The PNG Media Council and the Media Development Initiative (MDI), a project arm of the Australian Broadcasting Commission funded by the PNG-Australia Partnership, recently visited Madang to source out opinions from women journalists.
The purpose is for the creation of an initiative called Women In Media. Currently the Media Council has back tracked in its functions and roles and is trying to do a huge overhaul of its administration in order to bounce back in assuming its principal role again.
Project Manager of MDI, Joys Eggins, states that in order for the Council to carry out its run its agendas, there has to be a formal structure in place to achieve its goals.
This is where the MDI comes in to assist the Media Council to deliver the Women In Media for Papua New Guinea. The initiative is deemed compulsory to create a conducive and fair playing field for women currently in the media industry and the upcoming women journalists.
Eggins said the planned initiative will be a network platform where women journalists can be able to gain assistance in networking, building content, professionalism, training and upskilling and many other support that the Council would like to implement.
Secretary of the Media Council in PNG, Belinda Kora, stated that she felt a need for the establishment of the Women In Media concept as whilst on duty travel to a Regional meet, she encountered a meeting of the Women In Media for Fiji, who were talking about the challenges and obstacles faced.
This is when the Secretary realized that although Fiji being a small Island nation they had about the same kind of challenges in PNG. However, Ms Kora notes that their challenges may be similar, they also vary and ours seem to be more pronounced than theirs.
They have now been consulting women journalists, especially in the main stream media, to gain and tally opinions on whether this concept can be realized. And if it does, the next step is to try to get it affiliated to the Women In Media in Australia.
So far, most of all the women consulted felt the need for it to be immediately in place, as it will recognize the many issues surrounding women in the industry, some claiming that is “well overdue”.
The main problems highlighted during the consultations was harassment from within and outside the work place, welfare issues, trauma issues, professionalism and support and upskilling to name a few.