. . How Will The National Radio Fare?

From DON WOOLFORD, in Port Moresby The Papua New Guinea Government, many of whose mem ers are unhappy with the country’s newspaper and broadcasting /stem, is planning to become more closely involved in news dis

The Office of Information, which )mes under the key Department of e Chief Minister and Development dministration, is proposing that the jvernment runs its own newspaper.

There is also growing support for e government to take over the ational Broadcasting Commission 'JBC), which is a statutory author / with a relationship to government milar to the Australian Broadcast g Commission’s.

Most observers believe there is tie doubt that the government will ive its own paper on the streets id in the villages by the end of e year.

The fate of the NBC is more oblematical. But some senior ivernment officers say the com ission’s independence is a luxury e country cannot afford and some BC officers believe their present itus cannot last much longer.

It is significant that the NBC’s airman, Sam Piniau, is casting elers for an ambassadorship and at Ovia Toua, the best-qualified of e contenders for the vacant deputy airmanship, is widely regarded as iving ruined his chances by taking,

in his current capacity of controller of news and public affairs, an in dependent line on sensitive issues, Plans to start a government paper rise from several factors.

The government, generally, feels the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier, the country’s only daily, is not adapt ing properly to the rapidly changing political climate. But it can hardly complain that the Post-Courier is anti-government. Indeed, the paper rarely criticises the government and, when it does, the criticism is usually muted or of a matter that is peri pheral to major policy.

On the other hand, the Post- Courier has made little attempt to cover events outside the main centres; it is still largely, though decreasingly, white-oriented in content; and it is still written in a language that is incomprehensible to the majority of New Guineans.

The government is also looking, with some jealousy, at Wantok, a Pidgin fortnightly published by the Catholic Mission at Wewak.

Wantok has S'epik and Madang editions and plans Highland and Papuan editions. Although its circu

lation is only about 9,000 it is largely a village circulation—in contrast with the Post-Courier whose 19,000 circu lation is almost entirely urban—and it is widely thought to be influential at the grass roots.

“If Wantok can do it, so can we”, is one government view.

Finally, of course, there is the in evitable desire of the Office of In formation to empire build.

Various possibilities are being con sidered, including the attempted pur chase of either the Post-Courier or Wantok.

Probably neither will occur, with the new paper beginning as a fairly modest publication concentrating on government news, plus some sport and general interest news. The place of advertisements is still being de bated.

The NBC, 15 months old, is an amalgamation of the old ABC Papua New Guinea service and the Aust ralian administration’s district radio stations which were run by the now defunct Department of Information and Extension Services.

The NBC runs both a national service, analogous to the ABC’s ser vice, and a district service, similar to the administration system.

The NBC is not anti-government.

But it gives air time to the govern ment’s critics and it breaks stories,

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when it can. which the government would prefer did not become public knowledge.

This has periodically put it under ministerial pressure, most recently when it ran interviews with the Papuan dissidents Simon Kaumi and Josephine Abaijah.

Furthermore, the Office of In formation is partly staffed by former DIES officers who regret their loss of responsibility for broadcasting and are alert to any chance to regain it.

Some argue that the NBC is not using the district stations as effectively as DIES used to—a claim for which there is little hard evi dence either way.

Quite apart from traditions regard ing the freedom of the press (not that Papua New Guinea has much in the way of such a tradition), the government may find, if it does get seriously involved in the news media business, that there are many prob lems.

It is probably impossible in a largely rural, illiterate and tribally atomised country to produce a real national newspaper.

One that attempted to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of villagers with rudimentary reading skills and limited knowledge of life

outside their own society would have little appeal to the urban reader who, while a small minority, is by far the more influential.

On the other hand, despite their limited backgrounds, PNG villagers are no fools. The Australian ad ministration found this a few years ago when it tried to use its radio stations at Rabaul and Kieta for pro paganda.

There is no good reason to sup pose that if the national government tries to use the news media similarly it will not get a similar reaction— at best indifference, quite possibly, as on the Gazelle Peninsula in 1970,

outright hostility.