pape'ete press pioneer dies, 58

Eugène Roe, right, promoted use of te reo Maohi - and women journalists - decades before either became fashionable in Pacific Islands media.

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dans la version originale française

Eugene Roe, deputy editor at RFO Polynesia, died Friday night at hospital Mamao, Papeete.

Aged 58 years, Eugene Roe was a journalist with RFO Polynesia, local outpost of a global state broadcaster, for the last twenty-five years.

After studying theology and journalism at Strasbourg, he began his career at 'Vea porotetani', the journal of the Evangelical Church and the newspaper 'Les Nouvelles de Tahiti.'

In 1984, he joined RFO. A lover of te reo Maohi, Roe worked hard to include the language in professional journalism, and to foster its use among generations of journalists arriving at RFO Polynesia, mostly from France. He believed in the ability of Polynesian youth to carry the profession, loud and clear, to an audience scattered across a territory bigger than Europe. Roe, also, was a faithful promoter to the arrival of women announcers and journalists across RFO antennae, reports Tahiti Presse, the official territorial news agency.