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NIUS Bilong Pasifik: Mass media in the Pacific
Editor: David Robie
Date: 1995
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 9980 84 052 8
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The news media in the South Pacific may be small- but the region has a diverse and vibrant mass communications industry. Ranging from the PNG Post-Courier (circulation 41 000) and Fiji Times to the fortnightly Tuvalu Echoes and monthly Madang Watcher, from EMTV's nationwide broadcasts via the Indonesian Palapa satellite to Niue's tiny television unit; the media caters for an audience and readership scattered over many islands and atolls.
In French Polynesia, for example, the radio and television stations broadcast to 160 000 people spread over an ocean territory as large as Europe. Niue has a population of barely 2000; Papua New Guinea has more than four million.
In Nius Bilong Pasifik, 18 leading Pacific journalists, academics and media commentators explore the nature and problems of the contemporary Pacific mass communications industry. Edited by University of Papua New Guinea journalism lecturer and author David Robie, this is a unique book for Pacific journalism educators, students, sociology and political science scholars, media watchers and professional journalists.
David Robie is a New Zealand author and journalist who has specialised in reporting Pacific development, social and political issues. Author of Eyes of Fire, Och V‰rlden Blundar (Swedish) and Blood on their Banner: Nationalist Struggles in the South Pacific, he is now lecturer in journalism at the University of PNG's South Pacific Centre for Communication and Information in Development.
East Timor: The Balibo Incident in Perspective
Author: James Dunn
Date: 1995
Price: $5.95
ISBN: 1 86365 192 6
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The killing of the journalists was undoubtedly the worst and the most wanton act of its kind in the history of Australian journalism. The concealment that took place before the journalists went to East Timor probably contributed to their deaths. And subsequent remarks that they should not have been there have tended to cast a shadow of dishonour on their motives.
There can be no doubt as to their sincerity in seeking to bring to the Australian public the truth about a situation in which Australia's role was quite shameful. To expose such a situation is surely one of the noblest challenges before today's media, a role which highlights the media's central place in a functioning democracy.
The Western response to the incident, especially that of Australia, removed any reluctance on the part of the Suharto regime to proceed with a military operation that inflicted enormous humanitarian costs.
James Dunn has been a specialist on foreign affairs for some four decades. His 1983 book, Timor: A People Betrayed, is the outstanding work on the case of East Timor. He has served as president of the Human Rights Council of Australia and has co-authored three books on genocide. He writes a regular foreign affairs column frequently on the UN and peace-keeping issues.
The Mickelberg Stitch
Author: Avon Lovell
Date: 1985
Price: $4.95
ISBN: 0 908469 23 3
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An ingenious swindle at the Perth Royal Mint nets a fortune in gold bullion. The Police turn up the Mickelberg family and brothers Ray, Peter and Brian are sentenced to 20, 16 and 12 years gaol. The prosecution case was based on a mass of questionable evidence: Unsigned 'confessions'; fabrications and omissions; and a forged fingerprint!
Now the Mickelbergs are hunting down their persecutors. Avon Lovell's documented expose of an Australian courtroom Watergate is a triumph of investigative writing. The facts are explosive. The story unfolds like a drama. Police methods in Australia will never be the same.
Avon Lovell was born in 1945 and is a history graduate of the University of Tasmania. He is a publisher with experience in investigative journalism on metropolitan newspapers in Hobart, Adelaide, and Sydney. He has owned his own suburban newspaper in Perth, Western Australia. As an editor and publisher he has produced many Australian books.
Reprint edition. The Mickelberg Stitch, The book they tried to ban!
Author: Avon Lovell
Date: 2002
Price: $7.95
ISBN: 0 908469 25
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Split Image: International Mystery of the Mickelberg Affair
Author: Avon Lovell
Date: 1985
Price: $9.95
ISBN: 0 908469 24 1
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A true story of international intrigue. The Royal Mint is swindled of $1,000,000 of gold bullion in the Australian west coast city of Perth in 1982. Three brothers, Raymond, Peter and Brian Mickelberg are convicted of fraudulently conspiring to steal the golden fortune.
There was precious little direct evidence, except a curious fingerprint- a print that matched that of Raymond Mickelberg, a former Vietnam commando, now a pilot and abalone diver. But evidence had been tampered with by Crown officers. Witnesses began dying. And Crown evidence shuffled back and forth in a pragmatic dance of deceit. International power-games ensued in Britain, Canada, the United States and Australia to protect the tattered sacred cow, "Forensic Science". Was the fingerprint a forgery?
Then, seven years later, in 1989, $1,000,000 of gold bullion was secretly delivered by a mysterious Mr X to a television news reporter, with a note claiming the Mickelbergs were innocent! This book is a sequel to Lovell's earlier book on the Perth Mint Swindle, entitled The Mickelberg Stitch. When The Mickelberg Stitch was first published, it was banned by court order- subsequently reversed on appeal- and was subject to 40 defamation actions to restrain its distribution.
Youth and the Media
Date: 1992
Price: $6.50
ISBN: 0730596370
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This report on the representation of young people in the media was prepared for the New South Wales Office of Youth Affairs by the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism. The Office commissioned the Centre to test its impressions that young people were discriminated against or misrepresented in the media. Of particular concern was the impression that the media tended to reinforce stereotypes and myths about young people by focussing on negative issues.
This report found that there was considerable justification for this impression and that positive images of young people in the media were rarely genuine or realistic.
As the print media tries to win younger audiences, in order to secure future readers, this report suggests that there is a pressing need for the media to re-examine the way it reports young people.
