WEB COMMUNIQU?S DURING COUP ATTEMPT

By: Bob Howarth Journalism Student Sends Out Copy Via E-Mail


BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA - The first-ever interactive newspaper design and editing course run in the
South Pacific paid off dramatically this month when one trainee made Page One in several
newspapers. The star pupil, John Smith (not his real name), a copy editor for the Solomon Star
in Honiara, Solomon Islands, e-mailed news of a pre-dawn coup during a news blackout to me, his
former seminar teacher, in Australia.



The five-day course, attended by 16 journalism students, was organized and funded by the
Commonwealth Press Union of London, and was held in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.



Seminar students from outside the area flew home June 4. Smith awoke June 5 to discover that
armed rebels had staged a coup, capturing the Solomon Islands' prime minister and most of the
nation's arms supplies. They also overpowered crews on patrol boats in Honiara Harbor before
cutting telephone links to the outside world. But they failed to cut all Internet connections, and
Smith e-mailed news of the coup to my base at Queensland Newspapers.



For the next 48 hours, the Net was the outside world's only source of news about the bloody clashes
between the Malaita Eagle Force and Isatabu Freedom Movement.



Smith sent me four coup action photos and a report, which made Page One of both The Courier-Mail in
Brisbane and the Melbourne Herald-Sun. His images and copy also were used in the Papua New Guinea
Post-Courier, the country's leading daily.