PINA Media Summit, Savusavu, Fiji

Pacific journalists tackle free speech, AI issues at conference
(Savusavu, Fiji)-Despite challenges like ongoing government censorship and AI adoption, I come away from day one of the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) Media Summit yesterday at least mildly optimistic about the future of journalism in this region.

Since AI is at the top of everyone’s agenda, the conference understandably kicked off with a great session from an organization called Other Labs which presented data from a study they did (in conjunction with PINA) on AI in Pacific newsrooms. They found that the sector “is experimenting with AI,” and is open to both its challenges and opportunities. It also found that AI is used in Pacific newsrooms for handful of tasks like research and transcription; that AI is being adopted before policies and guidelines are in place; that there are limited AI resources for Pacific languages; that resource shortages are limiting AI adoption; and finally that in more than half of the 49 newsrooms in 11 countries surveyed, there is no AI training.

These findings roughly mirror a smaller, unscientific survey I did on the subject that I presented last Monday at workshops in Suva. (See previous blog).

This was followed by a presentation about Other Lab's 18-month project (The News AI Lab) which will bring to selected Pacific newsrooms AI enterprise tool access, technical and safety support, in-person trainings and events, and support for structured newsrooms. 

Fred Wesley's inspiration speech on
overcoming government censorship

Not all challenges and opportunities are new ones. Government censorship is a problem as old as the printing press. Here in Fiji, the press and the country went through some especially difficult times between 2006 and 2022 in this regard. According to conference presenter Fred Wesley, vice president of the Fijian Media Association (co-sponsor of the event), the Media Industrial Development Act of 2006 tightly controlled media so that no government criticism was possible. The government even stationed censors in newsrooms! Wesley said that no journalist was jailed during this free speech reign of terror because journalists censored themselves. “It taught us to jail ourselves,” he said. Once the law was repealed, the sun rose again on media freedom in Fiji, which was rated 180^th in press freedom (Reporters Without Borders) while the law was in effect, and 21^st in press freedom afterwards.

In his speech at the conference, Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka also addressed the significance of the law’s repeal, noting that it was “the defining moment of the restoration of press freedom” in Fiji. His speech was a call for responsible, non-sensational, non-inflammatory media in Fiji, and for a partnership with the media for combating mis and disinformation.

Coming from a country where media are increasingly being targeted by an angry, petulant administration, the resilience and courage shown by Fijian journalists is indeed inspiring.

After his speech, a ceremony was held at the Media Summit to launch a new entity, the Pacific Center for Communications and Journalism, to be housed at Fiji National University in cooperation with the Fijian Media Association. It will be devoted to training, research, responsible AI implementation, and developing leaders in the media sphere.

Stay tuned next week for my report on Day Two of the PINA Media Summit.