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| (L) Media Council President Alexander Rheeney and NBC MD Kora Nou. |
By MATTHEW VARI
Sunday, January 22, 2017 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)
PRIME Minister Peter O’Neil will be the inaugural speaking for the NBC National Press Club Speaker Series, to be aired on the National Broadcasting Corporation’s (NBC’s) TV and radio networks tomorrow at the Lamana Hotel in Port Moresby.
NBC Managing Director, Kora Nou, said the first of its kind speaker series will benefit the media fraternity and country as a whole, thanks to the collaborative efforts of the Media Council of PNG (MCPNG) and the Media for Development Initiative (MDI) project.
With the initial discussions of a national press club going back as far as the 1990s never eventuating- Mr Nou said the collaborative efforts of key partners to have close engagement with the national audience in close engagement with leaders both in the public and private sectors was key to the announcement.
“Work has progressed for a number of years and the last 12 months between us and our colleagues from MDI we’ve had several meetings that we decided that as part of our work to engage with our audience and political leaders, one way is to reintroduce the national press club issue.”
“I am also greatful to the Media Council of PNG and Lamana Hotel for supporting the initiative. It is election year so what better time, we also see it as an opportunity to encourage our young journalists and the ones who have taken up senior positions in newsrooms- this be a good pathway.”
“All in all NBC is happy to partner with the media council and Lamana Hotel to support this initiative, and with the first few we will see how we go,” Nou said.
President of MCPNG, Alexander Rheeney, said the press club model will be based on the Australian Press Club model, adding that the support of mainstream media houses as key to benefiting from vital training that accompanies the press club concept.
“I would like to appeal to all media houses to support this initiative because there is also a training component to the club’s establishment.”
“Friday this week we have the first part of training that will be carried out by experts as well as veterans and journalists in PNG.”
“The training basically focusses on giving confidence to upcoming journalists to ask the right questions of high standing public profile Papua New Guineans,” Rheeney said.
He added with the PM being the inaugural speaker tomorrow, the attendance should be set the tone to other speaker that will feature on what is planned to be a monthly event.
“There are already those who have shown support the initiative and we would want to more support, not only from the media industry, but from the public at large as well as the organisations and even donor partners.”
“Because at the end of the day Papua New Guineans have a right to know. They need to connect, link up on what their leaders are and how they plan to go into the elections what their plans what are their priorities in 2017 General Elections.”
Both media heads clarified that the series will not be a political tool, but more or less one to inform the general public in an election year.
“We had a chat during the preliminary stages of planning the project and it is actually open. We will have high profile speaker who will come in and talk about issues of concern to Papua New Guineans, but because it’s the election year we thought only right to open the floor to the Prime Minister,” Rheeney added.
“Consecutively after the first one then we will see the opposition leader open the next one, that is the sort of thinking that we have in mind, but there is nothing wrong with opening up the floor to personalities, even internationals personalities.”
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