Media leaders, journalists, and officials from across the Pacific gathered in Brisbane earlier this month for an international workshop focused on strengthening crisis communication and countering disinformation.
The event, Communication during a Time of Crisis: Practical Approaches and Lessons Learned from the Pacific, was co-hosted by the Griffith Asia Institute (GAI) and the Global Cooperation and Training Framework (GCTF) on 5–6 August 2025. More than 50 participants representing 15 countries explored strategies for improving media resilience in the face of natural disasters, public health emergencies, and the growing challenge of misinformation.
Dr Eve Chiu, CEO of the Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC), shared Taiwan’s experiences in building robust defences against false information. She noted that despite Taiwan’s strong record on freedom of speech, it remains a prime target of foreign disinformation campaigns. “Fact-checking has become a frontline safeguard,” she said. Dr Chiu introduced TFC’s tools, including a LINE chatbot for crowdsourced reports and an AI-powered dashboard that monitors online narratives to identify emerging threats.
Participants also addressed region-specific challenges such as climate change and disaster response. Journalists from island nations discussed the difficulty of communicating timely evacuation messages across multiple local languages and considered the role AI-driven translation might play. Others highlighted the ongoing importance of radio and word-of-mouth communication in remote communities.
The workshop also shone a spotlight on misinformation around COVID-19 vaccines and recent examples of AI-generated false content. Dr Chiu pointed to fabricated claims and manipulated videos circulating in Taiwan as a cautionary example of how technology can amplify disinformation risks.
Delegates visited the ABC’s Brisbane headquarters to observe Australia’s emergency broadcasting system in action, underscoring the role of public broadcasters in supporting regional resilience.
This was the first time Australia hosted a GCTF event since joining as a partner country in 2021. Alongside Taiwan, the United States, Japan, Canada, and Australia now jointly back the framework, which has held nearly 90 international workshops since 2015.
With Pacific nations on the frontline of climate change and geopolitical competition, participants stressed the importance of continued collaboration. As one delegate observed,
“Strengthening communication capacity is not only about responding to the next cyclone or pandemic — it’s about safeguarding trust in our societies.”
