In February 2016, the Fiji Islands were devastated by Severe Tropical Cyclone Winston, the strongest recorded tropical storm in the Southern Hemisphere. The category 5 storm with wind gusts reaching 300 kilometres an hour, left 44 people dead, 45,000 people displaced, 350,000 indirectly affected, and $650 million worth of damage (Climate Council, 2016). In March 2017, the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) launched a new 10-year Strategic Plan 2017-2026, which regards climate change as a ‘deeply troubling issue for the environmental, economic, and social viability of Pacific island countries and territories’. In November, Fiji will co-host the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP23) climate change conference in Bonn, Germany. Against this background, the Pacific Media Centre despatched two neophyte journalists to Fiji for a two-week field trip in April 2016 on a ‘bearing witness’ journalism experiential assignment to work in collaboration with the Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD) and the Regional Journalism Programme at the University of the South Pacific. This article is a case study assessing this climate change journalism project and arguing for the initiative to be funded for a multiple-year period in future and to cover additional Pacific countries, especially those so-called ‘frontline’ climate change states.

中文翻译：

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Bearing Witness 2016：斐济气候变化新闻案例研究

2016 年 2 月，斐济群岛遭到强烈热带气旋温斯顿的破坏，这是南半球有记录以来最强的热带风暴。5 级风暴的阵风达到每小时 300 公里，造成 44 人死亡、45,000 人流离失所、350,000 人间接受影响，以及价值 6.5 亿美元的损失（气候委员会，2016 年）。2017 年 3 月，太平洋区域环境计划秘书处 (SPREP) 启动了一项新的 2017-2026 年 10 年战略计划，该计划将气候变化视为“对太平洋岛国的环境、经济和社会生存能力造成严重困扰的问题”。和领土”。11月，斐济将在德国波恩共同主办联合国气候变化框架公约（COP23）气候变化会议。在此背景下，太平洋媒体中心于 2016 年 4 月派遣两名新手记者前往斐济进行为期两周的实地考察，进行“见证”新闻体验任务，与太平洋环境与可持续发展中心 (PaCE-SD) 和区域南太平洋大学新闻专业。本文是一个案例研究，评估了这个气候变化新闻项目，并主张在未来多年内为该倡议提供资金，并覆盖更多的太平洋国家，尤其是那些所谓的“前线”气候变化国家。