{"id":99497,"date":"2021-03-30T11:04:26","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T11:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/?p=56432"},"modified":"2021-03-30T11:04:26","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T11:04:26","slug":"gavin-ellis-the-pacific-media-centre-must-break-free-to-survive-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/03\/30\/gavin-ellis-the-pacific-media-centre-must-break-free-to-survive-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Gavin Ellis: The Pacific Media Centre must break free to survive"},"content":{"rendered":"
THE KNIGHTLY VIEWS:<\/strong><\/a> By Gavin Ellis<\/em><\/p>\n For many years I thought universities were the ideal place to establish centres of investigative journalism excellence. Now I\u2019m not so sure.<\/p>\n My views have been shaken to the core by the Auckland University of Technology gutting the Pacific Media Centre.<\/a> Its future in anything but name is now in doubt.<\/p>\n The PMC\u2019s founder, highly regarded journalist and academic Professor David Robie, retired last December. In short order the centre\u2019s offices were emptied and the contents, one hopes, placed in storage. The School of Communication Studies head, Dr Rosser Johnson, announced that PMC<\/a> would henceforth share space in the main media studies workspace.<\/p>\n In an email he said \u201ceverything that the school is planning will, we believe, enhance its status and increase its visibility\u201d and that he would be calling for expressions of interest in the leadership of the centre.<\/p>\n However, those previously involved in its operation speak of a communication vacuum and no resumption of centre activity. Four unmarked desks have apparently been assigned. The PMC website appears to have been frozen<\/a>, apart from links to associated \u2013 but independent \u2013 operations Asia Pacific Report<\/em><\/a> and the Pacific Journalism Review<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n Dr Robie has made clear his views on the plight of the centre and he has been joined by a legion of concerned academics, journalists and concerned members of communities throughout the Asia Pacific region. The Australia Asia Pacific Media Initiative<\/a>, in a diplomatically-worded letter to AUT warned what would be lost if PMC \u2013 \u201cthe jewel in AUT\u2019s crown\u201d \u2013 is closed or subsumed.<\/p>\n It suggested the best solution may be to reconstitute the PMC as an independent centre. The undiplomatic translation of that is \u201cTake it away from the School of Communications Studies\u201d.<\/p>\n Systemic issues at the interface<\/strong> Many of those jobs simply no longer exist and prospective students know it. As a result, the focus has shifted to a more traditional university outlook based on theoretical teaching and research outputs.<\/p>\n The Pacific Media Centre is not the first to fall victim.<\/p>\n In Sydney, the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism<\/a>, one of the county\u2019s flagships of investigative reporting, closed in 2017 after 25 years of racking up a plethora of award-winning stories. The University of Technology Sydney unceremoniously closed the ACIJ following \u201cperiodic evaluation of performance against the strategic objectives of the faculty and the university\u201d.<\/p>\n What that means in plain English is that the centre\u2019s journalism wasn\u2019t counting sufficiently towards the research-based metrics that determined how much funding UTS could attract from government.<\/p>\n AUT\u2019s Pacific Media Centre is in exactly the same position. Its journalism may be lauded here and throughout the region (and beyond) but it does not push the required buttons by fitting neatly into conventional academic methodologies at the core of the Performance Based Research Funding (PBRF)<\/a> model that determines a large part of the share of government money that each tertiary institution receives.<\/p>\n Professor Chris Nash<\/a>, an award-winning ABC journalist who became director of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism before moving to Monash University, told me in a telephone conversation last week that journalists were in very vulnerable positions within universities and were often pushed into internecine competition with their colleagues (let alone the broader disciplinary framework of the social sciences) over what should be their proper academic output.<\/p>\n Research-based imperatives<\/strong> Nash wrote a provocative book What is Journalism?<\/em><\/a> that argues that journalism should be treated as an academic discipline on a par with history.<\/p>\n \u201cJournalism is where history used to be,\u201d he told me. \u201cHistory used to manifest precisely what journalism is being accused of, which is that it is purely empirical with no analysis and no reflection.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a common political problem that disciplines have to face as they emerge in the context of a university environment. I have to say journalism has handled it fairly badly, particularly with its focus on the job market\u2026 It has seriously failed to actually develop a concept of journalism as academic research.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Robie (whose own body of PBRF-recognised research is prodigious) acknowledged as much in a 2015 article in which he argued for greater recognition of \u201cjournalism-as-research\u201d in the PBRF funding model<\/a>.<\/p>\n That hasn\u2019t come to pass and it\u2019s clear from the dire situation facing the PMC that the friction between practice and research is as abrasive as ever.<\/p>\n Centres like the Pacific Media Centre develop an ethos that is driven by their leadership, and particularly by their founders. When it is time for the leaders to move on (and at 75 David Robie had more than earned his retirement), the issue of succession is vitally important.<\/p>\n Panama Papers moving force<\/strong> After Lewis left the centre in 2004 it went through a series of directors, its fulltime staff dropped from 40 to 25 and it committed a number of embarrassing gaffs. It has since recovered its equilibrium and regained its place in the media landscape, but Lewis told me he believed insufficient attention had been paid to succession planning and to codifying values and ethos.<\/p>\n Dr Robie was mindful of the issue of succession and has written extensively on the values and ethos of the Pacific Media Centre but the reality is that neither he nor the staff of the centre had any control over events following his retirement. The decision-making was within the Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies and its School of Communications Studies.<\/p>\n Not only were there no guarantees of any continuation of the imperatives or ethos Dr Robie had built up over 13 years, but the terms of reference for a new appointee could \u2013 and likely will \u2013 pay more attention to the academic interests of the school (and its PBRF score) than to journalism.<\/p>\n This endgame is in stark contrast to the centre\u2019s beginnings. It was established as one of five autonomous centres that comprised the Creative Industries Research Institute<\/a>. Although the institute was within the university, it enjoyed significant independence.<\/p>\n The inaugural chair of the PMC advisory board, Selwyn Manning, told me that, from the onset, the centre\u2019s purpose was clear.<\/p>\n\n
\nI would go a step further: Take it away from AUT because there is a fundamental conflict of interest between tertiary institutions and centres of investigative journalism. There are systemic issues at the interface between academic and craft practices. The tension has been exacerbated by the fact that universities can no longer measure the success of their journalism courses by the number of graduates they place in jobs.<\/p>\n
\nHe said journalism wasn\u2019t alone in experiencing this misalignment with the research-based imperatives of academia. Nursing and architecture had been similarly afflicted, as had history which is now one of the most august disciplines in the social sciences.<\/p>\n
\nWhen I was conducting research for my book Trust Ownership and the Future of News<\/em><\/a>, I interviewed Charles Lewis, founder of the Centre for Public Integrity in Washington. The centre is the moving force behind the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists<\/a> that uncovered the Panama Papers.<\/p>\n