Lagipoiva honoured for climate coverage
The editor of Pacific Environment Weekly in Samoa, Dr. Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson, became the first Pacific Island journalist to receive a ‘Journalists of Courage and Impact’ award at the East West Center’s International Media Conference this month.
Lagipoiva received the award for her pioneering work on covering the climate crisis, and elevating Pacific Islander voices globally.
Besides her own outlet, she is a contributor to The Guardian and The Economist. At 25, she was the youthful editor of Samoa Newsline, and she formulated the Pacific disaster journalism fee donation model, where she donates her correspondent’s fees to local journalists in island countries that she covers during times of disaster.
Lagipoiva accepted the award “on behalf of the women journalists of the Pacific for whom honours such as these are rarely bestowed.
“I stand on the shoulders of those women giants,” she said.
During her acceptance speech and while speaking at several panels at the media conference, she reaffirmed the need “to raise the voices of the Pacific, by Pacific journalists, in climate crisis reporting.”
She also challenged the “grief narrative” pushed by the west, and encouraged journalists to show how Pacific peoples are dealing with the climate crisis.
“In Vanuatu, they are coming up with ways to produce taro and crops that can withstand prolonged droughts. In Tuvalu, they have come up with ways to plant taro that can float so they can survive. So I think there are those smaller stories that we know about that we should be telling. And I urge the editors in the room… to please listen to the voices of the minority journalists, the correspondents out in the field because they have those stories.”
She also stressed the value of interviewing people in their own languages, and understanding the social context.
“In my language, we joke in the face of grief. And I can read through that. And I can translate that in a way that honours the story without complicating that. If a journalist from the U.S. was hearing that, they would translate it as a joke. But it’s not. So nuances really matter. Investment matters, a very considerate and calculated approach on the ground matters.”
She also drew comparisons in the way the climate crisis was covered by media in the Pacific and elsewhere in the world. “In the Pacific we simply do not have the luxury of denial because we are living through it, every single day. The intensity of cyclones, prolonged droughts, the impact on our families, the impact on crops, seasonal crops, so we simply just do not have that pocket of scepticism within our communities.”
She continued that in comparison, “the US media has failed dramatically in that it gives space to the sceptics.”
The keynote speaker at the EWC conference was Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Rappler cofounder, Philippine-American journalist, Maria Ressa, who spoke the day after Rappler was hit with a shutdown order from the Philippines Security and Exchange Commission. That order was an affirmation of an earlier decision to revoke Rappler’s certificate of incorporation.
Under outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, the government has filed multiple charges in recent years against Ressa and Rappler, which has led the way in reporting on Duterte’s deadly drug war.
“We are entitled to appeal this decision and we will do so, especially since the proceedings were highly irregular. But if you live in a country where rule of law is bent to the point that it’s broken, anything’s possible, right? In the meantime, it is business as usual for us. We will adapt, adjust, survive, and thrive. As usual, we will hold power to account. We will tell the truth,” she vowed to the audience of journalists, editors, academics and EWC alumni.
Ressa detailed the many personal attacks she has faced as a result of Rappler’s reporting, most often online, saying the world’s largest social media platforms as the world’s major distributors of news, “prioritises the toxic.”
“Let’s have a person-to-person defence of democracy. When we are living in a world where meaning is atomised into meaninglessness, we must make sure our area of influence has meaning.”
Lagipoiva has also faced personalised attacks, most recently in relation to her coverage of Samoa’s political crisis last year, and acknowledged that during her acceptance speech.
“I consent to this award also on behalf of the women journalists of Samoa who suffered just as I did in the political crisis, whose offices burned down just as mine has, whose families and children and mothers and fathers are threatened on a daily basis whenever we cover contentious stories. This is also for them,” she said.
“Journalists continue to face severe threats in the pursuit of truth. And I take this opportunity to call on better protections for women journalists around the world. We need to ensure that we can continue to practice journalism, free of threats and risks to our lives and the lives of those whom we love.”
