One Pacific Media on the Rock of Polynesia, A first-hand experience of the 7th Pacific Media Summit

By Genesis Ketan, Treasurer, MCPNG

THE recent 7th Pacific Media Summit was the first for myself and our President Mr Neville Choi, and it was definitely an eye-opener for me in so many ways, both personally, and professionally.

I must thank the Pacific Media Assistance Scheme (PACMAS), funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and administered by ABC International Development (ABCID), my employer PNGFM, headed by General Manager Rosemarie Botong and my team at PNG HAUSBUNG for their support and making this possible.

Out of the pre-summit PACMAS sessions, key takeaways included the need for greater networking among those of us in mainstream media ourselves, not only in Melanesia, but the Pacific at large.

There is both the opportunity to learn from each other's experiences, as well as refining our trade through more collaboration among journalists generally, and more specifically Media Associations and Councils.

In terms of our Media Council of Papua New Guinea, we have completed the review of our Code of Ethics and Professional Practice which now includes developing media technology trends like Artificial Intelligence, and being more transparent in how it is used in the news process.

This was something other Media Councils and Associations had yet to do. For our MCPNG, one to learn from is the Fiji Media Association who had completed their Strategic Plan for the next 5 years.

Industry challenges are very much similar, if not the same, for many Associations and Councils as we learned in sessions.

High turnovers in newsrooms, reporting standards dropping, challenges with new journalism graduates, limited retention of industry seniors, poor working conditions, and how to deal with supporting partners were among challenges raised by the group representatives.

This then led to recommendations from the Associations gathered which were presented to our session facilitators, Neville of the MCPNG and Rosi of the FMA.

Greater collaboration among industry associations was one key action point, and other proposals included secondment within the Pacific media industry which would solve a country like Niue's problem of having only two practising journalists, while guarding against brain drain of the other country involved. Exchange programs within the industry were also proposed so that we could learn more from one another.

This then led to two intense days of back-to-back PINA summit sessions with a great range of topics covered that dealt with the theme of the summit which was "Charting a resilient future, Navigating Media Resilience: Pacific Media Navigating Press Freedoms, AI and Geopolitical Interests".

The highlight for me was the Women in Media session I attended where WIM PNG and WIM Fiji led the Pacific panel discussion from their pre-summit sessions.

I salute both our representative ladies Marjorie Finkeo and Lyanne Togiba and the NBC for representing our 200 plus members of WIM PNG so well and being courageous enough to be open and vulnerable with all concerned and raise so eloquently a summary of what WIM PNG is and where we are at, which is quite well placed in terms of WiM in the Pacific I might add.

The PINA Annual General Meeting and Board meeting itself was enlightening for me as I did not realize the power that each of us as Media organizations affiliated to the Media Council of PNG have in the PINA body, and where a member could not attend, a proxy vote may be given to our rep on the ground, who is in attendance to vote, in this case Mr Choi of MCPNG. As in any sphere, I witnessed politics at play when the majority of Melanesia was voted out of the Board.

Kudos to Mr. Kora Nou on your tenure as PINA President and now congratulations to our MCPNG President Neville Choi for your appointment as the National Media Association Representative on the Board.

In saying this, thank you all for allowing us to represent our industry as MCPNG to the PINA summit and we look forward to stronger representation as a more unified body at the 8th PINA Pacific Media Summit in Fiji in 2026.

ENDS….//