Eight of Tonga's senior journalists met with their counterparts in Port Moresby to discuss issues affecting them and look at solutions to the issues they face. Photo: Pacific Media Assistance Scheme
There are hopes that a formal meeting of journalists from Tonga and Papua New Guinea last week will lead to the development of a collective media voice in the Pacific.
Eight of Tonga's senior journalists met with their counterparts in Port Moresby to discuss issues affecting them and look at solutions to the issues they face.
Among those involved was RNZ Pacific's Tonga correspondent, Kalafi Moala, and Don Wiseman asked him how this collaboration came about.
(The transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.)
Kalafi Moala: What happened is that the ABC, together with PACMAS (Pacific Media Assistance Scheme), basically gave an invitation for Tonga media leaders, which simply means they selected several leaders from our media in Tonga to visit Papua New Guinea.
When I asked what the purpose was, it was that they felt that we need to learn from each other, have a dialogue to talk about issues. And of course, We are in Tonga, a small country, and media is quite small here, compared with Papua New Guinea, the biggest island nation in the Pacific, huge media organisations.
But at least we went there, and I think it went very well. We learned a lot from each other - despite the difference in size, some of the issues are quite similar.
Don Wiseman: What sort of things did you learn?
KM: For example, there are media councils in all of the Pacific. The Media Council of Papua New Guinea has had its problems with disunity [and] with different thinking on how media should be operating.
But we went there at the time where they had regrouped and organised themselves, and they have a very strong Media Council organisation, and they are able to include all the different media, big and small, independent and not so independent, in their council.
So that is one thing we learned. How we need to organise ourselves better in Tonga, in terms of having a media council. It is good to have one voice, and when you are dealing with issues like press freedom, even in issues like climate change, and it is good to have a voice that is a collective voice of media when you are speaking to Tonga, to the nation, to those in authority.
Women in media was a key learning at the meeting, Moala said. Photo: Pacific Media Assistance Scheme
Another major issue is this issue of women in media. When the women in media concept was introduced in Tonga, the question I had was, 'Oh, wow. Most of our media leaders in Tonga and most of the people working in media are women. We need more men in media'.
But when we went to Papua New Guinea, we saw that there was a completely different situation there in terms of the status of women that have suffered a lot of abuse, maybe like domestic violence and so on. And media development in terms of women was really needed and so very organised, driven, and we were pleased to see that happening.
DW: And what do you think Tonga was able to teach Papua New Guinea?
KM: Well, if there was anything that we were able to contribute, [it] was the fact that we were probably a lot more independent and a lot more free to speak out on any issues.
I found, for example, the Papua New Guinea media, there was no dissenting voice on most things.
Seems like they were organised, they flowed, the different organisations, like even with NBC, the Post Courier, the oldest newspaper.
There were even new organisations, like the PNG FM radio stations. They seem to have their own pathway of going. They are going very well. They do not seem to have a lot of challenges, particularly with issues like press freedom.
In in Tonga, we were a lot more vocal when we encounter difficulties. We are a lot more vocal in being able to to air what we really believe in. I think that is something that they learn and they picked up.
Kalafi Moala Photo: RNZ Pacific
DW: So, you would say a worthwhile exercise and one that you would like to see repeated?
KM: Well, of course. I kept asking ABC [that] it is a big expense to get the eight of us to PNG.
It is a long way. We got from the other end of the Pacific to the other end, and we were well hosted.
But we need to have more of the Pacific learning from the Pacific. We learn so much from them. Hopefully there were a lot of things that they learned from us.
There could be a interaction between a Micronesian media, the team with Melanesia, with Polynesia. I think this is a pathway to the future in which the Pacific media learn from each other, good fellowship, good learning, and to to try to have a Pacific voice in the world.
