Honiara ready to host media executives

Alfred Sasako
The Pacific Islands News Association’s (PINA) fourth biennial convention is on in Honiara later this month.

And local scribes, headed by Solomon Star’s publisher, John Lamani and his wife Cathy who is general manager of Paoa FM, another of John’s media stable; Pamela Zoloveke, publisher of the bi-weekly National Express and others are hard at work, putting the finishing touches to what promises to be an entertaining and informed programme.

“The Role of the Media in Building Pacific economies” is the theme chosen by the organising committee.
Some 200 delegates are expected in Honiara, the first PINA biennial convention to be hosted by MASI (Media Association of the Solomon Islands).

MASI last hosted an annual PINA convention 17 years ago. The last of the annual format was held in 1999.

This year’s convention is being held to coincide with celebrations of a major milestone in indigenous Pacific Islander news media ownership: the 25th anniversary of the Solomon Star newspaper.

Publisher Lamani and wife Catherine courageously built the Star from an A4 size weekly into a tabloid size daily newspaper despite ethnic conflict and economic pressures hitting the Solomon Islands.

This year’s convention will be officially opened by Solomon Islands Prime Minister, Manasseh Sogavare, at the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) Conference Centre in Honiara on May 24.

He is expected to highlight the Bottom Up Approach, the flagship of his year-old government’s economic policy.

Taiwan’s Minister of Information is expected to speak on building Pacific economies through partnership.

In many ways, the Honiara PINA Convention from May 24-26 is no different from the past three biennial conventions in Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tonga. For example, the 2007 PINA biennial convention will be preceded by three days of training beginning on May 21.

Five workshops are planned—all funded by donors. The British Government, for example, is funding the Economics Reporting workshop. One of the region’s veteran journalists and news executives, Peter Lomas, will lead this training.

Australia is funding the Media Managers’ workshop while the Noumea-based Secretariat of the Pacific Community is sponsoring two of the five workshops, including the Pacwomen’s jointly with UNESCO and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association.

The European Union has agreed to pay for the convention and training venues as well as the cost of bringing overseas trainers for the workshops other than those funded by the British, Australia and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. While the format is the same, this is where the similarities end.

In previous conventions, it is the PINA Secretariat that is responsible for securing donor funding for workshops and other associated costs.

What makes this year’s convention different is that the local organising committee of MASI has taken upon itself the hunt to secure donor funding for five workshops and other major items of costs associated with hosting this major regional media event.

To ensure the PINA executives are kept on the loop, MASI has, for example, funded a trip for two to Fiji in March this year.

PINA President Ken Clark and other stakeholders were briefed on the overall arrangements for the three-day convention.

Clark unfortunately will not be attending. He is attending film screenings in Los Angeles.

MASI has gone out of its way to do this for a number of reasons. Foremost is the fact that since 2005 when the last PINA biennial convention was held in Tonga, the Suva-based PINA Secretariat remains non-functional.

The protracted delay in the appointment of a PINA Secretariat Manager and other senior positions has a lot to do with this.

Training and discussions at the plenary will revolve around the media’s powerful role in Building Pacific Economies.

In selecting a theme befitting today’s economic development, MASI’s organising committee has also picked issues that have negative implications for economic growth in the region.

A workshop on the threats of HIV/AIDS and their impact on economic growth in the region’s arc of instability is being funded by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.

Issues such as media freedom in the Pacific as a whole will be under the spotlight. In particular, media freedom which has been under attack in Fiji and Tonga and to an extent in the Solomon Islands is expected to get top billing as well.

The media in the Solomon Islands comes under the Prime Minister’s portfolio. He has pledged his government “full support” for MASI’s effort in organising and hosting the event.

“If there’s any shortfall in your funding, please let me know,” he once told MASI President Lamani when MASI briefed him on the PINA convention preparations.

• Alfred Sasako is the Manager of the MASI Secretariat in Honiara