Cook Is PM Announces Plans To Create Media Council

Cook Islands PM Announces Plans To Create Media Council

AVARUA, Rarotonga (RA News Online/Pacific Media Watch): Prime Minister Robert Woonton says he has asked Sir John Jeffries, chairman of New Zealand's Press Council, to help establish a similar council in the Cook Islands.

http://www.abc.net.au/ra/newstories/RANewsStories_1085884.htm

Dr Woonton says he made the request as a result of serious concerns about media standards in his country.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has announced plans to set up an interim broadcasting board to make media companies meet the provisions of the Broadcasting Act.

However, he says the board is only a temporary measure until a media council can be established:

Our concern, not only government but also other media groups, is that there is no broadcasting standard that's acceptable to everybody.

The government is looking at introducing a similar control as in New Zealand - for some kind of standard that respects the individual, and respects common decency. That's what we are looking at in our own media. +++niuswire

PACIFIC MEDIA WATCH ONLINE http://www.pmw.c2o.org

PACIFIC MEDIA WATCH is an independent, non-profit, non-government organisation comprising journalists, lawyers, editors and other media workers, dedicated to examining issues of ethics, accountability, censorship, media freedom and media ownership in the Pacific region. Launched in October 1996, it has links with the Journalism Program at the University of the South Pacific, Bushfire Media based in Sydney, Journalism Studies at the University of PNG (UPNG), the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (ACIJ), Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand, and Community Communications Online (c2o).

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