WITBN

By MASAO AKI

One day in mid-June, I walked into the KVCR-TV building in San Bernardino, California, U.S., with Jim Mather, chief executive of Māori Television in New Zealand. We had only just gotten in to Los Angeles late the previous night after an international media conference in Guadalajara, Mexico. There we were, the former and current directors of WITBN. Our bellies aching with hunger, we walked to the drive-in window at a McDonald’s on Sunset Boulevard to buy burgers, providing some entertainment for onlookers. “This is America,” Mather said. But as soon as we met Charles Fox, executive director for First Nations Experience (FNX), and he exchanged a hongi with Mather, it was like the spirits of the world’s Indigenous peoples’ ancestors filled the room.

WITBN is now in its fourth year and before July we didn’t have any Native American broadcaster members. The reason is simple: the U.S. didn’t dedicated consecutive daily broadcast hours to Native American content. FNX’s membership application in July changed that. For me, and certainly for the Network, it was a momentous and long overdue encounter. The day we confirmed FNX’s application to become a full member of WITBN, we extended the reach of our international cooperation into continental U.S.

Jim Mather and Charles Fox exchanged Hongi.

Jim Mather, Charles Fox, Masao Aki. (Left to Right)

Looking back at our own history in Taiwan, there was also a long journey from when Taiwanese Indigenous people first found their voice in media.

Before Indigenous people were able to make their voices heard through our own platform, Taiwan’s mainstream media had long failed to provide in-depth and nuanced coverage of indigenous culture; they constantly reinforced stereotypes that contributed to cultural misunderstandings, misconceptions, and conflicts among different ethnic groups.

In 1994, Taiwan’s Public Television Service (PTS) began training the first group of Indigenous journalists, enabling Indigenous people to take the first step to present their views and broadcast themselves to the world.

Four years after the training, PTS hired the first group of Indigenous journalists to produce Indigenous News Magazine, along with a website and discussion forum. The trio became the main platform for discussing Indigenous affairs. In 1999, Face to Face with Tribes, a live talk show, hit the airwaves, discussing social and political issues and taking live calls from the audience. These developments were major events in Indigenous Peoples’ access to electronic media, ushering Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples into the Media 2.0 era. Finding a hard-won media voice was another social movement for Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples, helping them come together as a group with a common destiny and building bridges of communication that transcend ethnic boundaries.

Living up to everyone’s expectation, TITV was established in 2004 and started broadcast in 2005. After operating under different organizations for the first three years, TITV is now a public media organization as part of the Taiwan Broadcasting System. The station, however, has not come to the stage of steady growth.

The next step for TITV is to have autonomy so we can create a sustainable operation that allows for long-term planning of our strategy in programming, production, and digitalization, and also the growth of our human talents to ensure we also provide a place for Indigenous youth ready to join our work.

TITV is currently structured around contracts that follow an annual purchase bid, TITV administrations must follow the rule of the contracting party and budget allocation following an annual plan approved by them. This prevents the station from making long-term plans, making it difficult to work programming or produce programs in advance for the upcoming year. In addition, recruitment and training of personnel can only be approached on a short-term contractual basis.

Clearly, this is not an appropriate and ideal budget model for operating a permanent television station.

We have been seeking supports for TITV to become an independent entity. In the interest of creating a sustainable future it is even more urgent now than ever that Taiwan’s government enacts a comprehensive “Indigenous Television Act” enabling TITV to become a station operating autonomously and professionally, free from any forms of political interference.

In 2008, when Māori Television led the call for the world’s Indigenous television stations to unite and form WITBN, TITV joined the Network, and subsequently took the chairmanship role, we knew that we would have the support from our Indigenous media allies from around the world.

Yet the supports not only comes from the fact that we all share the same goals, which is to retain and grow our Indigenous languages and cultures, but more critically, the continuous growth of production quality, business model, and application of latest technology.

As the Internet has grown, so has access to media, and television as a medium is also expected to grow in the foreseeable future following the trend of hybrid broadcast broadband TV. The development of broadband and digital media has made it easier for Indigenous peoples from across the globe to share experiences in media operation, production and broadcast technology, and come to a consensus so we can assert our rights as Indigenous media professionals that are in line with our common cultural traits.

On Dec. 23, 1994, the United Nations assembly passed a resolution declaring Aug. 9 International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. Much like the U.N., WITBN was established to bring together the world’s television media. We aim to enable and foster the continuation of Indigenous languages, culture, and exchange news information among tribes through digital technology. Working side by side, I believe we will stand still in our positions and together establish a space for the Indigenous voices and exert our influence around the world.

ENDS

Masao Aki, of the Atayal tribe, was appointed chief director of Taiwan’s national Indigenous broadcaster, Taiwan Indigenous TV in 2007. He was later elected chairman of WITBN in 2010.

In 2005, Masao joined TITV as the news manager. Before joining TITV, he served as a news presenter and producer for Taiwan Public Television Service for more than ten years. Masao is one of the first Indigenous people to become a news presenter in Taiwan’s broadcasting history.

In 1994, Masao was among the first group of Indigenous people to receive extensive training in journalism and media production. In 2003, he directed “Teacher,” a documentary on Taiwan’s educational reform and completed the film in 2005.