The Power of Journalism

I’d like to share a story that was shared to me by my colleagues – with both great sadness and great pride.

In 2011 they were tasked with putting together a story under the category of ‘governance’. They travelled to remote Islands off the coast of Milne Bay to investigate claims that government services, especially education, were not reaching these people.

They travelled long distances to remote areas of the province, and what they uncovered was alarming.

Trained teachers are scarce as it is, and they are even more reluctant to take up remote postings where the funding is poor, the resources are limited and the quality of life is poor.

What they found was a community of children who had been sent by their families to get whatever little education they could from the one island centre where there was what could loosely be categorised as a school.

The children were living by their own means with no adult supervision. They had formed their own community among their makeshift housing. Sometimes they had food, sometimes they didn’t. They weathered the challenges of being separated from their families and having to provide for themselves and look after each other at such a young age because receiving what little primary education they could was the priority.

My colleagues recounted the compassion and sadness they felt for their people upon seeing the circumstances in which these children were living, just to be able to receive an education – a basic human right.

Many of them were holding back tears while interviewing the children and often ended interviews so they wouldn’t break down. The recordings were often shaky because the person holding the equipment was crying.

They told of two brothers who had tried to canoe home to their island during the school holidays. The older brother was rowing and lost control of the canoe when a giant wave came and they capsized. The older brother was pushed under water and when he surfaced, he couldn’t find his younger sibling. Distraught, he searched and searched the deep waters, but he couldn’t find him.

Days later a group of fisherman saw something in the water and paddled over. It was the young child, face down in the water, his school bag still on his back.

Arriving back to the mainland, my colleagues broadcast the story on the Milne Bay airwaves. It triggered a chain of reaction. The community was devastated to hear the disadvantage suffered by their brothers and sisters on the islands. The next day the provincial authorities were forced to act, triggered by community outrage. Radio had been the catalyst for addressing a problem that had previously been unheard and out of sight. I could tell it was a very proud moment in my colleagues working life and such a powerful testament to the importance and value of information.