Maori control is essential

Tu Tangata, Issue 33, 1 December 1986, Page 11

Maori control is essential

Maanu Paul, Waiariki District Maori Council chairman, was one who urged the hui not to endorse the network proposal. He said a Maori radio service needed autonomy and equity, neither of which were offered in this plan. It was, he said, very hard for people who had been culturally bound by Pakeha ideas and models in the media to break free from them. But the Maori people should recognise that the Radio New Zealand proposal was a Pakeha approach.

A successful Maori system of broadcasting, he argued, could best be worked out in consultation with the Maori people who have experience in the media. For example, he said, the BCNZ should have conferred with Mana Maori Media. That’s a group of Maori news media people guiding the Maori journalism course at Waiariki. It’s an organisation open to all Maori journalists and is aimed at co-ordinating Maori developments within the media.

MMM wants to discourage the Pakeha establishment from imposing illfitting schemes on the Maori and it wants to encourage the Maori to develop, present and pursue media plans appropriate for the Maori. Here is an outline of MMM’s position:

Mana Maori Media

• is an organisation of Maori people pressing for the development of Maori news media. • recognises that the news media have a moral and professional obligation to devote a fair share of their time' and resources to things Maori. • believes that the Maori share will be guaranteed only when the appropriate resources are under Maori control. • and agrees that Maori control should include:

(1) selecting and training recruits for Maori media work (2) establishing a radio system that

serves the Maori people throughout New Zealand (3) establishing either a television channel or a major production house (4) establishing, as a start in print journalism, a publishing house with the resources to produce a high-profile, national monthly magazine Mana Maori Media rejects the notion (a) that Maori and New Zealand interests are best served through Pakeha organisations controlling Maori news media developments and (b) that there can be Maori control, or significant Maori influence, through a system of Maori advisers making recommendations to Pakeha superiors.