OPERATION PLES DRAI PAPUA NEW GUINEA DROUGHT

THE PNG AND AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCES WORKING TOGETHER FOR THE PEOPLE OF PNG DURING THE 1997 – 1998 DROUGHT

COOPERATION OF A DIFFERENT KIND

The drought relief program in Papua New Guinea has been one of cooperation in more ways than one.

With PNG suffering its worst drought in recent history and tens of thousands of people facing starvation, the Australian Defence Force, through OPERATION SIERRA has brought desperately needed food to many villages and regions.

The ADF undertaking has been a team effort in the true sense. Relief supplies have been flown to PNG from Australia by the RAAF, and then transported to the worst affected areas by Army, Air Force and Navy personnel for distribution.

The vast majority of the images seen in the newspapers and on television in Australia have been supplied by a field team of Defence Public Information personnel deployed to Port Moresby.

When the field team returns to its base after two or three days filming and reporting, film needs to be processed and video tape viewed and edited prior to release to television news rooms. The accompanying story also needs to be written.

In this respect, the job of the DPIO staff has been made easier thanks to the assistance of local businesses.

Shortly after arriving in PNG the team made contact with Andrew Edwards at Global Technologies and Father Milak Zidzizlaw, the Executive Secretary of the Religious Television Association. "These two organisations have been extremely helpful in helping us get our information back to Australia," said Captain Chip Henriss-Anderssen, "Global Technologies set up our internet home page and the RTA has given us virtually unlimited access to their editing suite. Without this help, our job would be so much harder," he said.

Captain Henriss-Anderssen said access to the Internet has eliminated the need to fax story details to the various news organisations. "The beauty of the Internet is its ability to save time and its speed," he said, "You write the story, hit send and the words and the photos - which have been scanned into the system - arrive at their destination almost immediately. The editorial staff can then make any necessary changes, everything is done on computer with no need for a paper printout, it's brilliant." he added. The homepage has all the details of OPERATION SIERRA including a picture gallery.

For television news the DPI cameramen may shoot as much as 90 minutes of footage of which 60 - 90 seconds may be shown on TV. Captain Henriss-Anderssen said editing tape is a time consuming job. "The vision needs to be viewed, shot listed and loosely edited, once we've done that the newsrooms will then be sent a 15 - 20 minute compile of footage with the story details. They then write their own version of the story and decide which footage they'll use," he said.

"Providing the media with material of this quality makes their job easier. It also increases the chances of our story, the ADF's involvement in providing the drought relief to the people of PNG, being told," said Captain Henriss-Anderssen.

The Internet homepage address in Australia is http://png-relief.att.net.au and in PNG it is http://www.global.net.pg/png_drought_relief.

By: Captain Grant King - November 28 ,1997

Cooperation of a Different Kind Picture Gallery.