The ABC is working to ensure that First Nations audiences are better represented.
In November last year, the ABC set up a stand-alone Indigenous Reporting team, under the leadership of award-winning journalist, Suzanne Dredge. Suzanne is the only First Nations staff member to ever be on the ABC News Executive team. She and fellow team members, Bridget Brennan and Brooke Fryer, became the first female Indigenous reporting team to report a Four Corners.
Aired in October 2022, How many more? won the top honour at the Melbourne Press Club’s Quill Awards earlier this year, with judges saying the report’s strength lay in its “access to strong Aboriginal women and sensitivity”.
The ABC recently extended two partnerships with peak Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations that will see an increase in the use of First Nations names and languages on all ABC platforms and support career pathways for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people working in media.
The ABC’s Head of Indigenous, Diversity and Inclusion, Kelly Williams, said the collaboration with First Languages Australia (FLA) will see the continuation of projects such as This Place, which shares the stories behind place names, station identifications and ABC Education projects like Good Mornings.
First Nations Media Australia (FNMA) CEO Professor Shane Hearn said the continuing partnership will amplify “Indigenous voices and narratives” and further build content collaboration, knowledge sharing, and industry support.
ABC Friends congratulates the ABC on these partnerships and the broadcaster’s commitment to engage with and showcase Indigenous perspectives.
Recently, the Public Media Alliance (PMA) hosted a member roundtable discussion around how public media organisations develop Indigenous content and work to build trust, remain accountable, and reflect all members of society.
Some of the discussion points most relevant to the ABC included:
- Reflecting both in and out: “When we can see ourselves reflected not only in our content but in the people who work in the organisation, and those communities where people know who we are, I can say the trust is markedly more improved […] We’re very underrepresented in the public broadcaster and, though that’s improving, our inside has to reflect the outside.”
- The burden of Indigenous journalists: “We’re very aware of the cultural load that’s on Indigenous staff in the organisation […] and we try to manage that as best as we can.”
- Broadcasters must acknowledge their failures: “Our newsrooms are getting much smaller and because of that we have limited resources to actually actively engage [Indigenous] communities.
- Engaging all staff on Indigenous affairs: Many public broadcasters encourage and organise cultural awareness training for their non-Indigenous staff. Although it can be difficult getting some staff to attend, these sessions are important so all public media staff are sensitive to and understand Indigenous issues.
- Wider pipeline issues: Some public broadcasters commented on the difficulties in getting Indigenous content made. This is often a structural problem which can affect the number of Indigenous creators and content makers public broadcasters can partner with and invest in, as well as a pipeline issue of not getting enough Indigenous people trained and qualified to progress through the organisation.
The full account of the discussion can be read here.
Sophie Arnold
E-news Editor