New Zealand Journalism Online

Massey hosting 2007 Jeanz conference
Massey's Wellington campus will host the country’s premier journalism conference on December 10-12. It will focus on recent trends in journalism, and the consequent challenges journalism educators face.

The conference theme is: “The future for the mainstream: The changing demands on journalists and the challenge for journalism educators.” Topics could include society’s changing expectations of the media, political reporting, Maori media; Asian, Pacific, and other cultures’ media; and women in the media.

Papers on other topics will be considered, but preference is given to papers addressing the theme. Presenters can have their papers peer-reviewed, and peer-reviewed papers that are accepted will be considered for a special issue of the academic journal Pacific Journalism Review.

There will be speakers from the journalism industry, educators and others with an interest in the area. The conference dinner will be on the Wellington waterfront. conference website.

Bethany McLean, the New York financial journalist who helped expose Enron, is the international guest speaker. She is generally regarded as being the first journalist to raise doubts about Enron in a national publication. McLean questioned in a 2001 Fortune article whether Enron was the powerhouse everyone assumed it to be. While Enron’s accounts gave the impression the company was making handsome profits, it was heading for collapse. Thousands lost their jobs and pension savings.

She will give a keynote address, an after-dinner speech, and a research seminar. GH/AL

JTO likely to merge with print ITO
James Hollings reports: A merger with the print industry ITO looks on the cards for the Journalists Training Organisation. A JTO council meeting in early November agreed to recommend to funding stakeholders a merger with the printers to form a new multimedia ITO.

Acting executive director Mike Fletcher said if the merger didn’t go ahead the JTO would go out of business. He said it was also necessary because the Tertiary Education Commission had given the JTO only until April (08) to show good progress on a workplace training scheme, and until October to implement one.

The Print NZ ITO was chosen as a merger partner following a recommendation from independent consultant Graeme Talbot. A name for the new ITO required further discussion. Amalgamation is subject to agreement by the JTO and PrintNZ on a memo of understanding. It was also agreed that the JTO management committee will continue to negotiate on behalf of the JTO and report to the council.

There were no strong objections among council members to the proposed amalgamation, provided the autonomy of journalism could be maintained, it was financially viable, and the new organisation took account of broadcast interests. Many speakers made the point that something had to be done or the JTO would cease to exist and the journalism industry would then no longer have any influence over the NZQA on setting standards for journalism training.

Jim Tucker noted that a major reason to amalgamate with PrintNZ was to keep the TEC funding of $5000/ student, and that ideally the JTO should seek to apply for category B funding of $8500/ student.
James is the Jeanz representative on the JTO

Full report from JTO council meeting

Waiariki programme and personnel changes
Waiariki Institute of Technology's journalism programme starts 2008 with two significant changes. Its qualification has been rewritten to incorporate new skills journalists need today, also addressing the need for journalists of all nationalities to be able to work in a diverse society. Called the Diploma of Bicultural Journalism, the programme still deals with training Maori in the media but will also prepare aspiring journalists from other cultures for a media career.

Television and radio news figure strongly, as do technical skills in both those areas as electives. The National Diploma in Journalism is still incorporated and the programme runs over 18 months. “We hope the changes will add currency and value to a programme which already has a strong reputation, particularly in the area of Maori media,” says Waiariki’s director of the School of Computing, Technology and Communications, Annabel Schuler (right).

Taking over running the journalism area is Bruce Honeywill who comes to Rotorua from with a history of working in outback Queensland and the Northern Territory as a journalist, writer and documentary producer. Honeywill wrote, produced and presented more than 15 documentaries for a global audience. In 1996 he was appointed News Manager for indigenous-owned Imparja Television Network where he established a half-hour news service and a half-hour current affairs programme (News Reel).

In 1999 / 2000 while based in Darwin, he covered the conflict in East Timor for various agencies. During this period he wrote and produced the mainstream documentary “The Road to Freedom goes through Hell” broadcast on the History Channel. From the late 90’s until 2004, Honeywill was a senior journalist with the ABC working in radio and television. In 2006 he started an academic career at Central Queensland University where he has developed and coordinated journalism courses.

Bruce is joined by Dave Kiel who has extensive radio experience and Lani Kereopa who has worked in print and for Waiariki MP Te Ururoa Flavell. AS/AL

Fairfax intern scheme on track for 08
Fairfax Media says the selection process for its 2008 internship scheme is nearing completion. Editorial development manager Clive Lind says the quality of applicants is high and he expects the number of successful candidates to be above the 2007 intake of 17. This year's target was 20 students and Fairfax had close to 130 applications.

Fairfax will reimburse students’ study fees and provide work in its newsrooms. They will study at one of five institutions – the University of Canterbury, Aoraki Polytechnic, Massey University, the Waikato Institute of Technology and AUT University. AL

Fletcher at JTO helm
Mike Fletcher has taken over from Jim Tucker as acting executive director of the Journalists Training Organisation. Jim has returned to teaching with Whitirea Community Polytechnic (see below).

Mike, who has spent 47 years in newspapers, has been associated with the JTO and its forerunner, the Journalists Training Board, since 1980. He says he is setting aside his chairmanship to undertake tasks to strengthen the JTO’s long-term future. MF/AL

Mythical moose tale helps SIT recruit tutor
In an around-about way, a front page story about a mythical moose helped the Southern Institute of Technology bag a new journalism tutor. Stu Oldham has joined the Peter Arnett School of Journalism after seven years working as a reporter on some of the South Island’s biggest dailies. He replaces Angelina Hamilton and Brett Larsen who both left in July.

The former museum worker graduated from the Aoraki Polytechnic to work at the Press, the Southland Times, and the Otago Daily Times. He was assistant chief reporter in the ODT’s Dunedin newsroom when he wrote a series of stories that would ultimately lead him back to Invercargill.

Detailing a scientist’s hunt for the long-lost Fiordland moose led to a meeting with a Department of Conservation worker on his next visit to Southland. One thing led to another, and the new couple soon had a house in Invercargill. “You get a lot of time to think on the commute to Dunedin, and it didn’t take me long to realise I wanted to contribute more to my new home town,” Stu said.

“I’d always hoped I could take my experience as a journalist back to the classroom, but I was never sure when would be the right time. Never, that is, until I tested the water at SIT.” Stu joined SIT as a part-time tutor early this year, teaching news writing on the one day a week he worked in Invercargill for the ODT. Watching a new crop of certificate students grow a passion for journalism convinced Stu that he was ready to teach a craft that he loved.

“You live on adrenaline when you’re writing a good news story to deadline, and you’d think that would be a hard thing to leave behind. But watching students’ gather confidence and start to grow into journalists – that’s a real high.” Stu will teach certificate, diploma, and degree courses. He and his partner continue to follow the scientist’s hunt for the Fiordland moose. LP

New home for Whitireia school
The Whitireia school is moving its base to central Wellington and will run its next journalism diploma course from June 2008 to March 2009. New journalism manager Jim Tucker says the new graduation date will give students little competition in the job market, since most journalism graduates from New Zealand's 10 journalism schools emerge October to December.

"By March each year, editors and media employers are looking to replace staff who have decided over summer to move on or travel. By then, there are no graduates around. Our grads will have plenty of job opportunities to choose from." The Whitireia lead-up National Certificate in Journalism (Introductory) will next start on 30 November, finishing in time for graduates to move on to the diploma.

Convergence conference at AUT
A leading expert on digital convergence journalism will address communication professionals and academics at an AUT University conference on 27-28 November. The Missouri School of Journalism’s head of Convergence Studies, Associate Professor Mike McKean, will speak on media convergence and the communication revolution. Other speakers include Associate Professor Stephen Quinn from Deakin University, Sinead Boucher from Fairfax Media and Julie Starr, a New Zealand journalist who has just returned from London’s Daily Telegraph.

Associate Professor Martin Hirst (right), AUT’s journalism curriculum leader, says the media industry faces rapid change. "We’re moving quickly from 20th century analogue media to a situation in the 21st century where everything is digital and the media is now produced mostly in bits and bytes.We can’t ignore convergence and can’t afford to play catch up. We need to be leading the way.”

The big New Zealand journalism survey
Underpaid, under-trained, under-resourced and unsure about the future - but still idealistic. That's how Kiwi journalists feel right now, according to The Big New Zealand Journalism Survey published recently in AUT's Pacific Journalism Review by Massey/Waikato University researchers James Hollings, Geoff Lealand, Alan Samson and Elspeth Tilley. Based on 514 responses, the survey updates and extends previous surveys, measuring attitudes to resourcing, news coverage, ethics and standards, changing technology, ownership etc.
Full survey article (PDF)

Minister wants more research on Maori and Pacific issues
Associate Minister for Pacific Island Affairs Luamanuvao Winnie Laban has challenged New Zealand media and educational institutions to boost investment in research and coverage. Speaking at the launch of AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre, she said the occasion was “tangible proof” that the university had stepped up to the plate and was demonstrating sector leadership.

“This centre demonstrates that commitment to our cultural diversity, but also to critical thinking and the pursuit of excellence,” she said. Laban said Maori and Pacific issues needed to have a far greater representation in academic research, mirroring the growing participation of Pacific and Maori peoples in broader society.

She cited census figures projecting the Pacific population growth in New Zealand between 2001 and 2021 to be 58 percent - to well over 400,000. The Maori population would grow by 28 percent, to about 750,000.
“The increasing importance of these ethnic groupings is very clear,” she said.

Laban said AUT more than held its own in terms of providing “meaningful access” to Pacific students. Last year, 11 percent of the university’s student body was made up of Pacific students – “well up on the national average of around 6 percent”. DR/AL
Full story
Who's who at the PMC.

FIJI: Military blamed for rash of political blogs
A senior Fiji journalist believes the military is partly responsible for the number of political blogs that have expanded the media landscape in Fiji since the fourth coup in December last year.

Sophie Foster, a former deputy editor of The Fiji Times and editor of Pacific Islands Monthly, says blogs flourished because of the restrictions the military had placed on dissenting opinion in the mainstream media and across the nation in general.

A postgraduate student in Pacific media studies at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Foster said that while some blog content was racist, defamatory, provocative and irresponsible, the argument for a free, responsible press was also strengthened as an option worth maintaining in any society.

Her article, entitled, “Who let the blogs out? Media and free speech in post-coup Fiji”, is published in the latest Pacific Journalism Review. The edition has been jointly produced by the University of the South Pacific journalism programme and AUT University's Pacific Media Centre.

Foster says that in a climate where sources of information were running dry, mainstream media were under fire and the military not averse to “repatriotising” outspoken critics, blogs came into their own.
“Blogs presented a platform through which anti-takeover views could be aired publicly, anonymously and without restriction,” she writes. DR/AL

More details on the PJR website: www.pjreview.info

PJR fulltext is available on the Knowledge Basket Newztext Magazines database (subscription only):
http://www.knowledge-basket.co.nz/