Journalism is ideologically objective.
But, the more we learn about the world of media the more complex this concept becomes.
We start to ask ourselves, how can media outlets represent marginalised groups if those groups are not directly represented in the actual newsroom?
If the staff are predominantly made up of ageing white males, are they expected to produce an objective article about Islamic Refugees?
There are arguments suggesting they can’t be.
As Kaeti Hinck discusses in her Neiman Lab article: if news organisations don’t begin to prioritize diversity, their foremost staff
will leave for organisations that do.
She argues that newsrooms with diverse staff provide more incisive Journalism, as they hold a better understanding
of the issues that minorities may face.
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And really, what gives a person the authority to write an article about a community they do not belong to?
This is where the idea of a Spokesperson comes in.
According to the Cambridge English Dictionary a spokesperson is:
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“a person who is chosen to speak officially for a group or organisation”
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But, what we are seeing with the rise of social media, gonzo journalism and short deadlines, is individuals having the authoritative title of ‘spokesperson’ thrust upon them a little too easily. Whether this is a self appointed title or a response from the media industry itself, it can pose issues for members of the community who feel misrepresented by this particular spokesperson.
Often journalist’s will use a ‘spokesperson’ to represent a community with the intention of concisely providing an objective piece of work, but the question is how do those within the actual community feel about this?
As we have recently seen, those with the most fame or influence in a community are usually given the appointment as “spokesperson”. But this does not always mean that all the members of that community agree and support that person.
After Caitlyn Jenner came out to almost 17 million people on Diane Sawyer's program as Transgender, the media seemingly appointed her as a spokesperson for the Transgender Community. But, with that title came criticism from people within the Transgender community itself - leading to a protest during one of Jenner’s speaking engagements last year. Whilst holding a sign that read liberation not miss-representation, protester Monica James told the Chicago Tribune that Caitlyn Jenner offers “just one perspective” of the troubles the minority faces.
Appointing a spokesperson who does not miss-represent an already marginalised community is an extremely challenging task.
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But what is better - A spokesperson that the majority of the community don’t identify with or no spokesperson at all?
We spoke to three people who identify as members of marginalised communities and presented them with faces who often appear as 'spokespeople' for their group.
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They chose one of these faces to wear as a symbol that through spokespeople the many voices within their community may only be heard through this person.
"Men make up 67%of newsroom staffers, a figure that has remained stagnant for the past three decades"
Women’s Media Center, 2014
Jarrod is one of those people who lights up the room.
A vocal member of the disabled community is a music producer, activist, opinionist, and public speaker.
He works in community radio and can be seen around Balaclava with his beautiful dachshund, Kermit.
We met him at Neighbours Cafe to about his experience as a member of the disabled community.
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Q&A
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We are at Neighbours Cafe in Balaclava with Jarrod Marrinon, Jarrod can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Your age, title, a fun fact
I’m 28 years old and I've been living in Balaclava for 3 and a half years. I work at a community radio station, and I have a dog called Kermit
Do you consider yourself to be a member of a marginalised group?
Yes absolutely, a couple of them. The disability community and LGBTI aswell.
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We have some faces of people here with us who have been referred to as ‘spokespeople’
for your community. Do any of these resonate with you?
I know all of these people. Actually I'm not quite, is that Hellen Keller? I've never actually seen
her face but I've read all of her books - her books were awesome.
I was friends with Stella Young. She was amazing. I guess in the recent 2-3 years
that's the biggest voice that we've lost in theMelbourne space.
Stella had a gift of being able to talk to the disabled community but also
to the mainstream community. She was funny, she was relatable and a very good
communicator. I think her voice really enriched our society.
I think we have all learnt something from her that we can take forward.
Which of these faces do you have the strongest reaction towards - either positive or negative.
I have pretty negative feelings towards Oscar Pistorius, I've been following the whole court case, and it's
ridiculous. But this is what happens with the whole paralympian thing. It's like 'we love paralympians,
paralympians are amazing'. But you don't talk about other people with disabilities like academics. You hear more about paralympians who try to be normal, and then when he kills a person he plays the cripple card? Like, I can't go to jail because I'm a vulnerable disabled person. No, you can go to jail. If you want to prove yourself, then why can't you be held to the same standards? I can't remember what sentence he got but it's ridiculous. And it goes both ways, it happens in too. There was a mom who got six months jail for killing her baby who had down syndrome, and everyone felt like oh the poor mom this baby has down syndrome. The media made the mother the victim. In the court rooms she said she stayed up for two months in a row looking after her child and said she just couldnt do it anymore. So she killed her. That woman goes on and has a normal life, but the baby? The baby is now dead.
How does it make you feel that the opinions and issues within your community might be only represented through one face?
I'm not sure if the media has an idea of the narrative. Disability is not desirable.
In work, and relationships and life. Theres always this need to invest time and money into disability knowledge and providing societies that are more accepting of disability. Because we are all going to be disabled at one stage or another. Some of us temporary, some of us permanently. Hopefully most will be disabled towards later on in life. But you will be disabled.
My grandfather who is 90 years old, for the last 85 years of his life he was quite fit. They have a couple stairs in their house, and now he has nerve pain in his leg so he can't do much. It wouldn't take long to make a house accesible, but because he grew up with the idea of disability is better off ignored and forgotten about he's not able to give himself to ask for these kinds of services.
So he relies on family and friends.
Do you think it would it be better for news organisations to showcase all the unique stories that make up that community?
If anyones going to tell my story, it will be me in my words. On the ABC website there was a really good showcase of stories of people with disabilites. I wrote a couple times. It went to the mainstream, but it really started a discussion inside the disability community. In the world of blogs and social media it's really hard to pick an argument in the mainstream and have it debated respectully when often you get trolls to spoil your argument. It needs the respect of all people saying okay this is a platform. Media like the ABC the Age the Herald Sun and the Australian all need to exist, but they need to change the way they're speaking about it.
Do you feel as though your community is accurately represented by media in Australia?
No. In Japan there was a mass killing of 19 disabled people and when you compare that to the Orlando killings or the one
that happened in Nice, There was no media coverage. None. Nobody came to the paper for interviews, nobody changed
their profile pictures on Facebook like they did after Orlando and Nice. I mean, we did, but no one else did. It was the biggest
mass murder in Japan. And then also, a couple of months ago I was left in my wheelchair over night and I posted a photo
on Facebook. And it was really interesting. Instead of journalists coming to my house to interview me, for half an hour they
sent me tweets saying “could we borrow your photo and use your story?”. They spread it out and made a 400 word piece
which is okay, but it’s not great. The problem is, I think, that we are not buying media and so media loses its quality.
We have a new disability commisioner who’s deaf and he was talking about some really, really interesting things.
But the ABC focused on “look we have an interpreter on the ABC” instead of what the commisioner was saying.
And yes this is the way he communicates, we get that, what is he talking about?
Are there trigger words or stereotypes used to belittle people within your community?
Theres a couple of trigger words out there, like there are things you need to know before you interview someone with a disability.
I can go through the dot points: wheelchair bound, suffering or like severe (laughs)
Would you say that Australians generally understand the issues your community faces?
I don’t know whose job it is to get these stories out. Is it my job to tell you these stories or is it your job to find these stories?
I think it goes hand in hand. I have an open mind and I go out there and meet people and say this is who I am and these opportunitites
will come up. And if you, the media, have an open mind and go “well do I really want to write my article on the financial crisis or do I want to go out and speak to the man at the corner of my petrol station and I ask him his story? There might be a story there.” But I think it will become a little less the case, because in journalism there is no money. You guys have to go get your own stories, mostly edit them yourself, you have to take your own photos and you might have to pump out 12 different stories a week. .
There are some people that believe political correctness has gone too far and caused
difficult conversations to be shut down. Have you experienced this and would you agree?
People who say that are not often part of a minority. I like to look through posts on
social media, it keeps me entertained. My mum’s cousin posted this joke about football
you know those “Don’t be a Steve” posts? He posted “This is Steve. Steve doesn’t yell
at the football through the TV. Because Steve is no retard.” So I commented and said,
"Just so you know, ‘retard’ is a derogative term. And he replied and said, “I don’t care
because it’s funny. I’m not talking to you, you’re not a retard Jarrod.” But he is missing
the point. People say, “just relax, it’s just a joke.” But the problem is, the people who say
it’s just a joke, they haven’t made it about themselves. Political correctness is really,
really important. Words kill people just as much as guns. I’m really worried about the
government. At the moment with have a political registration that you can’t use certain
terms to describe people. You can’t use the word ‘retard’ or ‘fag’ or words to describe
race. But Free Speech advocates who don’t really understand what free speech is, are
saying they should be able to use this language. But if you need to be hateful then
your argument is not going to be very strong in the first place. In the disability circle
(laughs) some of us use the word ‘cripple’. I use it. And for many, many years it was
used in the wrong way. But over the years some of us have reclaimed the word.
I think the thing that people have the most trouble with is “well if you can use it, why
can’t I use it?” But it is not their word to use. It’s about confidence. And the best way to
work out what is typical and what’s not is to ask. Is this word going to improve or diminish
my article? And if you don’t know, then leave it out.
"Nobody came to the paper for interviews, nobody changed their profile pictures on Facebook like they did after Orlando and Nice. I mean, we did, but no one else did. It was the biggest mass murder in Japan."
About me
Georgia is a young creative interested in the worlds of Graphic Design and PR.
Raised in Melbourne, she is currently completing a bachelor of Visual Communications.
She loves travel, sport and spending quality time with friends.
On first glance you wouldn't suspect that Georgia is in fact part of a largely marginalised community.
We met up with her to talk about her experience as a woman in the face paced modern world.
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Q&A
We're here today with Georgia Thorley in her South Yarra apartment. Georgia do you consider yourself to be a member of a marginalised group?
Yes, in the way that women and girls are still fighting for a lot of rights which would essentially put us in the minority. I also think the media puts us in a minority, the way they talk about girls and they do stories compared to the way they talk about men. It's the way they frame it.
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We have some faces of people here with us who have been referred to as 'spokespeople’ for your community. Do any of these resonate with you?
Oh I love her (pointing to Zoë Foster Blake). There are people here who I don't don't agree, in terms of their opinions. Was that Sonia Kruger who said the recent thing about Muslims? Yep. Completely do not agree with that. I love Zoë Foster Blake though. Just how she presents herself in general. She is a very funny woman. Kim Kardashian. I don't think she does much for women, the Kardashian's are entertaining but I wouldn't count them as role models. The Sex and the City girls though, that was a show that was great for women. I grew up watching that show with my mom. I actually learnt a lot from watching that show because they spoke about everything and it was a very girl power show.
Could you choose one the person you have the strongest reaction to, either positive or negative, so we can take a photo of you wearing it?
If I was chosing negative it would definitely be Sonia Kruger but that's because of her recent comments. In terms of a postivie reaction, it would Zoë Foster Blake, just because of how she is as a person.
How does it make you feel that the opinions and issues within your community might be only represented through this face?
I think as much as I say that Kim Kardashian isn't a role model for me, there might be some girls out there who resonate with her and agree with the things that she says about confidence. This is just an example, but let's just say they are curvy - she might be the spokesperson for those girls because they are like 'well she is not super skinny.' But there are definitely a lot of opinions out there and there are a lot more coming out.
Do you think it would it be better for news organisations to showcase all the
unique stories that make up that community?
I think there needs to be more of a personal voice in the way we talk about things.
With social media, there are millions of people who are up there. But things
like news bulletins can be very narrow-minded with who gets up there and talks.
I really like shows like 'The Project', because they get different people on
each night, and in the fourth chair and they get different opinions. Sometimes
it's a man and sometimes it's a woman. I think that's important.
It's like that whole thing with sports news. Everytime you turn on sports news
it's usually five men. But now there are women starting to sit in there as well and
it's good. I'm not asking for five women to sit in there and discuss AFL, but
sometimes they might see something that the men don't see. I've had this
conversation with guy friends - about why they don't want women in there.
Their answer is "because they don't play the game". And sure, we might not play the
game but there might be an analysis in our heads that you may never have seen.
Do you feel as though your community is accurately represented by media in Australia?
That's a very loaded question. Sometimes and sometimes not. Especially on the news. Just thinking about it now, on a lot of the channels it's usually a woman doing the weather and a man doing the bulletin and then there's a man doing the sport. But I do think they are at least trying to bring more diversity in, which is important. I think that if a man did a news report about a women's issue no matter how he was told to speak about it, he is still going to be a man speaking about a women's issue. I was watching this talk show and they were discussing breastfeeding and the man went to go and put his two cents in and sure he's allowed to have an opinion, but it just doesn't really work. You haven't breastfed. You haven't been a woman that has breastfed. So I think, as much as we want everyone to be able to talk about things, unless you are in those shoes it is hard to relate.
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Are there trigger words or stereotypes used to belittle people within your community?
I think the biggest things that they the media sometimes struggle with is this whole slut shaming thing. They describe "she was just wearing jeans and a jacket" when, of course she was. In the way that, that shouldn't be a thing. If she was wearing a dress that went down to her thigh and was walking down the street with her friends it still wouldn't matter. I think that's at the moment one of the biggest things. I read this thing that said "don't tell girls not to dress this way, tell men to not rape girls." And it's the way they talk about it. I think people still struggle with not thinking before they speak and I know it is a hard thing to do. But there have been a lot of times recently in the media, like with the Chris Gayle cricket stuff, where media especially now can go from here to overseas in about two seconds because of the Internet. I think it's especially important that people think about what they're saying before they say it.
Would you say that Australian's generally understand the issues your community faces?
I would say it's definitely a generation thing. I guess it depends on the issues you’re discussing, but some people can be naive to things that happen. I think if a girl was to have a conversation with a boy of the same age, obviously depending on the person, but the guy might be more likely to stand up and say "boys will be boys". LIke this whole Private Boys School thing that's coming out with the Instagram page and people are
saying "boys will be boys." I could never imagine a page where girls put up pictures of boys and rate them
'the slut of the year'. I think it definitely starts with trying to get them young while they are still growing up.
That recent incident with Tony Jones trying to kiss Bec Judd on the cheek was hard, Part of me was thinking
"Oh the poor guy he's probably just going in for a friendly thing", but then thinking about it now it's actually good
that she did stand up for herself. Now guys and girls will start to think "Oh, maybe that is not meant to be okay."
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There are some people that believe political correctness has gone too far and caused difficult conversations
to be shut down. Have you experienced this and would you agree?
No. It's like that whole "take a joke" thing, I remember some guy friends in High School who would never have
said that, but I also knew some guys who would have. I think it's definitely about education, making sure they
know what is okay to say when they're young so that when they grow up they're aware.
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"thinking about it now it's actually good that she did stand up for herself. Now guys and girls will start to think 'Oh, maybe that is not meant to be okay.'"
"it really took that conversation out of our hands. When a predominantly white newspaper and a white columnist makes that kind of judgement about people - how could we even begin to go out there and have those conversations?"
"The Aboriginal population is about 3%. For young kids it's about 5% so that's really exciting, it's actually growing and people are self identifying a lot more now"
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Bridget is a broadcast journalist working for ABC in Melbourne.
Over the past six years, she has worked across Australia and overseas.
Bridget is the 2016 recipient of the Andrew Olle Scholarship.
With this, she plans to focus on covering stories about Indigenous Australians.
We spoke to Bridget about her experience as a journalist and a member of the Aboriginal community.
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Q&A
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We’re sitting at Pearson & Murphy's with Bridget Brennan, Bridget can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Maybe a fun fact?
I'm not a morning person at all (laughs) that's something I've been trying to work on. Because as a journalist you do have a busy schedule and I do a lot of stuff outside work. I have a lot of interviews that I line up outside of my job. That would be my fun fact. But yeah, I'm a journalist at ABC. I started as a cadet 6 years ago, which makes me feel a bit old, but I'm still learning so much and it's a fantastic industry to be in because it changes so much. The ABC really changes so much - we evolve. Back when I was a cadet you really wanted to get your face on telly, that was the benchmark. But now you actually really want to get your name onto our mobile app because that's where all our audience is going. So that's really interesting. I was a cadet with about nine other people and most of them are still at the ABC, one is a foreign correspondent another one makes documentaries another one is a sports reporter. Most of us are still there because it's a great place to work.
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Do you consider yourself to be in a marginalised or minority group?
Yes, probably both actually. I don't feel marginalised myself, I've worked hard to get where
I am and I feel like I've had a lot of different opportunities. But certainly the Aboriginal community
no matter where you are is marginalised. You just have to look at the stats - we're behind with
education which is what we're talking about at the moment, and health. There's a lot of areas where
we're behind and so that can be frustrating to talk about sometimes because there's so much
success as well within the Aboriginal community that doesn't get as much attention. The Aboriginal
population is about 3%. For young kids it's 5% so that's really exciting, it's actually growing and people
are self identifying a lot more now. So 3% out of a population, you have to say it is a minority.
And in Victoria there have been some issues with data reporting, so for a long time at hospitals the
government wasn't properly taking stats from mother's when they were having Aboriginal babies.
Until fairly recently we didn't really have an accurate picture of how many Aborginal Victorians there are.
It was just one of those health inequealities and there wasnt a good match with the birth deaths.
Even within the ABC we're trying to boost our Aboriginal work force. Our goal was 2% two years ago
and we've met that with a fantastic Aboriginal staff coordinator, well she works in diversity I should say.
She's done amazing things, so now we're pushing for 3% which is our reconciliation reaction plan target.
So that's exciting.
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We have some faces of people here with us who have been referred to as ‘spokespeople’ for your community. Do any of these resonate with you?
I'll pull out Cathy Freeman, because her race of the 2000 Olympics was such a moment for me. I was an Aboriginal girl so that was just, like... wow. I felt so proud that she was holding up the Aboriginal flag alongside the Australian flag. Just a champion, and I think she's gone on to do some amazing things. She's got a great foundation that's looking at Asthma rates with indigenous kids. I love Cathy. I don't think we hear that much from her but I think she's a really positive force. I've seen Gurrumul play before, and I've been to his homeland in the Top End. I also covered the death of his Uncle. Gurrumul is interesting and he's been in the media this year talking about inequalities in treatement in Top End hospitals. That was a huge story this year - the way that he was treated. There was a lot of debate about whether it was racist treatment in the health system. That's something I'm really interested in. By all account's a beautiful man. Okay, Noel Pearson. He's a really interesting character, he's incredibly fiercly intelligent. He's a spokesman for his people, but thats been an issue this year too because of Aurukun. There's been a lot of debate about how kid's are educated there. There were people this year for the first time, I would say, a spread of people, from Aurukun speaking about issues in the Cape. And so a lot of people were actually saying "Noel Pearson doesn't speak for us". And that's a really interesting thing for Aboriginal people, becuase you don't really hear that about a white Australian leader. But for black fella's it's a really big thing. There's a lot of etiquette on who can speak out and getting a spread of diversity of voices within that community. But Noel Pearson does get a really good run, for good reason I guess.
If you had to pick one of these people, who you have the strongest reaction to either positive of negative, so we can take a photo of you wearing it as a mask who would it be?
I should probably pick Cathy because she is a woman like me, but I'm going to pick Adam Goodes.
How does it make you feel that the opinions and issues within your community might be only represented through this one face?
Well, with Adam Goodes, on the one hand it's accurate. I think that he represented a type of racism that's pervasive not just on the sporting field but in the offices, in everyday life, in the health system, just in the raw numbers. The Adam Goodes racism was very visible. We could see it, I could see it as an Aboriginal person we could all see it. It was the booing, it was audible racism. But there's a really invisible type of racism that we don't see everyday that black fellas talk up about, but it's very hard for non-Aboriginal people to see. It might be a comment, or way that you're looked at, or the way that you're categorised. And so, I think that resonated with so many Aboriginal people because a lot of people we're going "that's us!" Sure, that's not me out there on the football field, but something's happened to me in my past or someones spoken down to me in a way that that really resonates with me. That was a global story. I was in Washinton recently at NPR, and a journalist there told me they were really intruiged by the story. It's a really good thing that he represents so many Aboriginal people, because he really put his foot down and said "no thanks I'm not going to take this". He had to take a lot of time off which was undoubtably very stressfull for him, and as a journalist I remember thinking god I wonder whether he's seeing all these stories? There were several stories a day over a matter of weeks. What was did he think of them? But it was a positive thing because no matter how many gross awful facebook comments he gets, what a champion that he's still out there doing a lot of different collaborations with a lot of different brands - he's an ambasador for the ALF. So that face really resonates with me.
Do you think it would it be better for news organisations to showcase all the unique stories that make up that community?
Yes I do! I was just talking to my uber driver who is indian, and we were joking because it was the first time he had got a customer twice so I was like "Hi Raveet how are you!" (laughs). He was just talking about how much he loves Melbourne. He's from the punjabi community and every night and every weekend there's something going on within that distinct community. And I wouldn't know that, it's not something I would get invited to (laughs) I'm not on that grape vine. He said it's like a little India here, we're having a great time here and we're having community specific events. Wouldn't it be great to hear from him, or a reporter who is of Indian heritage? It plays on my mind a little bit because we can keep doing stories about Ramadan, and I need to preface this that I'm not speaking for the Islamic community I would never do that, but I think those are lovely stories and I'm glad we're doing more of them but wouldn't it be great if we just had more multicultural diverse faces and voices in a range of stories. After a while it gets a little bit 'here's this program they they hope will help Aboriginal people', we do need to get coverage of that but are we ever going to get to a point where we don't need to do those stories anymore because we've got such a range of people from a range of different fields who represent Australia to talk about general issues. It would be nice if we could invite more indigenous health profesionals onto a panel show where they're not necesarily asked about Aboriginal issues they're just talking about Australia, because they live here too you know!
Do you feel as though your community is accurately represented by media in Australia?
No. Even if you just look at the imagery that we use in the media. A lot of the imagery is of communities up north.
Beautiful, wonderful communities that live an awesome distinct life. But what about the people that are on the train next to you?
Or the Aboriginal people on your street? Do you see much imagery about those urban successful people? You don't do you.
And i think that effected me growing up. And there were times where i thought - should I be proud of being Aboriginal?
Does being indigenous mean being disadvantaged? Of course, it doesn't. We cant gloss over the fact that there is a massive gap
in all of those areas I was talking about, but we really shouldn't be defined by disadvantage. I met a wonderful youth-worker up
in Catherine this year who said "I hate that word, please don't put that word in the story I don't want to talk about disadvantage
I just don't want to be assosicated with it. I'm sick of talking about it." And I thought, yeah! We are pretty over it. I think there a lot
of stories that arent getting out there, and there are a range of reasons for that too.
Are there trigger words or stereotypes used to belittle people within your community?
One of the words that we see a lot is indigenous. And many Aboriginal people are very uncomfortable with that term.
It's a good term in a way because it represents Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders. I was in a conference a few years ago
organised by the ABC, the indigenous staff conference, and we heard from this wonderful elder in Adelaide and she said
"god could you stop using that word? It's such a white wash word". And that resonated with me so much. She said
"we never used to call ourselves indigenous growing up? We called ourselves Aboriginal, we called ourselves black fellas."
And so I thought that was really interesing, the way language can be perceived. So now I'll ask somone, what's your mob?
How would you like to be identified? It's that label that a lot of people don't have to have at the start of their names.
But I wouldnt say indigenous is a trigger word. It just seems that some people have stepped away from 'Aboriginal',
like maybe it's a bit uncomfortable to say? I don't know why, hoping that you're getting the terminology right?
But you can always ask someone. That cartoon this week that we saw in the Australian, that's a fine example of how media
and imagary can define our people. Bill Leak is entitled to defend his work, but it offended me, not as a journalist
but as an Aboriginal person, as a human. There's a wonderful Aboriginal journalist, Amy Mcquire, she wrote that it really
took that conversation out of our hands. When a predominantly white newspaper and a white columnist makes that
kind of judgement about people - how could we even begin to go out there and have those conversations?
How could we feel comfortable to talk about those issues. I thought she put that so well.
We're not a cartoon, my life is not a cartoon.
Do you feel that Australians generally understand the issues the Aboriginal community faces?
No I don't, and I've had racism in the newsroom and in just dealings with people where I've
worked, not necesarily colleagues but people I need to go through to my job. Whether it's a
media spokesman or whoever. But that hasnt happened to me often so that's a good thing. It's
sometimes a hard thing to descibre that feeling, and it's hard to describe trauma to people.
Trauma is a massive thing in the Aboriginal community and you can't see it you can only
see the effects of it. You can't see that feeling and the way that it runs through peoples lives
and the way that it influences their decisions. You can see the deplorable conditions that
people live in in the Northern Territory, Western Australia, NSW Central Australia, we can see
the numbers and the health gap but you can't see behind the scenes. And it's really hard to report
on generations of trauma. You have to keep chipping away, reminding people that this isnt some
made-up concept that Aboriginal people are clinging to its a very real thing. So that's hard to explain
to a non indigenous audience. But I think there's a great ammount of people who are keen to learn more
and to talk about solutions. That's the other thing, I think you start reporting on the amazing communities
who are looking for a new way to do things.
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Would you say that political correctness has gone too far in the media? Does it ever limit conversations?
Everyone has a different interpretation of political correctness. I think people cling onto political correctness when they want to say something offensive or racist. Let's make a distinction, because there's free speech and then there's the Racial Discrimination Act, so there's actually a pretty clear line, maybe some people would argue it's not that clear. I don't think it's politically correct to stand up for your right to say that piece in the media was offensive to me and my community. There are ways that you can complain about that through a strong complaint process. You can get fined, or forced to issue an apology. It's a tricky one.
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