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By Of the 39 pages of one of the dailies today only 10 pages are dedicated to actual local news. If that is the type of journalism we have in this country then I would love to see alternatives. The Somare government over the holiday period made several announcements about establishing a government owned TV station and newspaper. As always the more variety of media here the better I think. It can only add to the quality of journalism in this country and give us all a choice as to who we want to go to, to get our news from. PNG’eans do not have to look far now to know what competition can do to the quality of services in an industry.
The current media leaves allot to be desired in what they report and how. (By ‘media’ I mean quite broadly, TV, newspaper and radio). Spelling and grammatical errors are always sprinkled among sensationalised half truths that do nothing for what we want to see as news. I’ll give you an example. The news of Kevin Conrad’s position on behalf of PNG at the Bali Climate Conference was a statement that shamed the US into agreeing to follow the rest of the 185 countries of the world who had gathered there. This is big news and as a friend told me, it was like Ryan Pini winning a gold medal. PNG had actively contributed to what had been a stumbling block throughout the entire Bali conference. This all occurred last weekend and Danger reported it on his blog on Monday, by Tuesday emails had been sent around about it by two other friends and then later that week it finally got on EMTV and the Newspapers. But even when it did appear in the papers it was buried somewhere in the centre of the papers. Don’t the people of PNG deserve better than that? Think of it, CNN, BBC and countless international blogs were buzzing with this news by Sunday night and PNG only found out about it around Thursday. During that week the frontpage news was about 400 pigs killed for a festival and pictures of dead rascals. Now those are the sort of frontpage headlines that are pointless. Remember that headline that appeared some weeks back about PNG’eans making money from acting in porn? Seriously what was the point of that on the frontpage? Was it a story to make me think about buying PNG porn? Where we to lock up our children and siblings in case they got into acting in them? Maybe I should have looked into it so that I could somehow make money from Porn? Sure I agree it’s news but it wasn’t front page material. The only paper I saw that covered the Bali Conference in some detail with our government’s position was the Sunday Chronicle.
Having a choice to decide what you want is, well basic really but its even more powerful when it’s an informed decision. The information we get from the media goes along way in assisting us to form opinions and ultimately how we make decisions be they for personal, community, business or political reasons. But if I’m going to be fed nothing substantial at all then I would love to see alternatives. I want thought provoking in depth articles on PNG social, cultural, political and regional issues. I want to see journalists who become stars because people are dying to read their next articles. I want to see an end to spelling and grammatical errors. I want to see an end to long feature articles that spend too much time using all sorts of ‘fancy airy fairy’ words to sound smart when they could just get to the point. I want to know what my government is doing at all levels and whether it will effect me in a good or bad way. I want to know what our businesses are doing and how it will effect our economy and their products and services. I want to see news about people and organisations building this nation. I want to read about real and imminent threats to my livelihood. I want to see more forum discussions, interviews and viewer participation. All in all I just want to be a well informed citizen who pays K1.20 for a newspaper that is more than just a colourful sales brochure.
The steady growth of the Sunday Chronicle is one perfect example of an alternative. They do suffer from allot of grammatical errors though but on the whole the type of news they have been publishing has been filling a void that has been left wide open by the existing major papers. So if Somare comes in with it’s TV station and newspaper I will certainly applaud the move for want of alternatives. Australia’s ABC and England’s BBC are shining examples of government owned media companies who have an amazing array of programs spread across radio, TV and websites. Obviously I don’t expect us to be in the same league as them but I can see the benefits of programming and content produced without the pressure of commercial interests. ABC’s Triple J radio station is one of my favourite examples of a government owned media entity that is just too cool for commercial radio.
Being government owned does raise several other issues. Quality is the first. We will certainly expect quality journalism from government owned media or else we will just ignore it and stick with who we know. Just being government owned already gives it a negative image and this is unfortunately due to the past history of how it’s existing NBC station has been treated and the failure of the NTN TV station. One thing to note is that both the ABC and BBC started off with radio before they graduated into TV and websites. I would think that the government would be better off re-investing into the existing radio infrastructure and then growing from there. PNG FM had conducted a survey about media reach and radio won hands down over other media in terms of it’s reach across PNG. Nevertheless it will be interesting to see if a government owned media company can produce quality programming.
Another issue is independent reporting. If we have more than one major media company then we should have the benefit of having more than one opinion out there on major issues. This is important when you have a government media reporting on government news because the privately owned media companies will most certainly be useful in giving an alternative and hopefully balanced opinion.
But even with more than one media company around the public must participate to ensure that reporting is unbiased, especially when it comes to the all important topic of politics. Al Gore in his book ‘The Assault on Reason‘ described this importance for public participation by saying this about his country, “When the operations of a government are open to full examination by its citizens and subjected to vigorous discussion and debate, then the corrupt misuse of public power for private gain becomes more difficult to conceal. If the rule of reason is the standard by which every use of official power is evaluated, then even the most complex schemes to violate the public’s trust can be uncovered and policed by a well informed citizenry. Moreover, when ideas rise or fall according to merit, reason tends to drive us toward decisions that reflect the best available wisdom of the group as a whole.
But reason alone is not enough. There must be a public forum accessible to all within which individuals can communicate freely to illuminate unwise as well as illegitimate uses of power…If the forum is not fully open, then those who control access become gatekeepers. If they charge money in return for access, then those with more money have a greater ability to participate. Good ideas in the minds of men and women who cannot afford the price of admission to the public forum are then no longer available for consideration. When their opinions are blocked, the meritocracy of ideas that has always been the beating heart of democratic theory begins to suffer damage. The conversation of democracy then comes untethered from the rule of reason and can be manipulated.
That is exactly was has been happening in America. The replacement of an easily accessible, print-based marketplace of ideas with a restricted-access, television based realm has lead to a radical transformation of the nature and operation for the marketplace of ideas in the United States.
When only those who have wealth can afford to enter the principal forum in which the majority of the people receive their information, then those who can pay the price of admission automatically become more influential. Their opinions become more important then the opinions of others. The nation’s priorities then change“.
Al Gore may be speaking about the US and media in their politics is certainly more dramatic, but it gives a good warning of what to look out for in an all too powerful media without public participation. Media in general is an expensive business to get into so whoever owns the media consequently holds the power. Ultimately though any new media company must firstly create quality content, secondly it must be independent from influence be it government or commercial pressures and thirdly it must technically have a reach to be able get it’s messages across to the widest possible audience. If all three facets are met then at least we can have healthy media alternatives to choose from for our news.
Just came back from mass with my parents and siblings at St. Josephs in Boroko. So wanted to wish everyone out there a Safe, Happy and Loving Merry Christmas. Hope everyone has the time to hang out with family and put on weight with some good food and lets hope 2008 will be a kick ass year for all of us.
So gonna leave you here with a Christmas message from our Queen from 1957. She’s just launched her own YouTube Channel and it was an address she did when TV was new. If the Queen can set up a YouTube channel to bring her closer to the people, then it is certainly a sign of how quickly things are changing. Lets hope that come 2008 we can all be ready to tackle change.
PRIME Minister Sir Michael Somare is set to have a government-run TV station up and running by June next year. And Sir Michael said Singapore had indicated it would provide technical assistance and training for the TV network.
In a statement released to the media from the office of the Prime Minister yesterday, Sir Michael said the matter was raised during his meeting for bilateral talks with the Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong during the Bali Climate Change convention. The statement said this was the third bilateral meeting Sir Michael had with leaders of various countries attending the conference. Sir Michael also met with his Australian counterpart Kevin Rudd for bilateral talks followed by a meeting with the Indonesian President Dr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Sir Michael said: “I informed Mr Lee that PNG wanted to engage more in areas of technical co-operation with Singapore who has one of the best telecommunication systems in the world.” Mr Lee said Singapore would be willing to co-operate with PNG in this area. “With my intention to have a second PNG TV network by June 2008, I have requested the technical assistance of Singapore. “The Prime Minister (of Singapore) indicated Singapore was willing to assist PNG in training and technical support for the TV network,” Sir Michael said.
Meanwhile, Sir Michael said Mr Lee also offered to assist PNG with pilot and engineer training. “Singapore’s record in aviation is renowned worldwide and PNG can indeed benefit from this co-operation”, he said. “The significance of this meeting is that PNG has proven that we mean business and are willing to help ourselves,” he said.
Danger just pointed out a very inspiring article on the going on’s at the Bali Roadmap meet on his blog. Here’s a snippet but read his blog for more:
Update 18/12/07
I feel quite emotional about this CNN video report below:
Danger and AKAY47 are in town. Both guys share my love for music and DJ’ing so I finally made a start on re-building my music collection. I’ve borrowed external hardrives from friends like Danger and other wonderful friends also like Elise which collectively has taken me from Zero music to 19,699 songs (104.22 GB). Most of Dangers stuff is trance, techno, dance and turntablism stuff and Elise’s is chillout, latin and r’n'b. So getting there now. My brother has allot of PNG stuff and hip hop and r’n'b so will be getting his stuff as well. But I think I will need to get a good collection of older stuff like 60’s/70’s and 80’s music and more PNG and Pacific music.
Rex and Solo also mentioned that they have music, so will have to knock on their doors as well as I do my rounds to build a good size music collection. So after losing my music and having packed up my turntable and mixer for so long I’m finally getting back into the music. Settling into my new house has been the major reason that I am able to setup again and Akay came over last night to test out my turntable and mixer to give me some pointers and advise on scratching and Dj’ing generally. And as for my external hard drive, well I went out and bought a 500GB hard disk so that should do the trick for a couple of years.
Image from Danger’s Blog
Anyone reading the Post Courier this week will have noticed their venture into what they are calling their ‘Reader Interactive Service’. They’ve basically setup 4 mobile phone numbers (2x B-Mobile and 2x Digicel) and they are encouraging readers to text in Christmas messages or any messages really.
Having run SMS voting for the Ice Discovered Show in 2005 and 2006, it’s an area we are at Masalai are very interested in. Although from a marketing point of view maybe the paper should be encouraging people to also state what part of the country they are texting from so that you can get some actual feedback as to where your paper is being read. If I were either mobile phone company I’d be keen to see the results myself so that I can see where mobile phones are being used from as well.
I’ve heard from someone at the paper that they are getting roughly 150 text messages a day on each phone. Sounds like a very busy way to run a campaign. I imagine they must have someone sitting there fulltime just reading through text messages and typing them up and then deleting the messages when the phones get full.
Well if there’s anyone out there at Post Courier or even at the National and Sunday Chronicle reading this, then we have a simpler way to do this. It’s a great start and I’ll give that to Post Courier, but if it’s going to be sustainable while it’s getting popular then some sort of automation will have to come in place and we have the systems to do that. Olsem tok save tasol…
A.S. has started a brilliant idea and it’s well supported by one of PNG’s best web designer’s Dee who did the Halvim Wantok Appeal website. The Halivim Wantok Disaster Appeal (the Appeal), was launched on Sunday 25 November 2007 to raise funds from the corporate sector and the public at large that will support disaster relief and restoration activities in Oro province and other affected areas in the wake of the catastrophic floods.
Current funds raised are now up to around K550,000.00. Blary Hell that’s allot of money!! Well if they can be that successful I hope other organisations can take some cues from this organisation and website. I hear the Red Cross Miss PNG pageant has been delayed, maybe they needed a website to better explain where their money’s been going, which of course maybe be what A.S. may have to do so to make this a long term initiative.
But great work guys and keep it up. (I like the tapa cloth touch on the website, especially considering that it’s the Oro Province that they are focusing on, which is famous for it’s tapa cloths.)
| Police charge Digicel Mobile Phone Company | ||
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Fri, 7 Dec 2007
Samoa’s Attorney General, Aumua Ming Leung Wai has confirmed that the case against the Digicel Samoa limited would be heard in the District court next week. This comes after the mobile phone company has recently completed a text competition where two brand new cars would be awarded to two winners in celebration of Digicel’s one year of operation in the country. The text Getz competition has cost each Digicel customer $1 Samoan tala (US 50 cent) and the more they do it the more chance for customers to win several cash prizes including the draw for the new vehicles. The assistant police commissioner and spokesman, Papalii Li’o said the investigation was carried out in the last two weeks upon the request of the Attorney General’s office. |
November’s been a pretty hectic and frustrating month for me, you can proabably tell cos I only have 3 postings for that month as opposed to my usual 10 or so. Work has been piling up which we need to clear but we’re in the middle of moving phone lines and internet connections and it’s a very disjointed affair all round.
But anyway we started moving since 2 weekends ago. Bought a house earlier this year but we’ve been renovating it for about 7-8 months. So the major parts of it are finally ready, I’ll be living upstairs and the office will be downstairs. Unfortunately my camera is still down so I haven’t taken any pics yet and the pics I did take originally before we started construction have all been lost when my hard disk crashed. I’ll see if anyones cameras are free this weekend so I can kidnap them to take some pics.
Well December’s finally here…which means the usual round of question asking as to what did you actually achieve this year and what are you doing for Christmas and maybe closer to New Years what exactly are you gonna do in 2008 that will get you closer to your dreams be it personally or financially. My only question now I guess is, ‘When the hell can I escape POM and work?!’
My friends want to have a Christmas party at my new house, like the one last year (see pics here). But to be honest I just want to run away to some island out in Kavieng some where so I can be all by myself and just go swimming and surfing for maybe a whole month without any phone calls from 2 mobile phones etc etc.
SIGH…..anyway back to work…
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