More than 70 media professionals from across the Pacific are in Niue for the Seventh Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) Media Summit.
Delegates from seven countries such as Fiji, PNG, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Australia and New Zealand are attending the week-long event which will officially be opened by the Niuean Assembly speaker Hima Douglas.
Speaking on the importance of the summit, Fiji Media Association general-secretary Stanley Simpson said PINA was an important institution for media and journalists across the region.
“The PINA Summit especially is very important for setting directions and discussing and creating awareness about issues that we face,” said Mr Simpson.
“There are a lot of issues that many media across the Pacific face. It has not always been an easy journey because of the challenges that we’ve faced but for us it is about building solidarity.”
He said he was looking forward to the discussions that would be held during the summit.
“For this upcoming summit I am really looking forward to addressing the landscape that we are faced with including the new ships that are sailing through the horizons like the new technologies that are coming and basically how we keep our values as journalists in the face of all of this.”
PINA manager and organising committee member Makereta Komai said there were a few key issues that the summit would focus on
“Some of the main ones we are looking at is obviously press freedom. There’s a lot of issues surrounding press freedom and for the Fijian media they lived with that for many years,” said Ms Komai.
“The other challenge of the geo-political interests and influences that come with it and to see if the big powers that are in the region are influencing our work.”
The theme of the event is “Charting a Resilient Future: Navigating Media Freedom, Artificial Intelligence and Geo-Political Interests.”
