Aust media failing as watchdog: Dorney
By HARLYN JOKU
The Australian media has failed in its proclaimed watchdog role in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific, a leading journalist said in Port Moresby last week.
Sean Dorney a long- term Papua New Guinea and Pacific correspondent for ABC, made the remarks in his address last Wednesday evening at the Holiday Inn during a seminar organised by the Institute of National Affairs (INA) as part of “Australia Week”.
Mr Dorney said the Australian media does not take the Pacific seriously and none of its correspondents have been based in Port Moresby since the 1980s except for ABC and AAP.
He said this has resulted in the Australian media’s weak understanding of PNG and the Pacific region.
“In the area I now cover, the rest of the Pacific, there is nobody from the Australian commercial media – print television, radio or online – who is regularly covering the region,” he said.
Mr Dorney said Mary – Louise O’Callaghan used to be the South Pacific correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald but was dumped in the early 1990s.
“She was taken on by The Australian and despite winning that newspaper a “Gold Walkley”, Australia’s highest journalistic honour in 1997 for breaking the “Sandline mercenaries” story, the Oz sacked her as well.
“There are one or two journalists who try to report on the region from Australia but they get little support from their media organisations and they find there is virtually no funding for trips to the Pacific unless there is a coup or a burning down of Chinatown.
“I find this incredible considering the amount of money Australia now spends in PNG and Pacific – hundreds and millions a year.
When it comes to how the Australian government is spending taxpayers money in this part of the world, the mainstream Australian media are failing woefully in their proclaimed “watchdog role,” Mr Dorney said.
He added that PNG does itself no favour in the way it treats Australian journalists.
“Journalists wanting to come to PNG to report on anything have to apply for $A220 (K602) journalist’s visa.
“This can take weeks to secure if they are approved at all.
“Most Australian journalists, after being put through all these difficulties, are in no mood to write positive stories,” Mr Dorney said.
He also commented on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s “Port Moresby Declaration” which he described as ambitious.
He said he may sound cynical of Mr Rudd’s plans for PNG and Pacific.
“I hope the Pacific partnerships for development concept works and works well,” Mr Dorney said.
He added that there are not many Australians that really understand how diverse and different PNG is,” he said.
“They know it but they do not understand it. And that is why we often run into problems in agreeing to basic terms such as “a spirit of mutual respect, responsibility and co-operation”, Mr Dorney said.
Mr Dorney lived and worked in PNG for almost 20 years and is remarkably the only foreign correspondent to have been both deported and awarded honours by PNG.
He won the “Walkley Award” for radio news reporting for his coverage of the tsunami that struck this country in July 1998.
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