The new president of the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) wants to strengthen the region’s newsrooms.
Neville Choi, who is also president of Papua New Guinea’s Media Council, told RNZ Pacific that the PINA Secretariat needed greater support, accountability and transparency.
Choi said strengthening the PINA Secretariat was his initial focus as president.
He also wants to see national media associations empowered.
“Because the national media associations should be the contact point for all the media in each of the countries,” he said.
“Those are the two main things: strengthening; in any way we can to strengthen and provide more accountability and transparency to the PINA Secretariat, and give them more help and assistance, and see what they need.”
He said the Pacific’s media organisations were facing rapid changes brought about by advancements in technology, particularly artificial intelligence (AI).
The use of AI was a widely discussed topic at the PINA Media Summit in Fiji last week.
“Understanding how AI works, and effectively using those and incorporating those into our newsroom workflows, AI is just the start of it.
“We feel in PNG that AI is still a tool, and that we need also need to strengthen the human oversight over all of our newsroom processes, which is the core of what we do.”
Choi believes larger media organisations have a role to play in supporting smaller media outlets facing challenges.
He said while “media in the Pacific is now stronger than it [once] was, it can get stronger”.
“We can be more united. We have a lot of small island state media who are still doing it tough,” he said.
“They have a lot of challenges, and the bigger media organisations within the region can help them by empowering them, providing mentoring and training – that’s one of the main focuses also for PINA.”
Meanwhile, PNG’s Media Council and National Broadcasting Corporation have jointly agreed to host the next Pacific Media Summit in Port Moresby.
