MCF Seminar Series: Opportunities and Challenges for Pacific Journalists Reporting from the Climate Front Line

The Pacific region is among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, despite Pacific Island Countries contributing less than 0.03% of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions. Rising sea levels, extreme weather events, diminishing food security and threats to fresh water supplies and erosion of local economies—notably through shifts in tuna distribution—are not distant scenarios but lived daily realities. But Pacific stories have struggled to be heard in the wider world. Pacific journalists and editors face immense structural, editorial and commercial challenges reporting and broadcasting the realities of their communities to the wider world. One of the central hopes of leaders supporting Australia's bid to host a 2026 Pacific COP is that it will provide an opportunity to amplify Pacific stories.  

This conversation with veteran Solomon Islands journalist and editor Dorothy Wickham, and moderated by award-winning journalist Jo Chandler, will explore the conditions and restrictions confronting Pacific journalists, and discuss what might be done to support Pacific reporters, editors and newsrooms broadcasting the realities of life at the climate front line. 

You may also join us via Zoom here: https://unimelb.zoom.us/j/89784352409?pwd=NbHP56sKaYcn4ldRG5FSRaRgPpasqW.1

About Dorothy Wickham:

Dorothy Wickham is a highly experienced journalist, editor and media and communications specialist with an in depth understanding of Pacific politics, culture and effective communication practices. She is a long-standing host of RAMSI national radio talkback program, Talking Truth, managing editor of One News Television and founding editor of social media site, Melanesian New Network. Dorothy Wickham is a trusted voice in the Pacific. 

About Jo Chandler:

Jo Chandler is an award-winning freelance journalist, author, editor and journalism educator. Her focus is on explanatory, boots-on-the-ground reporting across a diverse range of topics: climate; science; environment; health; human rights; women's and children's issues; and aid and development. She has filed from Africa, Australia, Antarctica, Afghanistan and, frequently over the past 15 years, Papua New Guinea. She has earned numerous distinctions including the Australia Museum  Eureka Prize for Science Journalism, Walkley and Quill awards and the UNSW Bragg Prize for Science Writing. Formerly a long-time staffer at The Age, her work has featured in Nature, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Monthly, Griffith Review, ABC Radio National among others. She is a Senior Lecturer and Academic Specialist at the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne. She is the author of a book on climate field science Feeling The Heat (2011 MUP).