BY JESSICA CARTER *

AUSTRALIA IS THE ONLY COUNTRY that has permanent foreign correspondents based in PNG, and the journalists employed by AAP and the ABC are confronted by a particularly unique set of workplace conditions. They also have a reasonably high level of interaction with local journalists.

ABC correspondent Liam Fox describes Port Moresby as a tough place to live and work.

We live behind a big razor wire fence, we’ve got big television cameras, [and] security guards. When you drive you’re always winding your window up, you’re looking out for car-jackings or for something to happen. There’s definitely an edge to the place, living here.

Port Moresby is not connected by road to the rest of the country, so all stories outside of the capital require journalists to fly there. This operation can be both costly and time-consuming, as journalists wait for the approval of funds from their employers.

The state of under-communication in PNG has significant impacts on local journalists and on the ability of foreign journalists to work there. Liam Fox explains that, unlike many other foreign postings such as the US or Europe, PNG does not have national news feeds.

The limited media infrastructure outside Port Moresby means that, when news breaks outside the capital, covering it can be difficult. These circumstances have led to the establishment of close dialogue between local journalists and Australian reporters based in PNG. Former ABC correspondent Sean Dorney says that he worked with local journalists “a hell of a lot”:

If you don’t work with the local journalists and give them a bit of respect then you’re really limiting your capacity to work. […] And one of the good things about PNG is that there really are a lot of good local journalists up there.

The Australian journalists agree that there is an ‘openness’ in Melanesian culture that makes it easy to work with local journalists. However, Ilya Gridneff, the current correspondent for AAP, points out that journalists in PNG encounter just as many, if not more, logistical problems than Australian reporters working there:

They don’t have enough resources, they’re hardly paid enough, and then there’s a lot of them who won’t ask questions, partly out of a culture of, you know, respecting the big man.

The practical consequences of this are that, while Australian journalists might rely on local journalists to a certain extent, many stories reported in the local media need to be treated with a healthy amount of cynicism.

Gridneff said, “You quickly learn that there’s three sides to every coin and you need to ring around yourself and check with the people involved”.

Liam Fox argues that, while this is often the case for a journalist working anywhere, in other locations with high intensity global news coverage there is usually a more established news network which can be accessed to verify reports of breaking news.

Former ABC correspondent Steve Marshall says that while a lot of news is misreported, this is not the fault of local journalists: “Most local reporters are based in Port Moresby, so it’s very difficult for anyone to ascertain the exact truth as to what’s gone on at an event elsewhere [in PNG]”.

The country has two daily newspapers, The National and the Post-Courier, both based in Port Moresby. The Post-Courier is the oldest and largest-selling newspaper in PNG, with a circulation of 29,819. It is a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited. There is one television station in PNG, Em-TV, owned by the Australian Nine Network.

Em-TV generates little of its coverage locally, and is not available across all of PNG. The state-owned National Broadcasting Commission provides the five national radio stations, and works closely with the ABC to deliver content.

Unlike other nations in the Pacific region, PNG enjoys a relatively free media. There are no limits on foreign ownership. Under these circumstances, Australian media enterprises have been able to flourish in PNG.

Although Australian organisations may dominate ownership of the PNG media, the same legal freedoms do not extend to foreign correspondents working there.

According to Rowan Callick, Asia-Pacific Editor for The Australian, the visa application procedure for foreign journalists wanting to report on PNG is among the most difficult in the Asia-Pacific region.

He says that getting a journalist’s visa for PNG is similarly complicated to getting one for North Korea, a country he has also reported on:

The Prime Minister’s older daughter decides who gets in and who doesn’t. Sean Dorney says that on a visit in 2010, he was unable to do any reporting because he did not have time to go through the tedious process of getting a journalist’s visa, which can take “a couple of weeks”.

In addition, Dorney points out that the complicated visa process is one of the reasons that few foreign journalists travel to PNG.

Source: Extracted from ‘An examination of Australian news coverage of PNG’ by Jessica Carter, University of Sydney, 2010.  Read the full thesis here.  Spotter: Robin Hide