‘Mass’ Media in the South Pacific

Abstract

Tourists visiting the South Pacific find the newspapers there lacking in news good writing, even good English - but they are comparing them with the papers they know at home. In fact, the people who live there share that poor opinion of their local press, and think their radio news services no better. A questionnaire survey - the first such conducted through the South Pacific islands - found that journalists are regarded no more highly than the media they work for. The respondents confirmed the reasons: lack of accuracy and understanding, lack of professional training and most of all, lack of news, local, regional or international. There are reasons, of course. Lack of good salaries is one of them, but few outside the South Pacific realise the effects which lack of contact with the world, lack of money, lack of equipment and perhaps lack of initiative, can have on what we recognise as news media.

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