I would like to start by sharing news of a significant development in the Pacific ICT space on Friday 30 August. I’m referring to the Final Communique of the 53^rd Pacific Island Forum (PIF) Leaders’ Summit in Tonga, where our leaders agreed for ICT to be integrated into the Pacific Island Forum architecture.

This Papua New Guinea-led initiative is timely and a positive intervention at the highest regional political level — the PIF.

It enables our ICT leaders to collaborate on key deliverables of the Implementation Plan of the ‘Lakatoi Declaration’ in areas like cyber security, digital skills, regional data exchanges, cybercrime, disaster management, and generally, a digital government and society

It further provides a more formal platform for our Pacific ICT Ministers to come together to address issues and garner support from like-minded regional and international development partners.  

The PIF Leaders’ formal recognition and acceptance of ICT in the PIF infrastructure blends perfectly with the topic of this media summit: “making the news media resilient”.

This is because there is no issue more urgent than revitalising the news media for the sake of democracy and freedom of speech. And the smarter utilisation of ICT has a massive contributing role to play in this process.

By now, it is well known that Pacific media, like the media in other parts of the world, is in peril.

At the recent Pacific International Media Conference in Suva, Fiji, organised by the University of the South Pacific’s (USP) Journalism Programme, we heard that Pacific media is facing an ‘existential crisis.’

Likewise, the theme of this 19^th Asia Media Summit, ‘Media: The New Odyssey’, is no coincidence. It demonstrates that no matter where in the world the media operate from, we face some challenging times ahead.

At the USP Conference in Suva, the 100 delegates from 11 countries were united in their view that the Pacific media is facing a crisis unlike anything seen before.

It is my fervent hope that this summit is the start of greater corroboration between the wider Asia-Pacific and South Pacific regions.

In comparison to Asia, the Pacific media sector is quite small and vulnerable, but in many ways, it had adapted to its challenges and was surviving fairly well.

That was until digital disruption and the COVID-19 pandemic, which have had a devastating impact on advertising revenue, the lifeblood of the business.

While media in other parts of the world are experiencing the same problems, the difference with Pacific is that it is harder for us to survive because of our smallness, remoteness, and lack of investment

Because of the dire situation, Pacific media experts, such as USP’s Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, are calling for greater government subsidies for private media based on the “journalism is a public good” argument.

Journalism benefits taxpayers, so in return, taxpayers should financially assist the media sector. 

This proposition is worthy of consideration, although Pacific governments, including my own, are already providing a media service in the form of a national broadcaster.

Also, Pacific governments have many other important budgetary priorities like health, education, and law and order.  But this is not to say that government funding should not be considered in revitalising the media in these unprecedented times.

Given the Pacific media sector’s current challenges, we are fortunate that our friends, mainly Australia, the United States, and Europe, are assisting us. The People’s Republic of China is also a major contributor.

Surprisingly, besides China, and to a lesser extent India, our closest neighbours in Asia are not strongly represented in the Pacific media sector, not only now, but historically as well.

This is a lost opportunity.

If we are talking about the revitalisation of the Pacific media sector, close ties with Asian media should be a serious consideration.

Generally speaking, Asia and the Pacific share a lot of commonalities —culturally, politically, and historically.

We are also still considered “developing or least developed nations” by others.

I challenge you all to use this conference as a “Call to Action” on this reality.

I firmly believe that we need a holistic approach to revitalise the Pacific media sector by focusing not only on the media industry but related elements like media education and research, where Asian media and academia can collaborate with us.

A good start would be to encourage regular exchanges between our universities, including the USP, the University of Papua New Guinea, the University of Divine Word and others

The Asian region also has some of the finest universities in the world but there is minimal interaction with the Pacific in terms of staff and student exchanges and joint research.

This is a major gap that we can collectively and easily address

Research into Pacific media is lacking and should be a priority because we can address many of our media challenges through research-based solutions.

In this regard, climate change comes to mind.

When launching the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific, Pacific leaders reaffirmed that climate change remains the region's single greatest security threat.

Yet we see very little climate change research in the Pacific from a media perspective.

The lack of focus on research is a major gap when talking about revitalising Pacific media, and I wish for this Summit to start addressing this issue.

In conclusion, I reiterate my statement at the Pacific International Media Conference in Fiji. I raise this in the context of closer cooperation with Asia

As I mentioned then, we in the Pacific value our partnerships with our bilateral and development friends.

But I also call for caution, particularly to those who oftentimes step out of line.

In any assistance delivered in our name, we need to be involved as equal development partners, with our viewpoints considered as well.  The last thing we want to see is our partners' actions being misconstrued as trying to remake our media sector according to their Western vision and tastes.

I make this observation with the best of my intentions.

I repeat — this Media Summit is quite important and relevant for the Pacific. We intend to learn more about Asian media financial models, public funding, philanthropy, innovative revenue streams, and technological innovation.

We should also explore training opportunities, professional development, and joint research with Asian media organisations and the academe.

We recognise that a resilient Pacific media landscape — one that is independent, and capable of holding those in authority to account —

is the collective responsibility of media, government, public, and international development partners.

 Timothy Masiu is the Pacific Envoy of the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development, and host of the Asia Media Summit.  The views that he has expressed in this article is not necessarily shared by the Samoa Observer. This is part of his remarks at the 19^th Asia Media Summit, Kuala Lumpur, September 1-5, 2024.