APP uninvites selected press from visiting controversial mill

According to Ecobuiness.com, journalist Robin Hicks writing in Eco-Business, recounts how he was “uninvited” from an APP press trip to its OKI mill at the 11th hour. APP told Hicks it was not ready to tell the mill’s sustainability story, which was what he was after, and that the press trip would focus on the commercial and financial aspect of the new mill. APP said they would reschedule for a more suitable trip for the sustainability press at a later date. Hicks wrote he had informed APP when asked, that besides wanting to understand the workings of the mill, he also would like to know how such a big mill could avoid breaking the company’s zero-deforestation pledge. When Hicks’ editor asked if he could still go along on the trip, APP said no and that they would not host him even if he showed up in Jakarta. Hicks also discovered that Mongabay’s Indonesian editor, Sapariah Saturi, was also suddenly uninvited. But two other journalists – Singapore’s The Straits Times environment and science correspondent Audrey Tan and the Nikkei Asian Review Indonesia correspondent Wataru Suzuki – were not uninvited. Hicks said apparently this was because their stories would focus on the “business and finance” aspects of the mill, not sustainability. But Hicks thinks stories about the OKI mill inadvertently would have to include its environmental implications to some degree, and that is what APP was concerned with, particularly with international green groups scrutinizing Indonesia’s pulp and paper sector. As he says, it would be interesting to see the kind of coverage that would emerge from a media trip where some members of the press were intentionally left out after being invited. Read here the full story: http://www.eco-business.com/opinion/app-uninvites-selected-press-from-visiting-controversial-mill/