Niue Hosts The 7th Pacific Media Summit

Alofi, Niue – 25 September 2024 – The Prime Minister of Niue and Minister of Broadcasting Corporation Niue, Hon. Dalton Tagelagi officially opened the 7th Pacific Media Summit being hosted with Pacific Islands News Association (PINA), and the Niue Media Association.

The Prime Minister of Niue Hon. Dalton Tagelagi says that media are a crucial part of any society and vibrant democracy and so the Pacific Media Summit is an important regional forum to discuss key issues and initiatives affecting journalism.

“The key theme of the 2024 summit is ‘Forging a resilient path: highlighting the need for Pacific media to adapt and innovate in response to evolving technological landscapes and external pressures’ and so the focus includes climate change, AI, media freedom and journalistic independence issues in the Pacific. A range of regional and international speakers will look at the impact of AI and digital technologies on the media landscape in the Pacific region through to Press freedoms and disruption,” says Tagelagi.

Prime Minister Tagelagi says that Niue’s vision as the host for the Pacific Media Summit is twofold.

“We want to showcase our island's rich culture and heritage and to underscore the significant advancements we have achieved for our people over the past five decades of self-governance. We believe this 7th summit presents a timely opportunity for the Pacific media to witness and celebrate these milestones, and to offer a platform for robust and topical discussions on the critical issues facing not only the media sector but our region and communities.”

Prime Minister Tagelagi also says Niue and PINA are thankful to both the New Zealand and Australian Governments for their support of Pacific Media Summit and to launch two important initiatives.

“It was a privilege to have the Australian High Commissioner, Her Excellency Katy Stuart launch the new Pacific-Aus TV platform which will see a greater range of content from Australian broadcasters being made available to the Niue Broadcasting Commission to air and provide Niuean audiences within our scheduling.”

Prime Minister Tagelagi also said he was honored to launch the new Vision Pasifika Media awards which are being facilitated by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP). SREP have run a media award programme since 2009 to acknowledge environmental news content.

“The Government of Niue is proud to announce the SREP Vision Pasifika Media awards that opens today and with entries closing in April 2025. The Vision Pasifika Media awards have focused its lens on pollution, namely plastic pollution and waste. As such the theme of these awards is Cleaner Pacific and it will commend media content developed in the categories of television news, radio production, online content, print media and tertiary journalism students.

Submissions will close at the end of April 2025. The award is open to tertiary journalism students as well and will close in March 2025.”

Prime Minister Tagelagi adds that SPREP will also be launching a factsheet series early next year on plastic pollution in addition to the current information available such as that through the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

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