OPINION
by
jason brownPacific Institutions of Good Governance is the beginnings of an idea to give voice to news media perspectives on development.
PIGG hopes to become a vehicle for giving news media practitioners including journalists the capacity to contribute towards development reviews including those involving the industry.
A starting point might, for example, be formally applying news media analysis, like editorials. Editors spend a lot of time and energy producing editorials on a daily basis, based on years of consultation – otherwise known as interviews – to produce real time feedback on governance efforts. Editorials frequently get overlooked by official reviews however. Finding formal channels for them to be taken note of and become part of developmental processes could be an early PIGG activity.
It is hoped this idea will grow and work in partnership with existing agencies especially national journalist and media associations, and, our regional big sister, the Pacific Islands News Association.
Hopefully, too, as an island-based organisation, PIGG will help policy analysts accustomed to the centrality of information in modern economies realise the astonishing lack of information awareness in the Pacific Islands.
Nor is more Information and Communication Technology alone an answer. Yes, anyone who has tried to use email anywhere in the Pacific would know that better, faster internet would be a good start.
But just as many people already refer to the Pacific as the silent 'P' in discussion concerning the Asia Pacific region, so too is information is in as much danger of becoming the silent 'i' in discussion of ICTs.
Spending on roads, water, power and ports are all accepted without question as bedrock infrastructure demands. Somehow, however, the Pacific Islands are supposed to become equal partners in the globalised economy while suffering substandard ICTs – and seriously lacking information resources.
Across the Pacific information has the lowest priority. In the Cook Islands for example the government has closed down its media unit! Even when they are kept going, governments often cannot be bothered to spread good news about themselves, much less respond to public criticisms.
How can citizens make informed decisions when there is not even the beginnings of informed debate?
Hence PIGG. Yes, if it gains stakeholder acceptance, it will be hopefully be a vehicle for donor funding. Not on an “us too please” basis or even “we promise to say nice things if you give us some money” premise but an advocacy body to press home the point that if donors seriously want good governance then they had better start spending serious cash where bad governance starts: down in the troughs with news media.
About the name - PIGG captures the essence of what the news media does - snuffling around in the mud looking for tasty treasures - as well as often ambivalent attitudes many have towards the industry.
It's a bit cheeky, but designed to grab attention for an industry and profession that is high profile in any country but just as frequently taken for granted.
Or in the case of the Pacific Islands, starved for attention.
In his foreword to the AusAID funded Informing Citizens report, Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General Greg Urwin called for a “confident” and “well-informed” and “professional” news media industry.
Donors like AusAID might start making quantum leaps in good governance objectives if they were, for example, to take note of the fact that Australia will spend $766.6 million on the Pacific in 2006-07. Of that, barely half of one per cent will be spent on media, most of that going on an Australian based media facility.
Half a per cent is a good start.
All through the Informing Citizens report, however, are repeated references to a lack of funding, staff leaving after two or three years, old equipment and the fact that even public broadcasters have no time to produce effective governance information because they are too busy chasing advertising dollars in a struggle to survive.
Rebuilding confident, well-informed and professional public broadcasters would be a good next step towards the next phase of good governance initiatives in the region.
Not just as providers of news and other current affairs information.
But also as focal points for initiatives that actually lead to good governance, not just exposure of bad governance. Initiatives that promote development of sustainable resources like intellectual property rather than reliance on over development of environmentally damaging mineral and other physical resources.
Liberated from having to compete with private sector media, public broadcasters could, as information experts, help community-based initiatives establish their own media presence, including online, through weblogs like this one.
Acceptance by national governments of confident, well-informed, professional and
independent public broadcasters should be a condition of any further aid, not a remote afterthought.
None of which is to suggest that this opinion piece itself has been the subject of exhaustive research. But, for a volunteer effort, it’s a start.
Let’s make PIGGs of ourselves.
