World Press Freedom Day 2010: A minute's silence for murdered journalists
Friday, 30 April 2010 14:19
UNESCO New Zealand is behind the call for newsrooms around the world to observe a minute’s silence to remember journalists murdered doing their job.
Chairman of the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO, Bryan Gould said the initiative had been made by the New Zealand delegation at UNESCO’sGeneral Conference in Paris in October last year. It was adopted by the international body as a way of highlighting the issue of journalist murders and will be observed during World Press Freedom Day Conference in Brisbane on May 3.
Former journalist Paul Smith, a member of the delegation, suggested the minute’s silence at the UNESCO General Conference in Paris. He said this week that almost every week a journalist somewhere in the world lost his or her life.
"These aren’t accidental killings, they are murders.This is one way to draw attention to these crimes aimed at limiting the public's right to know".
Last year set a new record, with 77 murders reported by UNESCO which also uncovered a trend: The agency's report on this issue last month found that the percentage of murders in 2008-09 that were not linked to conflicts rose in comparison to the previous two-year period. Most victims were not foreign war correspondents, but rather local journalists who were working in countries at peace.
The reported noted that “Sadly, the frequency of acts of violence against journalists is increasing.In most cases, impunity precludes the way of justice, and if this trend prevails, journalists will remain easy targets.Needless to say this represents a severe threat to freedom of expression and to our ability to seek the truth.”
“At least 80 per cent of the 125 murders in 2008-2009 were due to attacks specifically targeting the victims by 'those who do not wish journalists to investigate and reveal information of public interest.”
UNESCO is encouraging New Zealand journalists to take part in the Minute's silence at 5pm on Monday 3 May 2010, to coincide with its observation at the World Press Freedom Day Conference that will be taking place in Brisbane, Australia
Every 3 May, World Press Freedom Day represents an opportunity to commemorate the fundamental principles of press freedom around the globe and to pay solemn tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the line of duty.
UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day 2010 will be held from 2 to 3 May in Brisbane, Australia. It will highlight the importance of freedom of information as an integral part of freedom of expression and its contribution to democratic governance.The celebration is being organised jointly by UNESCO and the School of Journalism and Communication at Australia’s University of Queensland, under the theme “Freedom of Information: the Right to Know”. The event is expected to foster reflection and exchange of ideas on freedom of information to advance empowerment, transparency, accountability and the fight against corruption. It will also look at the key obstacles to the effective exercise of the right to know in today’s digitalized world.
The occasion will serve to call on UNESCO Member States to reaffirm and implement their international commitments to guarantee and promote freedom of information and to remind civil society organizations, other relevant stakeholders, and the news media in particular, of their central role in furthering it.
The Award Ceremony for the 2010 UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize will be held on 3 May. The prize will be presented to a journalist or an organization that has made a notable contribution to the defence of freedom of expression. The 2010 winner is planned to be announced during the month of April.
Living Heritage Awards honour NZ's Junior Historians
Are mangroves unwanted weeds "gorse of the sea" or are they beautiful trees that attract native birds?
Who was Mr Stellin? And why did they name the park we play in after him?
What games did our grandparents play? How did they live?
These are the questions that children in three New Zealand schools asked themselves earlier this year and their online research projects have seen them each honoured with a LIving Heritage Award.
Junior historians from: Hauraki Primary School on Auckland's North Shore; Northland Primary School in Wellington; and Mahana Rural School just outside Nelson have each been honoured with LIving Heritage Awards this week.
“Living Heritage, Taonga Tuku Iho Awards celebrate our country’s heritage and or treasures,” says NZ National Commission for UNESCO chair, Bryan Gould.
“UNESCO recognises that living or intangible heritage provides people with a sense of identity and continuity. Helping young people to learn from their past is a key way to help prepare them for the future.”
The New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO helped establish the Living Heritage Taonga Tuku Iho Awards to celebrate schools whose work contributes to UNESCO objectives by capturing heritage resources for future generations.
Living Heritage (Tikanga Tuku Iho) is a project of the 2020 Communications Trustin partnership with The Learning Centre Trust of New Zealand, The National Library of New ZealandTe Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, and Sun Microsystems.
Northland School
Northland School junior historians awarded UNESCO Living Heritage Award Nearly sixty years after a young New Zealand pilot died saving a village in WWII, a group of Wellington school children have won a Living Heritage Award for an online project that remembers his life and sacrifice.
Youngsters from the Wellington suburb of Northland had played in the Stellin Memorial Park for the past forty years – but no one seemed to know how it got its name. This year students at Northland Primary School embarked on a Living Heritage research project in which they discovered the park was named after James Kingston Stellin, a heroic young Wellington-born pilot who died while saving a village and school in France.
As part of the research process children visited the park, student researched on the Internet, talked to a local historian, watched a DVD of a dedication ceremony at the park and found photographs that told a story.
James Kingston Stellin was born in Lyall Bay Wellington in 1922, he joined the Royal Airforce as a pilot and was killed in 1944 while successfully defending the village of St Macloula Briere. His father donated land in Northland so that a park could be erected in his son’s memory. Meanwhile, thousands of kilometres in the village of St Maclou la Briere a memorial to James Stellin still stands in the town square.
Are Mangroves unwanted weeds, the “Gorse of the sea” or are they beautiful trees that attract native birds? Mangrove swamps are prevalent throughout Takapuna and yet local youngsters discovered that adults seemed divided over where they were a good or a bad thing.
This prompted four Year Five children from Hauraki Primary School - Jack, Joel, Nina and Leah –to find out more. They embarked on an online project that saw them win a Living Heritage, Taonga Tuku Iho Award this week.
The young project team talked to local people, environmentalists and studied research online. They reached the insightful conclusion that they needed to find good ways to get rid of mangroves when they are growing in the wrong place – but also initiatives to help save the local environment as well. Their overall conclusion was that there needs to be more young people like them to make a difference in the world.
An online history project initiated by the children of tiny Mahana Primary School – a rural school 30km from Nelson – has won a Living Heritage Taonga Tuku Iho Award for 2009.
The students recognised that their small community was changing and they wanted to promote a sense of belonging and pride in their past by finding out more about the lives of their ancestors and tipuna.
The online project involved all three classrooms that make up Mahana School and students report that they learned a lot more about their own families, their school, region and country. In spite of their isolation, students developed their ICT skills by contributing to their web page, producing podcasts and integrating ICT into performances. A variety of pictorial/photo resources from books and communities, local museums, archives and family collections were also called upon.
Jenny Robinson (School Administrator) (L) and Briar Smith Waddell (Student) (R) from Mahana School at the Living Heritage Awards Ceremony, Wellington
Wednesday, 09 September 2009 18:04
International Workshop focuses on NZ “Greenstone” Digital Library Software
“Greenstone” an internationally renowned software system for digital libraries that was developed in New Zealand is the focus of an international workshop to be held in India in November. The “Greenstone” Digital Library Software (http://www.greenstone.org) is an Open Source package for building and distributing Digital Libraries, which has been developed by the University of Waikato.
“Greenstone” is supported by the UNESCO and the Human Info NGO Belgium for spreading the benefits of this software to developing countries. The state-of-the-art software is both powerful and flexible, and of great potential interest to libraries and information centres and other public and private institutions in South Asia and other developing regions.
As part of this year’s Te Rangitawaea ICT Festival, students from Ngati Porou East Coast Schools have been trained by professional broadcasters to deliver a Noon news webcast live from the festival in Ruatoria.
Te Rangitawaea celebrates the creative and innovative digital media achievements and development of local students. The webcast will enable students to further their skills in broadcasting and to also provide an opportunity for rural Maori youth to participate in the digital news age.
Webcast Time: 12 Noon, Wednesday 16th September 2009
The festival has been supported by the NZ National Commission for UNESCO’s UCAF 2009 funding. The fund is for New Zealand projects that engage with two or more of UNESCO’s mandated programme areas: Education, Natural Sciences, Social and Human Sciences, Culture, Communications and Information.
Monday, 03 August 2009 17:09
Ethnic Diversity Broadcasting Forum, June 2009
Hosted by NZ On Air and the Office of Ethnic Affairs, this forum focused on how NZ’s changing demographics will affect the broadcast media in 2020. Promoted by NZOA board member and UNESCO NZ National Commission member Paul Smith for several years this initiative was a significant achievement and the first of its kind. Ethnic Affairs Minister Pansy Wong noted that as NZ becomes ethnically and culturally diverse, the media needs to reflect this change; savvy media outlets know this isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s also the bright thing to do. Ms Wong also observed the growth of ethnic media products and outlets. Professor Richard Bedford from Population Studies Centre at the University of Waikato highlighted the major changes taking place. He told the forum that by 2021, European New Zealanders will remain the largest (and aging) group – Asian and Pacific populations are growing fastest and their numbers will rival Maori as our second largest ethnic group. He also noted that this trend will be most evident in the Auckland region. Further themes of the role of cultural diversity in mainstream broadcasting were considered for the remainder of the Forum. The role of the Government through its charter, funding and lack of public broadcasting dominated the discussion.
