Thursday 29 December 2016

PFF tributes for two press legends

 

oseah philemon and susuve laumaea

Giants: Oseah Philemon and Susuve Laumaea were two giants of the Papua New Guinea press – PFF is paying tribute to their long careers promoting media freedom. Photo / LoopPNG. 

 

“.. the passing of these two legends is a huge loss not just to Papua New Guinea but to the Pacific regional media scene”
- PFF

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, 29th December 2016

Pacific Freedom Forum is joining tributes to two leading media icons of Papua New Guinea, after they both died within days of each other this month.

“Like most icons, both men had numerous nicknames across the huge range of people they knew, helped and loved, at all levels of society” says PFF Chair Monica Miller.

“Known most affectionately by their acronyms – OP and SL – the passing of these two legends is a huge loss not just to Papua New Guinea but to the Pacific regional media scene.”

Miller says Philemon and Laumaea made many contributions to regional awareness in support of media freedom, and the vital role the Fourth Estate plays in national development.

PFF’s statement on Oseah Philemon can be found here.

PFF’s statement on Susuve Laumaea can be found here.

CONTACTS

Monica Miller
PFF Chair
News Director
South Seas Broadcasting
American Samoa monica@southseasbroadcasting.com

Netani Rika
PFF Coordinator
Communications Director
Pacific Council of Churches Fiji
netrika66@gmail.com

Jason Brown
PFF Editor
Islands Business correspondent
Aotearoa, New Zealand
jasonbrown1965@live.com
+64224340831

ABOUT PFF

The Pacific Freedom Forum is a regional and global online network of Pacific media colleagues, with the specific intent of raising awareness and advocacy of the right of Pacific people to enjoy freedom of expression and be served by a free and independent media. We believe in the critical and basic link between these freedoms, and the vision of democratic and participatory governance pledged by our leaders in their endorsement of the Pacific Plan and other commitments to good governance. In support of the above, our key focus is monitoring threats to media freedom and bringing issues of concern to the attention of the wider regional and international community.

. . .

Pacific press legend passes in PNG

 

Post-Laumaea: Susuve Laumaea, pictured right, at a function in 2014. His death attracted dozens of messages of condolence from colleagues in PNG and around the region.

 

“My heart is broken”
– former PFF Chair Titi Gabi
 

. . .
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PFF Friday, 29 December, 2016
. . .

Island media communities are mourning a loss from the Pacific press – longtime Papua New Guinea journalist Susuve Laumaea.

“My heart is broken,” says former Pacific Freedom Forum Chair Titi Gabi, who succeeded Laumaea as head of PFF in 2011.

Laumaea was, she says, one of “the only senior journalists in PNG to care enough to give our efforts time and advice and leadership.”

GRIEF

Gabi joined dozens of Papua New Guinea media and communications colleagues, friends and family in an outpouring of grief.

She praised him as founding chair of the Papua New Guinea Media Workers Association, providing leadership until his death.

First messages of sympathy appeared on his personal profile around 5am, Port Moresby time.

LION HEARTED

Current PFF Chair Monica Miller says Laumaea will be remembered for a lion-hearted voice not just in Port Moresby, but capitals around the Pacific.

“He was equally fearless telling off the oil industry – which he worked for – as he was his own profession of journalism – which he also worked for,” says Miller, recalling his impact from her home base in Pagopago.

Laumaea was a founding member of the Pacific Freedom Forum.

REELING

Colleagues were still reeling from his death, when another press legend Oseah Philemon also died, just days later, attracting top level tributes, including from Prime Minister Peter O’Neill:

“The late Susuve Laumaea and the late Oseah Philemon each made great contributions to the communication of essential information to our people.”

In one of his last emails, posted online by Gorethy Kenneth, Philemon praised Laumaea as a “A great writer, thinker, friend, citizen – no word or words can best describe his character.”

DARK SIDE

Laumaea also worked as PR for an oil company, and once stood as a political candidate for Gulf Bay, laughing off challenges by fellow journalists about conflicts of interest.

Susuve Laumaea may have ‘crossed to the dark side’ of public relations but a journalist he was, and a journalist he remained.

Even when he worked for 'their' side, behind the scenes, Susuve Laumaea was always also working, if not fighting, for media freedom.

UNIVERSAL RIGHT

He translated journalism voices into governance contexts that newcomers to power ignored at their peril.

In one of his most comprehensive speeches to remain online, Laumaea in 2010 laid out his vision for media freedom in the Pacific:

“Freedom of Information and the right to know is a universal right of every man, woman and child on God Almighty’s Planet Earth.”

ROBUST

Even as a PR person Laumaea was robust in his criticism of attacks against the media.

“When powerful economic and political forces turn against the media for what is written, said or viewed, they forget that they create the news and the media merely reports what’s said and done by the same economic and political players.”

On his Academia profile as an independent researcher, Laumaea listed his interests as 
anti-corruption, human rights and corruption, and anti-money laundering.

In the words of another colleague, Franzalbert Joku, posting on his profile, “Till we meet in the next edition…”

CONTACTS

Monica Miller
PFF Chair
News Director
South Seas Broadcasting
American Samoa monica@southseasbroadcasting.com

Netani Rika
PFF Coordinator
Communications Director
Pacific Council of Churches Fiji
netrika66@gmail.com

Jason Brown
PFF Editor
Islands Business correspondent
Aotearoa, New Zealand
jasonbrown1965@live.com
+64224340831


ABOUT PFF

The Pacific Freedom Forum is a regional and global online network of Pacific media colleagues, with the specific intent of raising awareness and advocacy of the right of Pacific people to enjoy freedom of expression and be served by a free and independent media. We believe in the critical and basic link between these freedoms, and the vision of democratic and participatory governance pledged by our leaders in their endorsement of the Pacific Plan and other commitments to good governance. In support of the above, our key focus is monitoring threats to media freedom and bringing issues of concern to the attention of the wider regional and international community.

. . .

Oseah Philemon–another Pacific press loss

 

Press pioneer : death of Oseah Philemon is the second major blow for the Pacific press, following that of a Papua New Guinea colleague, Susuve Laumaea, this same month. Photo / LoopPNG

 

“OP was an inspiration for generations of news and other media workers in Papua New Guinea”
- PFF
 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PFF, Friday 29 December 2016

 

 

Papua New Guinea press pioneer Oseah Philemon has died, to deep grief at home and around the Pacific media community.

“OP was an inspiration for generations of news and other media workers in Papua New Guinea,” says Monica Miller, Chair for PFF, the Pacific Freedom Forum.

“He was also a strong regional voice for spreading ethics and independence among his colleagues, in newsrooms all over the Pacific.”

As a vice-president of PINA, the Pacific Islands News Association, the region’s oldest news organisation, Philemon was quick to praise and defend colleagues, including foreign editors working in the islands.

Philemon was a confirmed regionalist from the earliest days, encouraging regionalism at the media meetings he attended, and the many more meetings he referred staff and other colleagues towards.

As well as a regionalist, Philemon was also a realist. During a 2005 gun summit, he expressed scepticism about the power of the media to influence society:

“Newspapers were available only in towns; radio was listened to by those who could afford it, while TV was a luxury to many Papua New Guineans.”

He may had have similar scepticism about the advent of the internet, and it’s creation of a new divide, this time digital.

Already saddened from the loss of Susuve Laumaea, Papua New Guinea news media were stunned with the news that “OP” had also died.

Tributes poured in for both men, including from Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.

Described by some sites as ‘retired’, the last piece written by Philemon appeared online just four days before his passing – still with an eye to a headline pun.

It was the other daily, The National, that linked the passing of Philemon with an earlier PNG media memorial – that of Susuve Laumaea, a former Chair of the Pacific Freedom Forum. 

If Laumaea was renown for his volcanic criticism of journalism ethics, Philemon was an entire mountain range of media ethics and independence.

Perhaps his most compassionate moment in service of both those qualities came during the 1999 PINA convention held in Pape’ete, French Polynesia.

His embrace of Maire Bopp Dupont, a journalism student; the first Pacific Islander to go public with HIV, set the tone for sympathetic press coverage from some 200 news media leaders from all over the Pacific Islands.

A quick online search reveals just over 120 links to Philemon and his stories quoted in academic studies, and other sources under Google Books.

Overall, there are 3,310 links online for Philemon.

CONTACTS

Monica Miller
PFF Chair
News Director
South Seas Broadcasting
American Samoa monica@southseasbroadcasting.com

Netani Rika
PFF Coordinator
Communications Director
Pacific Council of Churches Fiji
netrika66@gmail.com

Jason Brown
PFF Editor
Islands Business correspondent
Aotearoa, New Zealand
jasonbrown1965@live.com
+64224340831

ABOUT PFF

The Pacific Freedom Forum is a regional and global online network of Pacific media colleagues, with the specific intent of raising awareness and advocacy of the right of Pacific people to enjoy freedom of expression and be served by a free and independent media. We believe in the critical and basic link between these freedoms, and the vision of democratic and participatory governance pledged by our leaders in their endorsement of the Pacific Plan and other commitments to good governance. In support of the above, our key focus is monitoring threats to media freedom and bringing issues of concern to the attention of the wider regional and international community.
. . .

Thursday 8 December 2016

Stop shortwave cut to Pacific - PFF


 
Australia’s Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, arrived today in Port Vila, leading a bipartisan delegation including International Development and Pacific Minister, Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, and their Opposition counterparts, Senator Penny Wong and Senator Claire Moore. Photo: DFAT
A short wave goodbye – at the same time as an official visit to Vanuatu, Australia announced shortwave services would be cut, causing alarm across the Pacific region. Pictured, Australia’s Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, arriving in Port Vila, leading a bipartisan delegation including International Development and Pacific Minister, Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, and Opposition counterparts, Senator Penny Wong and Senator Claire Moore. Photo: DFAT 

. . .

“It's clear that no thought was given to the link between disaster communications and this service, or even the fact that FM is largely unreliable in bad weather and only available in urban areas”
- PFF

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PFF Friday, 9 November, 2016

. . .

Australia needs to urgently reverse a decision to end shortwave radio broadcasts to the Pacific by January next year, says PFF, Pacific Freedom Forum.

"There seems to be no logic or connection with realities facing Pacific listeners and audiences across the region who will be effectively be cut off from news, information, and life saving information during disasters," says PFF Chair Monica Miller, of American Samoa.

PFF members are condemning the Australian Broadcasting Corporations announcement that ABC International’s shortwave services currently broadcast to Papua New Guinea and the Pacific will end in less than two months.

SHAME

"As Pacific nations are going through the usual cyclone cyclone, its just such a shame that they will lose a key, credible information source to rely on,” says Miller.

“It's clear that no thought was given to the link between disaster communications and this service, or even the fact that FM is largely unreliable in bad weather and only available in urban areas."

"It's a slap in the face for the millions who've connected to Australia and to regional news through this service, because they are unlikely to be the ones targeted in the new digital content offerings being touted by ABC."

URGE

PFF is also urging Pacific governments to raise the issue with Australia, and remind the Turnball administration of its promises to the international community to refocus assistance towards the Pacific.

“What better use of tax payers dollars than a service that helps communities prepare for natural disaster such as potential tsunami, from earthquakes like the Solomon Islands has just today experienced, and other natural disasters, especially cyclones,” says Miller.

“While we can appreciate that any broadcaster wants to keep up with the times, ditching the SW transmission service which is an information lifeline to so many in the Pacific, is not smart strategically and demonstrates a lack of vision or involvement in the much-appreciated Pacific footprint ABC has across small island developing states.

DISASTER

"It's disappointing to see the service disappear, and more sadly, it will add to the concerns of disaster management officials when national telecommunication systems are down and no information will get to rural populations through a medium they still trust and use.”

The ABC decision follows that of Radio New Zealand International earlier year to cut back their short-wave transmissions.

It also comes ten years after a parliamentary review in Australia, of aid to the Pacific, agreed with a call from the region to maintain and improve regional broadcasting services.

LINKS

Radio Australia Shortwave Broadcasts to End on January 31
http://www.arrl.org/news/radio-australia-shortwave-broadcasts-to-end-on-january-31

Radio Australia bai pinisim shortwave broadcast
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/tokpisin/2016-12-07/radio-australia-bai-pinisim-shortwave-broadcast/1638006

Australian ministerial delegation visits Vanuatu — as end of Australian shortwave broadcasts to Pacific is announced
https://vanuatudaily.wordpress.com/2016/12/08/australian-ministerial-delegation-visits-vanuatu-as-end-australian-shortwave-broadcasts-pacific-announced/

ABC pulling plug on Pacific shortwave 'not good news'
http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/319836/abc-pulling-plug-on-pacific-shortwave-'not-good-news'

Pacific listeners upset at ABC ending shortwave service
http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/programmes/datelinepacific/audio/201826840/pacific-listeners-upset-at-abc-ending-shortwave-service

RNZI to run single shortwave transmitter for analogue and DRM
http://swling.com/blog/2016/06/rnzi-to-run-single-shortwave-transmitter-for-analog-and-drm/

ABC decision to halt shortwave broadcasts criticised
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-06/abc-decision-to-halt-shortwave-broadcasts/8097728

2006 Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade inquiry into Australia's aid program in the Pacific
http://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/house_of_representatives_committees?url=jfadt/pacificaid/report/fullreport.pdf

CONTACTS

Monica Miller
PFF Chair
News Director
South Seas Broadcasting
American Samoa monica@southseasbroadcasting.com

Netani Rika
PFF Coordinator
Communications Director
Pacific Council of Churches Fiji
netrika66@gmail.com

Jason Brown
PFF Editor
Islands Business correspondent
Aotearoa, New Zealand
jasonbrown1965@live.com
+64224340831

ABOUT PFF

The Pacific Freedom Forum is a regional and global online network of Pacific media colleagues, with the specific intent of raising awareness and advocacy of the right of Pacific people to enjoy freedom of expression and be served by a free and independent media. We believe in the critical and basic link between these freedoms, and the vision of democratic and participatory governance pledged by our leaders in their endorsement of the Pacific Plan and other commitments to good governance. In support of the above, our key focus is monitoring threats to media freedom and bringing issues of concern to the attention of the wider regional and international community.

. . .