNZ, Stuff and any of the other local broadcasters.”
Jack Tame also pointed the finger at the titans of tech on his Newstalk ZB Saturday show.
Force of digital giants ‘irrepressible’ “Ultimately the force of those digital giants is irrepressible. Trying to save free-to-air commercial TV, with quality news, current affairs and local programming in a country with five million people . . . is like trying to bail out the Titanic with an empty ice cream container. I’m not aware of any comparable broadcast markets where they’ve managed to pull it off,” he told listeners.
But few countries have a state-owned yet fully-commercial broadcaster trying to do news on TV and online, disconnected from publicly-funded ones also doing news on TV and radio and online.
That makes TVNZ a state-owned broadcaster that serves advertisers as much as New Zealanders.
But if things had panned out differently a year ago, that wouldn’t be the case now either.
What if the public media merger had gone ahead? A new not-for-profit public media entity incorporating RNZ and TVNZ — Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media (ANZPM) — was supposed to start one year ago this week.
It would have been the biggest media reform since the early 1990s.
The previous government was prepared to spend more than $400 million over four years to get it going.
Almost $20 million was spent on a programme called Strong Public Media, put in place because New Zealand’s media sector was weak.
“Ailing” was the word that the business case used, noting “increased competition from overseas players slashed the share of revenue from advertising.”
But the Labour government killed the plan before the last election, citing the cost of living crisis.
The new entity would still have needed TVNZ’s commercial revenue, but if it had gone ahead, would that mean TVNZ wouldn’t now be sacrificing news shows and journalists?
Tracey Martin who had been named as chair of the board charged with getting ANZPM up and running . . . “Nobody’s surprised. Surely nobody is surprised that this ecosystem is not sustainable any longer.” Image: RNZ/Nate McKinnon
“Nobody’s surprised. Surely nobody is surprised that this ecosystem is not sustainable any longer. Something radical had to change,” Tracey Martin — the chair of the board charged with getting ANZPM up and running — told Mediawatch.
“I don’t have any problem believing that (TVNZ) would have had to change what they were delivering. But would it have been cuts to news and current affairs that we would have been seeing? There would have been other decisions made because commerciality . . . was not the major driver (of ANZPM),” Martin said.
“That was where we started from. If Armageddon happens — and all other New Zealand media can no longer exist — you have to be there as the Fourth Estate — to make sure that New Zealanders have a place to go to for truth and trust.”
What were the assumptions about the advertising revenue TVNZ would have been able to pull in?
“[TVNZ] was telling us that it wouldn’t be as bad as we believed it would be. TVNZ modeling was not as dramatic as our modeling. We were happy to accept that [because] our modeling gave us a particular window by which to change the ecosystem in which New Zealand media could survive to try and stabilise,” Martin told Mediawatch.
The business case document tracked TVNZ revenue and expenses from 2012 until 2020 — the start of the planning process for the new entity.
By 2020, a sharp rise in costs already exceeded revenue which was above $300 million.
And as we now know, TVNZ revenue has fallen further and more quickly since then.
“We were predicting linear TV revenue was going to continue to drop substantially and relatively quickly — and they were not going to be able to switch their advertising revenue at the same capacity to digital,” Martin said.
“They had more confidence than we did,” she said.
The ANZPM legislation estimated it as a $400 million a year operation, with roughly half the funding from public sources and half from commercial revenue.
TVNZ’s submission said that was “unambitious”.
Then TVNZ CEO Simon Power addressing Parliament’s EDSI committee last year on the ANZPM legislation. Image: Screenshot/EDSI Committee Facebook
“If the commercial arm of the new entity can aid in gaining more revenue to reinvest into local content and to reinvest into public media outcomes, all the better,” the chief executive at the time Simon Power told Mediawatch in 2023.
“It was a very rosy picture they painted. They had a mandate to be a commercial business that had to give confidence to the advertisers and the rest of New Zealand but they were very confident two years ago that this wouldn’t happen,” she said.
In opposition, National Party leader Christopher Luxon described the merger as “ideological and insane” and “a solution looking for a problem”.
Media and Communications Minister Melissa Lee . . . Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
But if that was based on TVNZ’s bullish assessments of its own revenue-raising capacity — or a disregard of a probable downturn ahead, was that a big mistake?
“I won’t comment for today’s government, but statements being made in the last couple of days about people getting their news from somewhere else; truth and trust has dropped off; linear has got to be transferred into the digital environment . . . none of those things are new comments,” Martin told Mediawatch.
“They’re all in the documentation that we placed into the public domain — and I asked the special permission, as the chair of the ANZPM group, to brief spokespersons for broadcasting of the Greens, Act and National to try and make sure that everybody has as much and as much information as we could give them,” she said.
Media and Communications Minister Melissa Lee said this week she was working on proposals to help the media to take to cabinet.
“I don’t give advice to the minister, but I would advise officials to go back and pull out the business case and paperwork for ANZPM — and to look at the submissions and the number of people who supported the concept, but had concerns about particular areas,” Tracey Martin told Mediawatch.
“Don’t let perfection get in the way of action.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
About 5000 protesters calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to Israeli’s genocidal war on Gaza took today part in a rally in Auckland’s Te Komititanga Square and a march up Queen Street in the business heart of New Zealand’s largest city.
This was one of a series of protests across more than 25 cities and towns across Aotearoa New Zealand in one of the biggest demonstrations since the war began last October.
Many passionate Palestinian and indigenous Māori speakers and a Filipino activist condemned the Israeli settler colonial project over the destruction caused in the occupation of Palestinian lands and the massive loss of civilian lives in the war.
The most rousing cheers greeted Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick who condemned the killing of “more than 30,000 innocent civilian lives” — most of them women and children with International Women’s Day being celebrated yesterday.
“The powers that be want you to think it is complicated . . .,” she said. “it’s not. Here’s why.
“We should all be able to agree that killing children is wrong.
“We should all be able to agree that indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians who have been made refugees in their own land is wrong,” she said and was greeted with strong applause.
“Everybody in power who disagrees with that is wrong.”
‘Stop the genocide’
Chants of shame followed that echoing the scores of placards and banners in the crowd declaring such slogans as “Stop the genocide”, “From Gaza to Paekākāriki, this govt doesn’t care about tamariki. Free Palestine”, “Women for a free Palestine”, “Unlearn lies about Palestine”, “Food not bombs for the tamariki of Gaza”, “From the river to the sea . . . aways was, always will be. Ceasefire now.”
Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick (third from left) addressing the crowd . . . “killing children is wrong.” Image: David Robie/APR
Three young girls being wheeled in a pram held a placard saying “Yemen, Yemen, make us proud, turn another ship around”, in reference to a protest against the New Zealand government joining a small US-led group of nations taking reprisals against Yemen.
The Yemeni Houthis are blockading the Red Sea in solidarity with Palestine to prevent ships linked to Israel, UK or the US from getting through the narrow waterway. They say they are taking this action under the Genocide Convention.
Swarbrick vowed that the Green Party — along with Te Māori Pati — the only political party represented at the rally, would pressure the conservative coalition government to press globally for an immediate ceasefire, condemnation of Israeli atrocities, restoration of funding to the Palestine refugee relief agency UNRWA, and expulsion of the Israeli ambassador.
Meanwhile, as protests took place around the country, national chair John Minto of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) declared on social media from Christchurch that “[Prime Minister] Christopher Luxon and [Foreign Minister] Winston Peters can’t find the energy to tweet for an end to Israel’s genocidal starvation of Palestinians in Gaza”.
He added that Israel continued to turn away humanitarian convoys of desperately needed aid from northern Gaza.
“But PM Christopher Luxon has been silent while FM Winston Peters has been indolent.”
Palestine will be free” . . . three friends show their solidarity for occupied Palestine. Image: David Robie/APR
Three more children have died of malnutrition and dehydration at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, according to health officials, taking the total confirmed toll from starvation to 23.
The US military has denied responsibility for an airdrop of humanitarian aid that Gaza officials say killed five people and injured several others when parachutes failed to open while Israeli forces again opened fire on aid seekers in northern Gaza.
President Joe Biden’s plan of a temporary port for maritime delivery of aid has been widely condemned by UN officials and other critics as an “election year ploy”.
Dr Rami Khouri, of the American University of Beirut, said the plan was “a ruse most of the world can see through”. It could give Israel even tighter control over what gets into the Gaza Strip in the future while completing “the ethnic cleansing of Palestine”.
“All children are precious” . . . a child and her mother declare their priorities at the protest. Image: David Robie/APR
Protesters stop US lecturer Wellington Scoop reports that students and activist groups at Victoria University of Wellington yesterday protested against a lecture by the US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, Dr Bonnie Jenkins.
Dr Jenkins is a senior official in charge of AUKUS implementation, a military alliance currently between Australia, UK and USA.
About 150 people, mostly students from groups including Justice for Palestine, Student Justice for Palestine-Pōneke (SJP), Stop AUKUS and Peace Action Wellington rallied outside the university venue in Pipitea to protest against further collaborations with the US.
A peaceful protest was undertaken inside the lecture hall at the same time.
An activist began by calling for “a moment of silence for all the Palestinians killed by the US-funded genocide in Gaza”.
He then condemned the weapons that the US was sending to Gaza, before eventually being ejected from the lecture theatre.
Shortly after, another activist stood up and said “Karetao o te Kāwana kakīwhero!” (“Puppets of this redneck government”) and quoted from the women’s Super Rugby Aupiki team Hurricanes Poua’s revamped haka: “Mai te awa ki te moana (From the river to the sea), free free Palestine!”
“You don’t have to be a Muslim to support Palestine – just be human” . . . says this protester on the eve of Ramadan. Image: David Robie/APR
Video on ‘imperialism’
Dr Jenkins was ushered away for the second time. Subsequently a couple of activists took to speaking and playing a video about how AUKUS represented US imperialism.
When organisers later came in to announce that Dr Jenkins would not be continuing with her lecture, chants of “Free, free Palestine!” filled the room.
“For five months, Aotearoa has been calling for our government to do more to stop the genocide in Gaza. And for years, we have been calling our governments to stand against Israel’s occupation of Palestine,” said Samira Zaiton, a Justice for Palestine organiser.
“We are now at the juncture of tightening relations with settler colonies who will only destroy more lives, more homes and more lands and waters. We want no part in this. We want no part in AUKUS.”
Dr Jenkins’ lecture was organised by Victoria University’s Centre for Strategic Studies, to address “security challenges in the 21st century”.
Valerie Morse, an organiser with Peace Action Wellington, said: “Experts on foreign policy and regional diplomacy have done careful research on the disastrous consequences of involving ourselves with AUKUS.
“Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa is not a nuclear testing ground and sacrifice zone for US wars.”
“When silence is betrayal” . . . motorcycle look at today’s rally. Image: David Robie/APRThe Israeli military’s “murder machine” . . . “there’s no good reason for bombing children”. Image: David Robie/APR
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Television New Zealand is proposing to axe its long-running and award-winning current affairs programme Sunday, hosted by veteran broadcaster Miriama Kamo.
TVNZ said a proposal had been presented to Sunday staff which could result in cancellation of the programme.
The show was named Best Current Affairs Programme at the Voyager Media Awards and the New Zealand Television Awards last year.
It first aired in 2002 and has run for more than two decades, showcasing a mix of New Zealand stories and reports from overseas.
One award-winning investigation looked into the 2008 Chinese poisoned milk scandal, and how patients were treated at Porirua Hospital.
Veteran journalists like John Hudson, Janet McIntyre and Ian Sinclair have contributed to the show.
News bulletins may be canned
RNZ understands the 1News Midday and Tonight bulletins may also be canned, and consumer affairs programme Fair Go could to be cut too.
Its understood four out of 10 roles at youth platform Re: News are set to go — head of Re: News, head of content, production manager, and a journalist.
TVNZ’s Sunday show . . . named Best Current Affairs Programme at the Voyager Media Awards and the New Zealand Television Awards last year. Image: TVNZ screenshot APR
Its understood four out of 10 roles at youth platform Re: News are set to go — head of Re: News, head of content, production manager, and a journalist.
The remaining five staff will have a change in reporting line, reporting to TVNZ digital news and content general manager Veronica Schmidt.
RNZ has been told there will be a shift away from social media in a bid to drive more traffic to the Re: News website. Its documentary series funded by NZ On Air is also set to be canned.
The digital media platform was launched in 2017 as a current affairs platform aimed at audiences under-served by mainstream news.
It produces documentary videos, articles and podcasts particularly relevant to youth, Māori, Pasifika, rainbow communities, and migrant and regional audiences.
The platform won four awards at last year’s Voyager Media Awards, including best news, current affairs or specialist publication; video journalist of the year; best video documentary series; and best original podcast — seasonal/serial.
On average, Re: News receives more than a million video views each month.
Difficult choices
TVNZ chief executive Jodi O’Donnell said in a statement that difficult choices had to be made to ensure the broadcaster remained sustainable.
A hui for all news and current affairs staff is due to be held at 1pm, following the individual programme meetings.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, speaking at a press conference in Whangārei, said he was concerned about reports of job cuts and that it was a “pretty tough time if you’re a TVNZ employee”.
Luxon said consumers are consuming news in different ways and advertising and revenue models are changing.
He said it was a pretty tough time for people working in the media but he had travelled the country and many other sectors were doing it tough.
Media companies needed to evolve and innovate in order to adapt, he said.
Fair Go Fair Go is one of New Zealand’s longest running and most popular television series.
The consumer affairs show, which investigates complaints from viewers, first aired in April 1977 and is just shy of its 47th birthday.
During a 2021 interview with RNZ’s Afternoons programme, original host and creator Brian Edwards said he was inspired by a BBC programme called That’s Life.
“One particular segment was on consumers and I think that was the germ of the idea, that we could do a programme in New Zealand where we could look at protecting people right there in their normal daily lives from rip offs and scams by various people and it it just soared from the beginning. I mean, it was tremendous,” Edwards said.
“I suppose my main function was to grill the villains, and because I’m a really quite unpleasant person, this fit in my my personality very well.”
Well-known presenter Kevin Milne hosted the show for almost three decades, from 1983 to 2010.
“It was beautifully set up, really, and it didn’t require any change as much and still hasn’t, you know, 44 years later,” he told Afternoons during the same interview.
‘Good deal of cynicism’
“I remember that there was a good deal of cynicism in the early days from the newsroom journalists who thought that because there was an element of entertainment on the show that you couldn’t call it real journalism, which was nonsense because it ended up leading the way in terms of investigative journalism.”
The show broke new ground, Milne said.
“It’s hard to believe now that back then, at the time when Brian set up those programmes, most broadcasters never named names. I can remember now hearing news stories which could say a well-known department store in Lambton Quay appeared in court this morning. No mention [of name], and when Fair Go started up, it was decided it would name names.”
Edwards said that was an “absolutely critical” aspect of the show.
“The thing would have been pointless I think, if you couldn’t name names. The thing was to expose the wrong doers if you like . . . what was the point in in doing that if you couldn’t name names?
“And I think we probably, together, our team, won some battles there and being able to do that. It took a while and I think there was a degree of nervousness by the broadcaster and eventually it turned out all right.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
A report by a media watchdog has revealed the United Kingdom’s media bias in covering the Hamas attack on October 7 and Israel’s five-month genocidal bombardment and ground assault in response.
“Much of the news coverage of 7 October refers to Hamas’s attacks on Southern Israel as ground zero, with guests or commentators who try and explain the 75-year-old occupation of Palestine being accused by some presenters and columnists as justifying the attacks,” the report by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) said.
By ignoring the context and history of the occupation of Palestine and Gaza in particular, the report said the media landscape had been “favourable to an Israeli narrative which has constantly promoted the attacks on Gaza and in the West Bank as a war between light and darkness”, reports Al Jazeera.
Titled “Media Bias Gaza 2023-24”, the report also called out treating the Israeli military as a “credible source” without subjecting it to further verification as “one of the glaring failures of journalists and media outlets”.
Cover of the Media Bias Gaza 2023-24 report . . . latest publication on Israel’s “favourable narrative” in the media.
Difference in the use of language has also been a regular feature of coverage, the report says, with Palestinian deaths often underplayed compared with those of Israelis.
Pro-Palestinian voices and activists have been routinely denounced, misrepresented and targeted by many national media outlets, it says.
The report adds that the right-wing media have been particularly hostile towards pro-Palestinian voices, framing them as supporters of terrorism and anti-Semites as well as being hostile to British values.
Key findings include:
Language use: Emotive language describes Israelis as victims of attacks 11 times more than Palestinians.
Framing of events: Most TV channels overwhelmingly promote “Israel’s right” to defend itself, overshadowing Palestinian rights to defend itself and other rights by a ratio of 5 to 1.
In broadcast TV, Israeli perspectives were referenced almost three times more than Palestinian ones.
In online news, it was almost twice as much.
Contextual framing: 76 percent of online articles frame the conflict as an “Israel-Hamas war,” while only 24 percent mention “Palestine/Palestinian,” indicating a lack of context.
Misrepresentation and undermining: Pro-Palestinian voices face misrepresentation and vilification by media outlets, perpetuating harmful stereotypes.
Right-wing news channels and right-wing British publications were at the forefront of misrepresenting pro-Palestinian protesters as antisemitic, violent or pro-Hamas.
The University of the South Pacific will host a major Pacific International Media conference in July to address critical issues in the regional news media sector in the aftermath of the covid-19 pandemic and digital disruption.
The conference, in Suva, Fiji, on July 4-6 is the first of its kind in the region in two decades.
With the theme “Navigating challenges and shaping futures in Pacific media research and practice”, the event seeks to respond to some entrenched challenges in the small and micro news media systems of the Pacific.
Associate Professor Shailendra Singh . . . the Pacific has among the highest attrition rate of journalists in the world. Image: USP
Organised in partnership with the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) and the Asia-Pacific Media Network (APMN), the conference is a gathering of academics, media professionals, policymakers and civil society organisation representatives to engage in critical discussions on news media topics.
Conference chair Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, head of the USP journalism programme, some of these challenges are due to the small population base in many island countries, limited advertising revenue, and marginal profits.
This makes it difficult for media organisations to reinvest, or pay competitive salaries to retain good staff.
Dr Singh said their research indicated that the Pacific region had among the highest rate of journalist attrition in the world, with mostly a young, inexperienced and under-qualified journalist cohort in the forefront of reporting complex issues.
Media rights, free speech important
He said that issues relating to media rights and freedom of speech were also still important in the region.
Big power competition between China and the United States playing out in the Pacific was another complexity for the Pacific media sector to negotiate, added Dr Singh.
PINA president Kora Nou . . . timely as “we consider measures to improve our media landscape post-covid”. Image: NBC
PINA president and CEO of Papua New Guinea’s national broadcaster NBC Kora Nou said the conference was timely as “we consider measures to improve our media landscape post-covid”.
Nou said it was important for journalism practitioners, leaders, academia, and key stakeholders to discuss issues that directly impacted on the media industry in the Pacific.
“Not all Pacific Island countries are the same, nor do we have the same challenges, but by networking and discussing shared challenges in our media industry will help address them meaningfully,” he said.
Nou added that journalism schools in the Pacific needed more attention in terms of public funding, new and improved curricula that were consistent with technological advances.
He said that research collaboration between journalism schools and established newsrooms across the region should be encouraged.
Better learning facilities
According to Nou, funding and technical assistance for journalism schools like USP in Fiji, and Divine Word and UPNG in Papua New Guinea, would translate into better learning facilities and tools to prepare student journalists for newsrooms in the Pacific.
Dr Heather Devere . . . “the Pacific is having to deal with numerous conflicts where journalists are not only incidental casualties but are even being deliberately targeted.” Image: ResearchGate
APMN chair Dr Heather Devere believes this is a vital time for journalism, and crucial for academics and media professionals and practitioners to unite to address global and local issues and the specific impacts on the Pacific region.
“Often neglected on the world stage, the Pacific is itself having to deal with numerous conflicts where journalists are not only incidental casualties but are even being deliberately targeted in vicious attacks,” she said.
“Humanity, the environment, our living spaces and other species are in imminent danger.
“APMN supports the initiative presented by the University of the South Pacific for us all to unify, stand firm and uphold the values that characterise the best in our people,” said Dr Devere.
Critical time for global journalism
According to Asia Pacific Report editor and founder of the Pacific Media Centre, Professor David Robie, this conference comes at a critical time for the future and viability of journalism globally.
Professor David Robie . . . “climate crisis reportage . . . is now an urgent existential challenge for Pacific countries.” Image: APMN
Dr Robie said it was a “tremendous initiative” by USP’s School of Pacific Arts, Communication and Education to partner with the media industry and to help chart new pathways for journalism methodologies and media freedom in the face of growing geopolitical rivalries over Pacific politics and economic resources.
“We need to examine the role of news media in Pacific democracies today, how to report and analyse conflict independently without being sucked in by major power agendas, and how to improve our climate crisis reportage, given this is now an urgent existential challenge for Pacific countries.
“In a sense, the Pacific is a laboratory for the entire world, and journalism and media are at the climate crisis frontline.”
Dr Robie, who was the recipient of the 2015 AMIC Asia Communication Award, highlighted that many human rights issues were at stake, such as the future of West Papua self-determination, that needed media debate and research.
Organisers are calling for abstracts and conference papers, and panel proposals on the following topics and related themes in the Asia-Pacific:
Media, Democracy, Human Rights and Governance:
Media and Geopolitics
Digital Disruption and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Media Law and Ethics
Media, Climate Change and Environmental Journalism
Indigenous and Vernacular Media
Social Cohesion, Peacebuilding and Conflict-Prevention
Covid-19 Pandemic and Health Reporting
Media Entrepreneurship and Sustainability
Abstracts can be submitted to the conference chair, Dr Singh, by April 5, 2024 and panel and full paper submissions by May 5 and July 4 respectively.
Monika Singhis editor-in-chief of Wansolwara, the online and print publication of the USP Journalism Programme. Republished in partnership with Wansolwara.
For years news media bosses warned the creaking business model backing journalism would fail at a major local outlet. It finally happened this week when Newshub’s owners proposed scrapping it. Then TVNZ posted losses prompting warnings of more cuts to come there. Can TV broadcasters pull a crowd without news? And what might the so-far ambivalent government do?
After Warner Bros Discovery top brass broke the bad news to staff on Wednesday, Newshub at 6 that night became a news event in itself.
After Warner Bros Discovery top brass broke the bad news to staff on Wednesday, Newshub at 6 that night became a news event in itself.
In her report, political reporter Amelia Wade reminded viewers more than 30 years of TV news and current affairs — spanning the entire period of commercial TV here — could come to an end in June.
Before TV3 launched in 1989, state-owned TVNZ had been the only game in town.
But for most of its recent history, TV3’s parent company MediaWorks was owned by private equity funds and it was hamstrung with debts.
There were periodic financial emergencies too which seemed to signal the end.
In 2015, the boss Mark Weldon axed the current affairs shows Campbell Live and 3D and replaced them with ones that didn’t pull in more viewers or pull up many trees with their reporting.
“Reports of our death at 6pm have been greatly exaggerated”, host Hilary Barry responded to reports 3 News might be for the chop the following year.
But Weldon persuaded the owners to stump up a significant sum to launch Newshub instead.
When the huge global company Discovery bought MediaWorks loss-making TV channels in December 2020, many in the media were pleased a major media outfit was now in charge.
Using the Official Information Act, Newsroom later reported the Overseas Investment Office fast tracked Discovery’s application and sought no guarantees of a commitment to local news.
“Tova O’Brien breaking stories on CNN NZ at 6pm, before an evening of local reality TV souped up by global budgets and distribution — with major sports and drama rights for good measure,” was one scenario.
“It could also swing the other way, with the New Zealand linear asset seen as too small and obscure,” he warned.
After losses including a $35 million one last year, the owners now “propose” to slice out the entire on-screen and online news operation. New Zealand could lose more than 15 percent of its full-time journalists in one go.
Beginning of the end?
Current affairs journalist Eugene Bingham . . . “this was a moment we’ll look back on as a watershed moment in democracy and journalism.” Image: RNZ
“Oh, the irony, right? When those so-called ‘vulture funds’ had it, the operation still continued, albeit always run on the smell of an oily rag. Then a big media organisation was the one which axed it,” long-serving TV3 current affairs journalist Eugene Bingham told Mediawatch.
“I’ve been around long enough to see death by a thousand cuts over the years. But this was a moment we’ll look back on as a watershed moment in democracy and journalism,” Bingham said.
Former MediaWorks executive Andrew Szusterman told RNZ’s Morning Report the next day this decision would also ripple out to local drama and entertainment.
“We’re going to start to see how this is going to impact the production sector. Irrevocably, possibly,” said Szusterman, now the chief executive at production company South Pacific Pictures.
Does Newshub’s demise also kill off Three?
Mediaworks chief news officer Hal Crawford . . . “The loss of the newsroom represents the loss of the ability to respond to any event in real time.” RNZ
There’s been no shortage of people this week pointing out the appetite for TV news — and linear TV in general — is not what it was. That’s the main reason for the ad revenue slump cited by WBD.
Some who do tune in to Three (and WBD’s other channels) for The Block, Married at First Sight and free movies may not miss the news shows from June 30. So maybe Three will be fine?
“The loss of the newsroom represents the loss of the ability to respond to any event in real time. That is the heart and soul of a traditional TV broadcaster,” Hal Crawford — chief news officer at MediaWorks (and effectively Newshub’s boss) until early 2020 — told Mediawatch.
“When the Queen dies you can send a team to London, you can have someone in the studio talking about it, you can interact in a way that makes people feel like it is alive and a real human entity.”
Warner Bros Discovery executives Glen Kyne (left) and Jamie Gibbons fronting up on Newshub at 6pm last Wednesday. Image: Newshub at 6 screenshot/RNZ
Channels without the live element news brings are effectively just “content databases”, Crawford told Mediawatch.
“News is the one programme that runs 365 days a year . . . which the schedule is going to rely on to lead into prime time. So the rest of your schedule is going to dwindle. Ratings are gonna fall off and everything is going to go to pieces.
“It really is going to dwindle as a cultural entity in New Zealand because you’re not going to be able to justify the funding from NZ on Air if you aren’t getting audiences. It’s hard for me to see a way out of Three basically going away as a cultural force in New Zealand.”
But TV-style news and current affairs is also now being done online.
After Eugene Bingham’s TV3 show 3D was axed in 2016, four members formed the Stuff Circuit investigative team. Its video documentary productions won awards until it was axed by Stuff late last year.
“Of course, there have been changes in viewing habits . . . but there’s still a reason that the ‘1’ and the ‘3’ on remotes around the country are worn down. Hundreds of thousands of people at six o’clock flip the channel. Without a TV bulletin there, doesn’t (Three) just become like Bravo, where there’s just programmes running and you either switch on or you don’t?”
In the end, journalists have to confront the fact that not quite enough people these days care about what they do — including executives at media companies, politicians not inclined to intervene and members of the public.
Most New Zealanders are happy to use services like Netflix or Google search or Facebook that carry news and local content but contribute almost nothing to it.
“But I don’t think people quite understand the depth of the problem facing media and the implications. That certainly came through to me watching the broadcasting minister saying, well, people can still watch programmes like Sky for news,” Bingham said.
The National Party went into the last election without a media or broadcasting policy or any specific manifesto commitments.
What should/could the government do?
Media minister Melissa Lee . . . a case of a private company taking action because “their business model actually wasn’t working”. Image: RNZ/Angus Dreaver
While Wednesday’s announcement shocked the 300-odd staff, the local chief executive Glen Kyne — close to tears on Newshub at 6 — told Newshub’s Michael Morrah he had known about the possibility since January.
The government also got a heads-up earlier this week.
Media minister Melissa Lee told reporters WBD made no requests for help, prompting Glen Kyne to tell Newshub WBD did ask both the current and previous government for assistance, such as a reduction in the multi-million dollar fee paid to state-owned transmission company Kordia.
Lee later clarified her comment but was firm that the government had no role to play because this was a case of a private company taking action because “their business model actually wasn’t working.”
On Morning Report, Andrew Szusterman disagreed.
“Channels 7,9 and 10, SBS, ABC, and Fox in Australia all run news services. I don’t think their government would let the last commercial free-to-air news broadcaster just walk away. The fact the broadcasting minister hasn’t fronted . . . it’s quite shameless,” he told RNZ’s Morning Report.
Stuff’s Tova O’Brien — who famously turned on her former employer MediaWorks on air in real time last year when it closed Today FM — called the minister’s response “cold and tone-deaf” and accused the government of a “glib shrug”.
That was partly because Lee’s first response to the Newshub announcement was to tell reporters: “There’s Sky as well, there’s a whole lot of other media about.”
Sky contracts Newshub to produce its 5.30pm free-to-air news bulletin — and Sky subscribers won’t find any locally-made news on Sky TV’s pay channels.
Lee should have known that. She was a programme-maker before she was an MP and was National’s spokesperson on broadcasting for years in opposition.
Lee declined all interview requests this week — including from Mediawatch — but did tell reporters at Parliament: “I wasn’t as articulate as I could have been. But I am taking this seriously.”
The PM told Stuff he is expecting an update at Cabinet on Monday. The media will be watching that space with pens and cameras poised.
There is legislation currently before a select committee which could compel the big online tech platforms to pay local producers of news for it.
In opposition, Lee opposed it and called it “literally a shakedown” in Parliament. (This weekend Facebook’s owner Meta announced it would not do any more deals with media under Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code, prompting a likely confrontation with the government there.)
“The government’s position on this will obviously take into account these latest developments in terms of the wider media landscape. This government is committed to working with the sector on ways to ensure sector sustainability, while still preserving the independence of a fourth estate and avoiding market interference,” Lee said in Parliament on Thursday when questioned.
The government already heavily intervenes in the market by overseeing the state-owned broadcasters and agencies — including TVNZ — and putting over a quarter of a billion dollars every year onto broadcasting, programmes and other content.
The former government also put $80 million over two years into Māori media content, partly in the expectation there might also be a new public media entity to broadcast it.
His chief executive also urged the government to intervene. AM show host Duncan Garner switched the studio lights off as an on-air stunt.
Crawford is now a digital media consultant based in his native Australia. The broadcasting funding agency in NZ On Air hired him in 2021 to review its own spending of public money on the media.
“It’s not a good idea for governments to knee jerk and sponsor particular commercial companies in some sort of bailout,” he said.
“To give money to the people who are in financially the worst position is the most ineffective and unfair use of public money that I can think of. If the market is telling you that something isn’t wanted and needed, you have to listen to that.
“But it doesn’t mean that you have to always listen to the market and do things that have never been done before.”
He cites the Public Interest Journalism Fund which put $55 million into new content and created new jobs for cash-strapped news media companies.
Crawford’s fact-finding report on the planned PIJF in 2021 records media managers feared cuts and possible closures to come.
“Many of our interviewees believed that if an organisation could show that cuts were imminent, they should be able to apply for funded roles under the PIJF. Many saw the dangers in this non-incremental funding, but argued for exceptions in extreme circumstances. Although these arguments are compelling, Funding could evaporate quickly trying to keep the newsrooms of big commercial companies afloat if this became the primary aim of the fund.”
“Around the world and in New Zealand, there’s ample evidence that public funding of journalism is becoming more essential. There has to be a way there, because what we’re seeing with the the planned closure of Newshub is the end result of the factors that we’ve known about for at least a decade,” Crawford told Mediawatch.
“Direct subsidy from the government to a commercial newsroom isn’t going to work. The government has to find a way to sensibly finance news and structure it so that it doesn’t become a political football.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
In 2020, it took over the New Zealand channel’s assets which had been then part of Mediaworks.
Staff were called to a meeting at Newshub at 11am, RNZ News reported on its live news feed.
They were told that the US conglomerate Warner Brothers Discovery, owners of Newshub, was commencing consultation on a restructuring of its free-to-air business
This included the closure of all news operations by its Newshub operation
All local programming would be made only through local funding bodies and partners.
James Gibbons, president of Asia Pacific for Warner Bros Discovery, said it was a combination of negative events in NZ and around the world. The economic downturn had been severe and there was no long hope for a bounce back
Staff leave the Newshub office in Auckland today after the meeting about the company’s future. Image: RNZ/Rayssa Almeida
Revenue has ‘disappeared quickly’
“Advertising revenue in New Zealand has disappeared far more quickly than our ability to manage this reduction, and to drive the business to profitability,” he said.
He said the restructuring would focus on it being a digital business
ThreeNow, its digital platform, would be the focus and could run local shows
All news production would stop on June 30.
The consultation process runs until mid-March. A final decision is expected early April.
“Deeply shocked’
Interviewed on RNZ’s Nine to Noon programme, a former head of Newshub, Mark Jennings, said he was deeply shocked by the move.
Other media personalities also reacted with stunned disbelief. Rival TVNZ’s Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver said: “Thinking of my friends and colleagues from Newshub.
“So many super talented wonderful people. Its a terrible day for our industry that Newshub [will] close by June, we will be all the much poorer for it. Much aroha to you all.”
TVNZ Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver reacts to news about the plan to close Newshub’s newsroom. Image: Barbara Dreaver/FB
Newshub has broken some important Pacific stories over the years.
Jennings told RNZ a cut back and trimming of shows would have been expected — but not on this scale.
“I’m really deeply frankly shocked by it,” said Jennings, now co-founder and editor of Newsroom independent digital media group.
He said he expected all shows to go, including AM Show and investigative journalist Patrick Gower’s show.
Company ‘had no strategy’
“I think governments will be pretty upset and annoyed about this, to be honest.”
“Unless they have been kept in the loop because we’re going to see a major drop in diversity.
“Newshub’s newsroom has been, maybe not so much in recent times, but certainly in the past, a very strong and vibrant player in the market and very important one for this country and again as [RNZ Mediawatch presenter] Colin [Peacock] points out, who is going to keep TVNZ’s news honest now?
“I think this is a major blow to media diversity in this country.”
“First of all, Discovery and then Warner Bros Discovery, this has been an absolute shocker of entry to this market by them. They came in with what I could was . . . no, I couldn’t see a strategy in it and in the time they owned this company, there has been no strategy and that’s really disappointing.
“If this had gone to a better owner, they would have taken steps way sooner and maybe we wouldn’t be losing one of the country’s most valued news services.”
Loss of $100m over three years
Jennings said his understanding was the company had lost $100 million in the past three years, which was “really significant”.
“I wonder if it had been a New Zealand owner, whether the government might have taken a different view around this, but I guess because it’s owned by a huge American, multi-national conglomerate, they would’ve been reluctant to intervene in any way.”
He said Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee, a former journalist who ran the Asia Down Under programme for many years, faced serious questions now.
“It’ll be her first big test really, I guess, in that portfolio.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Fiji’s Women and Children’s Minister Lynda Tabuya says Pacific island countries need to “strengthen our laws” on online harassment.
Tabuya spoke to RNZ Pacific on the sidelines of the Pacific Women in Power forum taking place in Auckland this week.
She said the issue that she was dealing with — which is allegations of a sex and drug scandal between her and former cabinet minister Aseri Radrodro — was currently with the police.
“And it just so happens that a person who was causing this harassment online lives in Sydney,” she said.
She said she was able to get the assistance of Australia’s online safety watchdog to issue the notice to the person to take down the content — images — because it is a crime in Australia.
“If you put up content that is or appears to be the person, so then the person [who published it] needs to take the content down otherwise they can face prosecution,” she said.
‘Grateful for swift action’
“That was the process I followed and I’m grateful to the Safety Commissioner of Australia for the swift action.”
However, she said the situation she found herself in was not exclusive to her.
“It’s me today, it could be someone else tomorrow. It doesn’t have to be a minister or public figure.
“But if you have women in Fiji or across the Pacific who are facing this, and they’re being attacked — especially for populations where there are more people outside of the country than in [the] country.
Tabuya said therefore there was a need for strong policies, not just in Fiji, but across the region.
“You get more attacks from people who live overseas. Women MPs need to reach out to those countries where those people are attacking them live because the laws are much stronger.
“But it’s also a lesson for us within to strengthen our laws so that we can stand up against online bullying.
“The world is unfair and being a woman in politics, we face a lot of unfairness and injustices. But I think it also makes us so much more determined to stand up and be heard,” she added.
Meanwhile, Tabuya is currently the subject of an inquiry by her political party following the sex and drug allegation, the outcome of which has yet to be released.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The University of the South Pacific journalism programme is hosting a cohort student journalists from Australia’s Queensland University of Technology this week.
Led by Professor Angela Romano, the 12 students are covering news assignments in Fiji as part of their working trip.
The visitors were given a briefing by USP journalism teaching staff — Associate Professor in Pacific journalism and programme head Dr Shailendra Singh, and student training newspaper supervising editor-in-chief Monika Singh.
The students held lively discussions about the form and state of the media in Fiji and the Pacific, the historic influence of Australian and Western news media and its pros and cons, and the impact of the emergence of China on the Pacific media scene.
Dr Singh said the small and micro-Pacific media systems were “still reeling” from revenue loss due to digital disruption and the covid-19 pandemic.
As elsewhere in the world, the “rivers of gold” (classified advertising revenue) had virtually dried up and media in the Pacific were apparently struggling like never before.
Dr Singh said that this was evident from the reduced size of some newspapers in the Pacific, in both classified and display advertising, which had migrated to social media platforms.
Repeal of draconian law
He praised Fiji’s coalition government for repealing the country’s draconian Media Industry Development Act last year, and reviving media self-regulation under the revamped Fiji Media Council.
However, Dr Singh added that there was still some way to go to further improve the media landscape, including focus on training and development and working conditions.
“There are major, longstanding challenges in small and micro-Pacific media systems due to small audiences, and marginal profits,” he said. “This makes capital investment and staff development difficult to achieve.”
The QUT students are in Suva this month on a working trip in which students will engage in meetings, interviews and production of journalism. They will meet non-government organisations that have a strong focus on women/gender in development, democracy or peace work.
The students will also visit different media organisations based in Suva and talk to their female journalists on their experiences and their stories.
The USP journalism programme started in Suva in 1988 and it has produced more than 200 graduates serving the Pacific and beyond in various media and communication roles.
The programme has forged partnerships with leading media players in the Pacific and our graduates are shining examples in the fields of journalism, public relations and government/NGO communication.
Asia Pacific Report publishes in partnership with The University of the South Pacific’s newspaper and online Wansolwara News.
It was a struggle to see how a child’s welfare was relevant in the latest, shrill debates about technology taking place on The Hill. The Senate Judiciary Committee and the leaders of social media companies were on show to thrash out matters on technology and their threats on January 31 in a hearing titled “Big Tech and the Online Child Exploitation Crisis.” The companies present: X Corp, represented by Linda Yaccarino; TikTok Inc, fronted by Shou Chew; Snap Inc, by Evan Spiegel; Meta and Mark Zuckerberg; and Jason Citron of Discord Inc.
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) got the ghoulish proceedings underway with a video featuring victims and survivors. “I was sexually exploited on Facebook,” declares one. “I was sexually exploited on Instagram,” comes another. “I was sexually exploited on X.” And so forth.
Exploitation leads to distress and worse. “The child that … gets exploited is never the same again,” says a parent. One lost their son to suicide after being exploited on Facebook. Then, the failings of indifferent Big Tech operatives are carted out. “How many more kids will suffer and die because of social media?” goes the tune. “We need Congress to do something for our children and protect them.”
This supplied Durbin the ideal, moralistic (and moralising) springboard. And nothing excites those in Congress more than a moral crisis from which much mischief can be made. There was, he solemnly declared, a “sexual exploitation is a crisis in America.” In the decade from 2013 to 2023, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) had received and increase from 1,380 cyber tips per day to 100,000 daily reports. The modern smartphone has become a hellish conduit of exploitation. “Discord has been used to groom, abduct and abuse children. Meta’s Instagram helped connect and promote a network of paedophiles. Snapchat’s disappearing messages have been co-opted by criminals who financially extort young victims. TikTok has become a ‘platform of choice’ for predators to access, engage, and groom children for abuse”.
From the Republican side, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham saw social media companies in their current design and operation as “dangerous products. They’re destroying lives, threatening democracy itself. These companies must be reined in or the worst is yet to come.”
The senators were ploughing familiar ground: the corrosion of mental health including instances of self-harm and suicide, the role of social media in perpetrating a number of crimes (drug dealing, sextortion) and the blissful digital heavens such companies have created for any number of unsavoury cults, ideologies and inclinations.
What, then, of it? For one thing, Zuckerberg, who was making his eighth appearance at such a hearing, was hardly going to offer anything constructive – at least in a binding sense. In the month just passed, internal Meta documents revealed a number of concerns from employees that the company’s messaging apps had featured in various instances of child exploitation. Little was done about it, which was precisely to be expected.
As a useful whipping boy of Congressional outrage, Meta’s CEO provided the perfect platform for senatorial outrage. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) could spice the airwaves (and the global social media universe) with his righteous display: “There’s families of victims here today. Have you apologised to the victims? Would you like to do so now?” Zuckerberg, reminded that he was on national television, did the performing seal act, turning around and facing the audience. A number of photos of deceased children were helpfully offered to torment the guilty soul. “I’m sorry,” Zuckerberg responded. “Everything that you all have gone through, it’s terrible. No one should have to go through the things that your families have suffered and this is why we invest so much and are going to continue doing industry leading efforts to make sure that no one has to go through the types of things your families have had to suffer.”
It was a fantastically bloodless response, filled with the usual Big Tech baubles: industry standards would be met, innovations would be made, investments would follow, and new products of sterling safety engineered. As Zuckerberg went on to explain to Hawley, “I view my job and the job of our company is building the best tools that we can keep our community safe.” But the model as to how such companies extract, use, and monetise information – surveillance capitalism – is left untouched. Hawley’s cosmetic suggestion is to create a compensation fund for victims; the social media business model can continue to operate untrammelled because no member of Congress wants to be tarnished with the anti-corporation brush. Money always comes first.
Another great threat was also being teased out in the combative questions posed to the social media CEOs. Their companies have produced hideous, wounding and in some cases lethal products, all of which continue being used by billions, including haranguing, morally indignant politicians and unsuspecting children. But Congress also showed why it is also a problem to the very people it claims to be protecting.
The form this takes is the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a co-sponsored initiative from Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). KOSA ostensibly deals with child safety, intended to empower the attorney general of every state, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to file lawsuits against apps or websites for failing to “prevent or mitigate” the various harms that supposedly affect children. Its effect, far from protecting children, will be something quite different, elevating the “duty of care” principle to scrub content that might cause “anxiety”, “depression” and any other number of undesirable behaviours.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation describes KOSA as a censorship bill. And it is easy to see why, with any item of information or news shared susceptible to being banned or modified for causing distress to children. “Ultimately,” writes the EFF’s Jason Kelley, “no amendment will change the basic fact that KOSA’s duty of care turns what is meant to be a bill about child safety into a censorship bill that will harm the rights of both adult and minor uses.”
Fight for the Future Director Evan Greer was also deeply unimpressed, tellingTechCrunch that, “Dozens of human rights, civil liberties, LGBTQ+ and racial justice groups oppose the reckless legislation being proposed at today’s hearing.”
In an attempt to stream roll the CEOs into supporting the bill, Senator Blumenthal asked where they stood on its merits. Spiegel and Yaccarino expressed support for KOSA. Those from TikTok, Meta and Discord dithered and expressed reservations. Citron was diplomatic. “We very much think that a national privacy standard would be great.” Chew noted that “some groups have raised some concerns”. Zuckerberg blandly stated that, “These are nuanced things.”
The hearing of January 31 ended with an open conspiracy against genuine change in the social media ecosystem. Instead of focusing on privacy and surveillance capitalism, the senators were more interested in the regulation of outrage over undesirable content. Instead of considering genuine reform, the CEOs made non-binding promises about cosmetic adjustments and fictional industry standards. Along the way, the children were well and truly forgotten.
Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark has joined a chorus of global development and political figures defending the United Nations “lifeline” for more than two million Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip enclave.
Declaring New Zealand should stick to its three-year funding agreement with the UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), Clark joined the pleas by the agency chief executive Philippe Lazzarini — who condemned the US action to suspend funding as “collective punishment” — and Secretary-General António Guterres.
New Zealand is due to fund the agency $1 million this year.
Protesters at an Auckland solidarity rally for Palestine demanding an immediate unconditional ceasefire also condemned the countries suspending UNRWA funding amid reports of serious flooding of Gaza refugee camps.
Suspension of funding by 9 countries to @UNRWA amounts to further collective punishment of besieged #Gaza population. #UNRWA is largest UN humanitarian & development service provider there. Staff accused of crimes have been dismissed. Do donors want relief operation to collapse? https://t.co/xU5jAfqm7T
Other political leaders to voice concerns as eight countries joined the US in announcing they were suspending their funding for UNRWA include Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf and former leader of the UK Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn.
Two countries — Ireland and Norway — declared they they would continue funding the agency and Lazzarini said: “It is shocking to see a suspension of funds to the agency in reaction to allegations against a small group of staff.”
Cuts one day after ICJ ruling
The cuts to funding were announced by the US a day after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) had ordered Israel to take steps to prevent genocidal acts and to punish those who committed such acts in its war on Gaza, and to immediately facilitate aid to the victims of the war.
Israel had alleged that about a dozen of the agency’s 13,000 employees had been involved in the deadly Hamas raid on southern Israel on October 7.
UNRWA is the primary humanitarian agency in #Gaza, with over 2 million people depending on it for their sheer survival.
93% of displaced families in southern governorates of#Gaza have reported inadequate food consumption.
The eight other countries that have joined the US in suspending funding are Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Finland.
“Serious as allegations around a tiny percentage of now former UNRWA staff may be, this isn’t the time to suspend funding to UN’s largest relief and development agency in Gaza,” said Clark, who is also the former head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), in a post on social media.
Secretary-General Guterres said in a statement that the UN had taken “swift actions” following the “serious allegations” against UNRWA staff members, terminating most of the suspects and activating an investigation.
A watermelon banner at the Auckland rally today . . . a symbol of justice for the Palestinian people. Image: David Robie/APR
“Of the 12 people implicated, nine were immediately identified and terminated by the Commissioner General of UNRWA Philippe Lazzarini, one is confirmed dead, and the identity of the two others is being clarified,” he said.
“Any UN employee involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution.
‘Ready to cooperate’
“The secretariat is ready to cooperate with a competent authority able to prosecute the individuals in line with the secretariat’s normal procedures for such cooperation.
“Meanwhile, 2 million civilians in Gaza depend on critical aid from UNRWA for daily survival, but UNRWA’s current funding will not allow it to meet all requirements to support them in February.”
The day after @ICJ concluded that Israel is plausibly committing Genocide in Gaza, some states decided to defund UNRWA, collectively punishing millions of Palestinians at the most critical time, and most likely violating their obligations under the Genocide Convention. https://t.co/fl32DrDeFs
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) January 27, 2024
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said that states cutting funding to UNRWA could be “violating their obligations under the Genocide Convention”.
“The day after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concluded that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza, some states decided to defund UNRWA,” Albanese said in a post on social media.
Albanese also described the decision taken by several UNWRA donors as “collectively punishing millions of Palestinians at the most critical time”.
Noting the irony, lawyer and social media content producer Rosy Pirani said in a post on Instagram: “The US stopped funding UNHRA over an unverified claim that some of its employees may have been involved in 10/7, but continues to fund Israel despite actual evidence [before the ICJ] that it is committing genocide.”
Footage showed people in the crowded facility being treated on blood-smeared floors as frantic loved ones shouted and jostled. Cats scavenged on a mound of medical waste.
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson at the Auckland rally today . . . she vowed that her party would challenge the government over its Yemen action without parliamentary debate. Image: David Robie/APRThe stunning carved waharoa (entranceway) in Auckland’s Aotea Square today . . . Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson paid tribute to artist, journalist and activist Selwyn Muru (Te Aupōuri), who died last week, as the creator of this archway. Image: David Robie/APRA group of Jews Against Genocide protesters at the Auckland rally today . . . among the growing numbers of Jewish protesters who are declaring “not in our name” about Israel’s war on Gaza. Image: David Robie/APR
Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, who has been documenting the impact of the war in the Gaza Strip, has left the enclave for Qatar and gave his first interview there with the Doha-based Al Jazeera global news channel.
Azaiza announced on Instagram yesterday that he was leaving the besieged enclave before boarding a Qatari military airplane at Egypt’s El Arish International Airport.
However, it was unclear how he was able to leave Gaza or why he had evacuated, reports Al Jazeera.
“This is the last time you will see me with this heavy, stinky [press] vest. I decided to evacuate today. … Hopefully soon I’ll jump back and help to build Gaza again,” Azaiza said in a video.
The 24-year-old Palestinian captured the attention of millions globally — including in the South Pacific — as he filmed himself in a press vest and helmet to document conditions during Israel’s war, which has killed more than 25,000 people in Gaza.
“Motaz Azaiza – A 24-year-old man from Gaza, in 108 days, did what CNN, Fox, the BBC, and all their ‘journalism’ predecessors refused to do for 75 years.
“Humanise a people!”
– Khaled Beydoun
Israel launched its offensive after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,139 people and taking more than 200 people captive. It has killed more than 25,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in a relentless attack on Gaza since then.
Azaiza’s coverage often took the form of raw, unfiltered videos about injured children or families crushed under rubble in the aftermath of Israeli air strikes.
He said he has had to “evacuate for a lot of reasons you all know some of it but not all of it”.
In his post, he was seen on a video about to board a grey plane emblazoned with the words “Qatar Emiri Air Force”.
“First video outside Gaza,” he said in one clip, revealing that it was his first time on a aircraft. “Heading to Qatar.”
He also shared a video of the inside of the plane as it landed in Doha.
Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza leaves Gaza after his “heroic” humanitarian reporting . . . “we are all Palestinian.” Video: Al Jazeera
Since the start of the war, the photojournalist has amassed millions of followers across multiple platforms.
His Instagram following has grown from about 27,500 to 18.25 million in the more than 108 days since October 7, according to an assessment of social media analytics by Al Jazeera.
His Facebook account grew from a similar starting point to nearly 500,000 followers. He now has one million followers on X, formerly known as Twitter.
As well as his social media posts, Azaiza has produced content for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNWRA).
I left Gaza with a broken heart and eyes filled with tears.
There was no other option after 108 days of continuous massacres against us.
It’s time to move somewhere else so I can do more work and I pray that I can be a reason to stop this war and help rebuild Gaza again.
I’ve… pic.twitter.com/kg3FwTi38d
Social media users thanked Azaiza for his coverage of the war, many saluting him as a hero.
“Thank you for everything you have done, you have moved mountains, what you have done in the last 100 days people can’t do in their whole lifetime. You were a pivotal voice in showing the world the Israeli atrocities in Gaza. Wishing you well and safety,” one user said on X.
Another, Khaled Beydoun, wrote on Instagram, “Motaz Azaiza – A 24-year-old man from Gaza, in 108 days, did what CNN, Fox, the BBC, and all their ‘journalism’ predecessors refused to do for 75 years.
“Humanise a people!”
“I’m so glad you had the opportunity to get out, God willing, YOU WILL RETURN TO A FREE PALESTINE,” wrote another.
“We love you so deeply,” American musician Kehlani wrote, adding, “Thank you for your humanity.”
“Frame that vest. It’s the armor of one of history’s greatest heroes,” comedian Sammy Obeid said.
Union members at the Australian public broadcaster ABC have today passed a vote of no confidence in managing director David Anderson for failing to defend the integrity of the ABC and its staff from outside attacks, reports the national media union.
The vote was passed overwhelmingly at a national online meeting attended by more than 200 members of the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA), the union said in a statement.
Union members have called on Anderson to take immediate action to win back the confidence of staff following a series of incidents which have damaged the reputation of the ABC as a trusted and independent source of news.
The vote of ABC union staff rebuked Anderson, with one of the broadcaster’s most senior journalists, global affairs editor John Lyons, reported in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age as saying he was “embarrassed” by his employer, which he said had “shown pro-Israel bias” and was failing to protect staff against complaints.
This followed revelations of a series of emails by the so-called Lawyers for Israel lobby group alleged to be influential in the sacking of Lebanese Australian journalist Antoinette Lattouf for her criticism on social media of the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza that has killed 25,000 people so far, mostly women and children.
Another pro-Israel WhatsApp lobbying the ABC.
It makes me sick in the stomach to see people celebrate my sacking.
It makes me sick in the stomach to see an alleged Ita Buttrose response saying I’m now gone.
It makes me worry about the ABC’s integrity https://t.co/6qTeU7f8Wzpic.twitter.com/L9Te8A1Ynx
Staff have put management on notice that if it does not begin to address the current crisis by next Monday, January 29, staff will consider further action.
The acting chief executive of MEAA, Adam Portelli, said staff had felt unsupported by the ABC’s senior management when they have been criticised or attacked from outside.
Message ‘clear and simple’
“The message from staff today is clear and simple: David Anderson must demonstrate that he will take the necessary steps to win back the confidence of staff and the trust of the Australian public,” he said.
“This is the result of a consistent pattern of behaviour by management when the ABC is under attack of buckling to outside pressure and leaving staff high and dry.
“Public trust in the ABC is being undermined. The organisation’s reputation for frank and fearless journalism is being damaged by management’s repeated lack of support for its staff when they are under attack from outside.
BREAKING NEWS:
Censorship Crisis at the ABC.
Senior ABC journalist accuses ABC of bowing to “a group of lawyers lobbying for a foreign power.”
“The clue is in the name: ‘Lawyers for Israel’ thought that they could run a campaign to bully an ABC journalist out of her job —… pic.twitter.com/VbyFfGqpnB
“Journalists at the ABC — particularly First Nations people, and people from culturally diverse backgrounds — increasingly don’t feel safe at work; and the progress that has been made in diversifying the ABC has gone backwards.
“Management needs to act quickly to win that confidence back by putting the integrity of the ABC’s journalism above the impact of pressure from politicians, unaccountable lobby groups and big business.”
The full motion passed by MEAA members at today’s meeting reads as follows:
MEAA members at the ABC have lost confidence in our managing director David Anderson. Our leaders have consistently failed to protect our ABC’s independence or protect staff when they are attacked. They have consistently refused to work collaboratively with staff to uphold the standards that the Australian public need and expect of their ABC.
Winning staff and public confidence back will require senior management:
Backing journalism without fear or favour;
Working collaboratively with unions to build a culturally informed process for supporting staff who face criticism and attack;
Take urgent action on the lack of security and inequality that journalists of colour face;
Working with unions to develop a clearer and fairer social media policy; and
Upholding a transparent complaints process, in which journalists who are subject to complaints are informed and supported.
A further resolution passed unanimously by the meeting read:
MEAA members at the ABC will not continue to accept the failure of management to protect our colleagues and the public. If management does not work with us to urgently fix the ongoing crisis, ABC staff will take further action to take a stand for a safe, independent ABC.
By Ronald Toito’ona and Charley Piringi in Honiara
China’s interference and moves to control the media in the Solomon Islands have been exposed in leaked emails In-depth Solomons has obtained.
On Monday last week [15 January 2024], Huangbi Lin, a diplomat working at the Chinese Embassy in Honiara, called the owner of Island Sun newspaper, Lloyd Loji, and expressed the embassy’s “concern” in a viewpoint article that the paper published on page 6 of the day’s issue.
The article, which appeared earlier in an ABC publication, was about Taiwan’s newly-elected president William Lai Ching-te, and what his victory means to China and the West.
Lin’s phone call and his embassy’s concern was revealed in an email Loji wrote to the editorial staff of Island Sun, which In-depth Solomons has cited. Loji wrote:
“I had received a call this morning from Lin (Chinese Embassy) raising their concern on the ABC publication on today’s issue, page 6.
“Yesterday, he had sent us a few articles regarding China’s stance on the elections taking place in Taiwan which he wanted us to publish.
“Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Solomon Islands) made a press release (as attached) reaffirming Solomon Island’s position with regards to the Taiwan elections (recognition of one China principle).
“Let us align ourselves according to the position in which our country stands.
“Be mindful of our publication since China is also a supporter of Island Sun.
“Please collaborate on this matter and (be) cautious of the news that we publish especially with regards to Taiwan’s election.”
No response
Loji has not responded to questions In-depth Solomons sent to him for comments.
The day before on Sunday, Lin sent an email to owners and editors of Solomons Islands’ major news outlets, asking for their cooperation in their reporting of the Taiwanese election outcome. His email said:
“Dear media friends.
“As the result of the election in the Taiwan region of the People’s Republic of China being revealed, a few media reports are trying to cover it from incorrect perspectives.
“The Embassy of the People’s Republic of China would like to remind that both inappropriate titles on newly-elected Taiwan leaders and incorrect name on the Taiwan region are against the one-China policy and the spirit of UN resolution 2758.”
In the same email, he also sent two articles from the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China on the results of the Taiwan elections.
He requested that the articles be published in the next day’s papers.
Articles published
None of the two articles appeared in the Island Sun the next day, but the paper eventually published them on Tuesday.
The Solomon Star featured both articles, along with a government statement issued at the behest of the Chinese Embassy, on its front page.
Lin failed to respond to questions In-depth Solomons sent to him for comments.
Taiwan has been Solomons Islands’ diplomatic ally until 2019 when Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare ditched Taiwan for China.
In the last two years, China has provided both financial support and thousands of dollars’ worth of office and media equipment to the Island Sun and Solomon Star.
China’s reported manipulation of news outlets around the Pacific has been a topic of discussion in recent years. The communist nation is one of the worst countries in the world for media freedom. It ranks 177 on the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index.
Responding to the incident, the Media Association of Solomon Islands (MASI) has urged China to respect the independence of the media.
MASI criticism
“This incident is regrettable,” MASI President Georgina Kekea told In-depth Solomons.
“Any attempts to control or manipulate the media compromise the public’s right to information,” Kekea added.
“Despite the one-China Policy, China must respect the rights of Solomon Islanders in their own country.
“The situation shows the big difference between the values of the Solomon Islands and China. Respect goes both ways.
“Chinese representatives working in Solomon Islands must remember that Solomon Islands is a democratic country with values different to that of their own country and no foreign policy should ever dictate what people can and cannot do in their own country.”
Kekea further added that it was disheartening to hear interference by diplomatic partners in the day-to-day operations of an independent newsroom.
She said in a democratic country like Solomon Islands, it was crucial that the autonomy of newsrooms remained intact, and free from any external government influence on editorial decisions.
Kekea also urged Solomon Islands newsroom leaders to be vigilant and not allow outsiders to dictate their news content.
“There are significant long-term consequences if we allow outsiders to dictate our decisions.
“Solomon Islands is a democratic country, with the media serving as the fourth pillar of democracy.
“It is crucial not to permit external influences in directing our course of action.”
Kekea also highlighted the financial struggles news organisations in Solomon Islands face and the financial assistance they’ve received from external donors.
She pointed out that this sort of challenge arose when news organisations lacked the financial capacity to look after themselves.
“The concern is not exclusive to China but extends to all external support.
“It is essential to acknowledge and appreciate the funding support received but there should be limits.
“We must enable the media to fulfil its role independently. Gratitude for funding support should not translate into allowing external entities to exploit us for their own agenda or geopolitical struggles.
“Media is susceptible to the influence of major powers. Thus, we must try as much as possible to not get ourselves into a position that we cannot get out of.
“It is important to keep our independence. We must try as much as possible to be self-reliant. To work hard and not rely solely on external partners for funding support.
“If we are not careful, we might lose our freedom.”
Republished by arrangement with In-Depth Solomons.
Last year, the Papua New Guinea government moved in a subtle way into the Fourth Estate.
It tried to — and is still trying to — find a way to curtail and restrict your access to mainstream and social media by trying to gag media organisations.
Obviously, this was an attack on media freedom. We were not going to take it sitting down.
We met the government head-on to protect our country’s media freedoms, and to ensure the public — that’s you — are well informed on what is happening in our country.
Today, we report on a government endeavor, which we consider extremely dangerous and an affront to the intelligence of Papua New Guineans, which we also believe is impinging our constitutional freedoms.
The government, in introducing a State of Emergency, has gone to a dangerous level of invoking section 70 of the NICTA Act.
Section 70, according to our Prime Minister, gives absolute rights to government agents including police, soldiers and undercover agents, to enter any home and check private house and property.
Section 70 also gives these agents all the power to search your phone. This is in our view draconian and extreme.
What will become of democracy? Is this a test run for what is yet to come?
We will support any move to impose restrictions that will save lives and protect properties and ensure peace and good order.
But we do not promote laws that will instill fear, limit freedom and impinge on the rights of the common people.
No to draconian governance, no to dictatorial leadership.
While we support the State of Emergency as a deterrent to further violence, looting and acts of terror against businesses and citizens, we consider the power to search without a warrant as a direct attack on the freedoms guaranteed by the constitution to our people.
This Section 70 of the National Information and Communication Technology (NICTA) Act 2009 seems to be the same section used by government in its recent attempt to curtail the media.
While this action seems to have been sparked by the Black Wednesday looting in Port Moresby on December 10, one cannot rule out the perplexity of the first sitting of Parliament on February 13 where a Vote of No Confidence in the government is looming.
The NICTA Act allows the government to require operator licensees, such as telecommunication companies, to provide ICT services, restrict or delay certain communications, disclose the content of specified communications to the Minister, and coordinate with other government organisations if necessary.
The activation of Section 70 is likely to agitate citizens regarding privacy rights and the protection of personal information.
However, the government contends that these measures are necessary to address public emergencies and ensure public safety.
The government has yet to come clear on how this section 70 will be enforced and carried out.
Will the police and army use section 70 to conduct raids on suspected homes, communities, and people?
Will there be search warrants for these phone searches, home searches, bag searches?
What is the recourse for the public if they are caught in the crossfire of section 70?
The Prime Minister and his Minister for Internal Security must explain this clearly.
This editorial was published by the PNG Post-Courier on 16 January 2024.
Last year, the Papua New Guinea government moved in a subtle way into the Fourth Estate.
It tried to — and is still trying to — find a way to curtail and restrict your access to mainstream and social media by trying to gag media organisations.
Obviously, this was an attack on media freedom. We were not going to take it sitting down.
We met the government head-on to protect our country’s media freedoms, and to ensure the public — that’s you — are well informed on what is happening in our country.
Today, we report on a government endeavor, which we consider extremely dangerous and an affront to the intelligence of Papua New Guineans, which we also believe is impinging our constitutional freedoms.
The government, in introducing a State of Emergency, has gone to a dangerous level of invoking section 70 of the NICTA Act.
Section 70, according to our Prime Minister, gives absolute rights to government agents including police, soldiers and undercover agents, to enter any home and check private house and property.
Section 70 also gives these agents all the power to search your phone. This is in our view draconian and extreme.
What will become of democracy? Is this a test run for what is yet to come?
We will support any move to impose restrictions that will save lives and protect properties and ensure peace and good order.
But we do not promote laws that will instill fear, limit freedom and impinge on the rights of the common people.
No to draconian governance, no to dictatorial leadership.
While we support the State of Emergency as a deterrent to further violence, looting and acts of terror against businesses and citizens, we consider the power to search without a warrant as a direct attack on the freedoms guaranteed by the constitution to our people.
This Section 70 of the National Information and Communication Technology (NICTA) Act 2009 seems to be the same section used by government in its recent attempt to curtail the media.
While this action seems to have been sparked by the Black Wednesday looting in Port Moresby on December 10, one cannot rule out the perplexity of the first sitting of Parliament on February 13 where a Vote of No Confidence in the government is looming.
The NICTA Act allows the government to require operator licensees, such as telecommunication companies, to provide ICT services, restrict or delay certain communications, disclose the content of specified communications to the Minister, and coordinate with other government organisations if necessary.
The activation of Section 70 is likely to agitate citizens regarding privacy rights and the protection of personal information.
However, the government contends that these measures are necessary to address public emergencies and ensure public safety.
The government has yet to come clear on how this section 70 will be enforced and carried out.
Will the police and army use section 70 to conduct raids on suspected homes, communities, and people?
Will there be search warrants for these phone searches, home searches, bag searches?
What is the recourse for the public if they are caught in the crossfire of section 70?
The Prime Minister and his Minister for Internal Security must explain this clearly.
This editorial was published by the PNG Post-Courier on 16 January 2024.
Papua New Guinea’s Communications Minister Timothy Masiu has announced stringent measures to control social media in the country for the next 10 days of the State of Emergency.
The government’s threat drew a sharp rebuke from former prime minister Peter O’Neill who called the move a “sinister fear campaign against the people” and “a threat on the media freedom” of ordinary citizens.
Masiu, a former journalist before becoming a politician, warned that the government would not hesitate to shut down social media applications and sites if there was continuous abuse and misuse of social media in spreading fake news, misinformation and disinformation in the country.
He issued the warning citing significant evidence of serious abuse of social media spreading false information that led to destruction of properties in the capital Port Moresby and parts of the country in last week’s Black Wednesday resulting in deaths.
Masiu said people who engaged in such bogus activity would lose their social media accounts and they could be arrested and charged for fomenting acts of violence.
He said: “I have statutory power under the National Information and Communication Technology Act 2009 to restrict access to social media sites and applications if this continues.
“The Ministry of ICT has observed a sharp spike in the use of social media from Wednesday, January 10, 2024, and many are misinformation and disinformation and we now give 10 days effective from today for people to adhere or face a complete shutdown of social media sites and applications for the duration of the State of Emergency. ”
‘Monitoring of false information’
He said discussions on social media that incited violence, destruction, spreading of false information or confidential government information, opinions that were wrong, or sending false information would be monitored and legal action taken immediately.
Masiu said national security, public emergency and public safety was critical to a secure nation and a “happy and safe country”.
“I have instructed the agencies under my ministry to strengthen monitoring and report any abuses of social media to the police cybercrime unit to begin investigations, arrest and prosecute and also take down fake accounts and sites.”
Last Friday, when introducing the two-week State of Emergency following Black Wednesday, Prime Minister James Marape announced draconian emergency measures including searches of private homes, property, vehicle and phones by government agents.
Masiu said PNG was a civilised country and citizens must abide by rules and laws. Every citizen had a duty and obligation to ensure “we progress to be a better country”.
However, an irate O’Neill said: “It is not surprising that we see intimidating armoured personnel carriers on the streets today in Port Moresby and now threats that our freedom of speech will be removed with the potential cancellation of social media.
“The government is doing its very best to shut down our constitutional rights in a fear campaign.”
Government ‘fears people’s voices’
O’Neill continued to counter the government plan by suggesting the government now feared the people’s voices.
“It seems that the government is in fear of the voice of its own people when it should instead be listening to the struggle of the people who discuss online the bad governance practices of this government; high unemployment; budget in a mess and crippling cost of living,” he said.
“That is what people are talking about on the street, in their homes and on social media. Will they next enter our homes and monitor conversation’s between family members?
“Government should listen up and stop this nonsense of trying to control our vibrant democracy.
Get back to basics and build our country; live within our means and develop jobs and provide quality healthcare and education. Get back to old fashioned policing not intimidation.”
Opposition Leader Joseph Lelang and his deputy Douglas Tomuriesa did not respond to PNG Post-Courier questions last night.
Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, has been censoring posts from pro-Palestine voices, a new analysis from Human Rights Watch finds, lending evidence to what many advocates for Palestinian rights have suspected since Israel’s current assault began. Human Rights Watch analyzed posts on Facebook and Instagram from over 60 countries and found that the platforms have been taking down…
In a remarkable moment in an interview onstage at a conference on Wednesday, an obstinate Elon Musk hurled an expletive at advertisers who are fleeing X, formerly known as Twitter, and blamed the company’s problems on the advertisers themselves rather than his own leadership. At The New York Times’s DealBook Summit, Musk and interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin discussed his recent posts on the platform…
Elon Musk, the owner of X (formerly known as Twitter) may have cost the company tens of millions of dollars in lost advertising revenue due to his recent comments endorsing an antisemitic and racist conspiracy theory, internal documents show. According to The New York Times, these documents find that the social media platform could lose as much as $75 million from advertising by the end of this…
Elon Musk’s social media company, formerly known as Twitter but changed to X since his acquisition of the site last year, is suing Media Matters for America, claiming that the nonprofit media company purposefully and maliciously defamed him and the company. The suit stems from a report by Media Matters published last week, in which the organization showcased how far right antisemitic…
Elon Musk’s social media company, formerly known as Twitter but changed to X since his acquisition of the site last year, is suing Media Matters for America, claiming that the nonprofit media company purposefully and maliciously defamed him and the company. The suit stems from a report by Media Matters published last week, in which the organization showcased how far right antisemitic…
“A free press for free people” boldly champions the censorship of dangerous foreign ideas (Free Press, 11/1/23).
Axios (10/31/23) reported that in a two-week period, TikTok saw “nearly four times the number of views to TikTok posts using the hashtag #StandwithPalestine globally compared to posts using the hashtag #StandwithIsrael.” As a result, the conservative outrage machine kicked into high gear.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R–Wisc.), who serves on the House select committee investigating China’s Communist Party, took to the web publication Free Press(11/1/23) to sound the alarm: TikTok’s Chinese ownership meant that a dangerous foreign power was using social media to sway public opinion against Israel. His solution was clear: It’s “time for Congress to take action. Time to ban TikTok.”
This is interesting for a few reasons, but chief among them is that the Free Press was started by former New York Times writer Bari Weiss, one of a handful of conservative journalists who banded together to assert the federal government exerted too much control on Twitter before it was acquired by Elon Musk (NPR, 12/14/22). The company’s liberal corporate governance, they asserted, had suppressed conservative ideas (Washington Post, 12/13/22).
Weiss even signed the Westminster Declaration, a vow to protect “free speech”: “Across the globe, government actors, social media companies, universities and NGOs are increasingly working to monitor citizens and rob them of their voices,” it said. These “large-scale coordinated efforts are sometimes referred to as the ‘Censorship-Industrial Complex.” Now the Free Press fears the internet is too free, and should be cleansed of ideas deemed hurtful to the Israeli government.
Censorship by the wrong people
Gallagher said that “TikTok is the top search engine for more than half of Gen Z, and about six in ten Americans are hooked on the app before their 17th birthday.” This is worrisome, he said, because TikTok “is controlled by America’s foremost adversary, one that does not share our interests or our values: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”
This brings Gallagher, and other GOP lawmakers, to the conclusion that the US must ban TikTok. “We are ceding the ability to censor Americans’ speech to a foreign adversary,” he said–suggesting that censorship isn’t altogether wrong, it’s just wrong when committed by an undesirable entity. He pointed out that “for a century, the Federal Communications Commission has blocked concentrated foreign ownership of radio and television assets on national security grounds.”
This indicates that Gallagher, in the name of anti-Communism, doesn’t think the market should decide which media consumers can access. Instead, this must be highly regulated by a powerful federal agency. So much for his commitment to “get big government out of the way.”
‘Massively manipulating’
Critics call for banning TikTok because users are getting the “wrong information,” thus “undercutting support for Israel among young Americans,” which is “contrary to US foreign policy interests” (NBC, 11/1/23).
He’s hardly alone. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R–Tenn.), who once blasted (10/20/20) what she saw as censorship against conservative voices at Facebook and Twitter, called for a ban (NBC, 11/1/23), saying “It would not be surprising that the Chinese-owned TikTok is pushing pro-Hamas content.” Sen. Marco Rubio (R–Fla.) concurred, saying in a statement, “For quite some time, I have been warning that Communist China is capable of using TikTok’s algorithm to manipulate and influence Americans.” Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) wants a ban (UPI, 11/7/23), and the New York Post editorial board (11/6/23) approvingly cited Gallagher’s Free Press piece.
Hedge-fund billionaire Bill Ackman, who has called for punitive action against Harvard University students who made pro-Palestine statements (Wall Street Journal, 10/11/23; Business Insider, 11/5/23), “said TikTok should ‘probably be banned’ for ‘massively manipulating public opinion’ in favor of Hamas and stoking anti-Israel animus,” the New York Post (11/1/23) reported.
CNN (11/5/23) also insinuated that TikTok is skewing public opinion and reported that the Biden administration is monitoring the situation, saying the president’s aides “are also warily monitoring developments like how the Chinese government-controlled TikTok algorithm just happens to be prioritizing anti-Israel content.”
If this freakout about TikTok seems selective, that’s because it is. Since Musk took over Twitter, hate speech and antisemitism have run amok on the platform (Washington Post, 3/20/23; LA Times, 4/27/23), but congressional Republicans and their journalistic allies on the social media beat aren’t clamoring for an intervention into the mogul’s extremist influence on US discourse.
Republicans have been looking to ban TikTok, howling about its Chinese ownership, since the Trump administration, but the call became all the more real when the state of Montana banned the app completely (FAIR.org, 5/25/23). TikTok is banned on US government devices (CBS, 3/1/23); in liberal New York City, the same is true for city government devices (NPR, 8/17/23). Given all that, the concept that the Republican-held House could push to ban TikTok completely, on the grounds that it allows too much criticism of Israel, is no laughing matter.
Media moral panics
Facebook‘s parent company paid a PR firm to promote the view that “TikTok is the real threat especially as a foreign owned app that is No. 1 in sharing data that young teens are using” (Washington Post, 3/30/22).
Some of this vitriol toward TikTok is purely cynical. The Washington Post (3/30/22) reported that “Facebook parent company Meta,” a major competitor to TikTok, worked with “one of the biggest Republican consulting firms in the country to orchestrate a nationwide campaign seeking to turn the public against TikTok.”
But the history of US politics has been defined by periodic moral panics about the subversion of American values through media. The Grant administration took tight control of the US Postal Service out of fear that sexual content circulated through the mail was degrading the nation’s moral core.
The advent of film spawned local and state censorship boards throughout the country, starting with Chicago in 1907. The Supreme Court held in 1915 that film was “a business pure and simple,” and thus not protected by the First Amendment—a decision not reversed until 1952. In the mid–20th century, anti-Communist zealots in the House of Representatives persecuted numerous Hollywood writers and actors, based on the suspicion that they were indoctrinating the American public with socialist ideas through the movies.
In the 1980s, Tipper Gore, wife of then-Sen. Al Gore (D–Tenn.), started a campaign that forced record labels to put warning stickers on albums with “explicit lyrics” (New York Times, 1/4/88).
They must be brainwashed
The Washington Post (11/13/23) noted that “young Americans have consistently shown support for Palestinians in Pew Research surveys, including a poll in 2014, four years before TikTok launched in the United States.”
The current rhetoric against TikTok is not only a hypocritical attack on free speech, it’s an insinuation that the only reason people could be critical of Israel is manipulation by a foreign government. There’s no way people from all walks of life could simply be horrified by what’s happening in Gaza; those devilish Chinese Communists must be warping their minds.
In fact, the Washington Post (11/13/23) found that TikTok was not even unique among social networks for the gap between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel support in public posts. It said:
But Facebook and Instagram, TikTok’s US-based rivals, show a remarkably similar gap, their data show. On Facebook, the #freepalestine hashtag is found on more than 11 million posts—39 times more than those with #standwithisrael. On Instagram, the pro-Palestinian hashtag is found on 6 million posts, 26 times more than the pro-Israel hashtag.
Any move by elected officials to ban TikTok should be taken seriously; it’s not just about the app’s videos about terrible first dates and secret menu items. Free speech is a principle. When so-called defenders of free speech advocate censorship because they find certain political ideas too dangerous, be very worried.
Featured image: Screenshots of Israel/Palestine content on TikTok.
Media giant Hearst is instituting a new social media policy that bans its employees, including its journalists, from expressing “personal political opinions” online. “Hearst is declaring that our channels for personal expression are company property, even when we’re off the clock,” Hearst Magazines Media Union said in a statement. Political posts, such as personal views about political candidates…
Fresh from casually dancing and singing with the Bee Gees offstage at the Whitehouse during Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s State visit to the US (true story!), Australian of the Year Taryn Brumfitt hit the stage at the National Press Club in Canberra to give us all a sobering message about body image.
“I have never met anyone who’s learned to embrace their body and regretted the decision to do so,” she told the packed room in a televised Women in Media address.
Moving onto a powerful lesson about the importance not judging the health of someone by looking at their body, Taryn told the audience about her late brother, Jason.
“I want to share a rather personal, painful example of how I know this not to be true. My brother was charismatic, charming and incredibly funny. He had the potential to do so much, and he always seemed to be in the right place at the right time.
“When he lived in Queensland, he was randomly approached by one of the team from the movie The Thin Red Line and was asked to be Sean Penn’s movie double, which of course he jumped at the chance. I don’t want to make it about appearance, but the girls did think Jason was a good looker!
“Now, if I put Jason here, and then a man in a larger body next to him, and ask 100 people who they thought was healthier out of the two men, all 100 people would have said Jason. And yet, Jason was a heroin addict, who died from his addiction, on a park bench in Sydney across from Central Station.”
She reiterated: “You just don’t know what’s going on in someone’s life, and you most definitely can’t judge someone’s health by their appearance.”
Moving on, Taryn recalled the incident 10 years ago in which she “…shared a before-and-after image of my body that sent the internet into a spin and lit the spark behind what would become my career and sole focus for the next decade.”
In that time Taryn believes we’ve made progress on body image – but still have a long way to go. She says while some commentators believe the topic is passé, nothing could be further from the truth.
“Body image issues among young people are the worst they’ve ever been. Since the start of the pandemic, rates of body image distress and eating disorders in young people have doubled.
“A 2013 Deloitte Access Economics study, found that the total socioeconomic cost of eating disorders was $69.7 billion annually, not to mention the immeasurable personal costs,” she told the Press Club audience.
Australian of the Year, Taryn Brumfitt, addresses the National Press Club. Photo: Hilary Wardhaugh
Taryn has been working to get evidence-based resources on body image to thousands of young people across the country.
However, she says one of the most important places children receive messages is at home: “I’m absolutely convinced that if we do not do the work as individuals and professionals to change our own internalised beliefs and behaviours around bodies, it will be another decade before we see any meaningful, lasting change.
“If you’re a parent, role model or caregiver to a young person – the most powerful thing you can do is to stop saying anything negative about your body or appearance—or anyone else’s—in front of your kids,” she said.
In her typical authentic style, Taryn declared that just like the rest of us, she’s had moments when “the wheels have fallen off.” But in the end, these experiences have driven her forward.
“In my teens my family was rocked by the suicide of my uncle, I’m still devastated every day to have lost my brother Jason when he was just 27 years old, and I was left absolutely broken when my 19-year marriage ended several years ago.
“I’ve had the full human experience, some real highs and lows, but out of all of the life-changing moments, there’s been nothing more profound than when I decided to stop hating my body, and learned how to appreciate and embrace it instead,” she said.
(Editor’s note: Hear! Hear!)
At one stage, Taryn said she despaired at her supposedly “broken” post-children body. And even considered plastic surgery. But slowly it dawned on her that this would send the wrong message to her young daughter, Mikaela.
“I had this thought: ‘How am I going to teach my daughter to embrace her body if I change mine?’ So, I cancelled the scheduled surgery.”
Explaining this revelation further, Taryn said: “I realised that I didn’t want to move my body to punish it, I wanted to move it for the pleasure of being alive. I learnt that I wanted to nourish my body with foods that fuel me and give me energy.”
Circling back to the moment when she shared the non-traditional “after” photo of her larger body online – and how it sent the internet and media into an international frenzy – Taryn told the Press Club audience thousands of people then wrote to her about their own body image despair.
“It was at that moment that I fully understood the scale of this issue,” she said.
Turning to statistics, Taryn painted a sobering picture of the way Australians view their bodies: “Ninety one percent of women want a different body to the one they have. For our youth – we are experiencing a paediatric health emergency.
“Seventy seven percent of Australian adolescents experience body image distress, which is actually higher than the global average. Rates of suicide, depression, anxiety, eating disorders and steroid use related to body dissatisfaction are soaring.
“We know that young people with poor body image are 24 times more likely to develop depression and anxiety. One in ten adolescent boys and one in three girls meet the criteria for eating disorders. And the issues are presenting at younger and younger ages. We now have the data that shows that 37 percent of three-year-olds want a different body to the one they have.
“And there is elevated risk for body image concerns, among trans, non-binary, gender diverse, and sexual minority young people,” she said.
Taryn urged the audience not to comment on the bodies of others – for any reason: “If we normalise this type of judgement, our young ones will go on to think that their bodies should be subject to public scrutiny. It’s harmful, unhelpful and quite simply, none of our business!”
Her last tip was to stop blaming social media for body image issues, and harness it for good instead.
“Let’s encourage a more empowered approach to social media, for us and our kids. Just like in real life, let’s be discerning about who you let in the door, use your power to support the things that help us feel good, and unfollow the things that don’t.”
As a joking aside, Taryn urged us all to insist on more cat and dog videos in our social media feeds (as opposed to ogling at and comparing ourselves to people’s bodies).
When it comes to the media, Taryn suggested we “…show images of people that are as diverse in appearance as we see in the world…And let’s stop talking about weight and ‘obesity’ and start talking about health.”
“Life is fleeting. Don’t waste it being at war with your body, and please don’t set the young ones in your life up for a lifetime of the same,” she concluded.
If you – or someone you are about – needs support for an eating disorder or concerns about body image, call the Butterfly FoundationNational Helpline on 1800 334 673.
Picture at top: Australian of the Year, Taryn Brumfitt, addresses the National Press Club. Photo: Hilary Wardhaugh
Mahsa Yazdani convicted of blasphemy and ‘insulting supreme leader’ as Iran regime targets families of those killed in protests
A mother in Iran, whose son was reportedly killed after being shot repeatedly at close range by security forces, has been sentenced to 13 years in prison by an Iranian court after she demanded justice for her child on social media.
Mahsa Yazdani, whose 20-year-old son Mohammad Javad Zahedi was killed at an anti-regime protest in September 2022, was convicted on charges of blasphemy, incitement, insulting the supreme leader, and spreading anti-regime propaganda, according to human rights groups and family members. They say she will serve the first five years with no chance of parole.
Social media users in Aotearoa New Zealand are being warned not to make posts on voting or any aspect of political campaigns come election day Saturday.
Scrutineers will be on duty at polling stations across the motu to “keep an eye on things”.
No political campaigning is allowed tomorrow and all election billboards must be removed by midnight.
The Electoral Commission which oversees the election keeps an eye on social media and follows up on any complaints.
Chief Electoral Officer Karl Le Quesne has this advice: “We just advise everyone don’t broadcast on social media about voting or campaigning on election day.”
While it is not long before voting booths shut up shop, it could be weeks before a final election result is declared.
‘Big day’ for election
As of Wednesday more than 970,818 had cast their votes, leaving more than two and a half million still to vote.
Le Quesne expects more than one million votes to have been cast by the end of the day.
He told RNZ Morning Report this was ahead of 2017 but behind 2020.
“We are just getting really prepared for potentially quite a big day on election day,” he said.
More than 2300 voting places will be open on Saturday from 9am to 7pm.
The final results will be declared on November 3.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
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