Hard News

Ben Lawson

The journalism sphere continues to lack diversity for those minority groups in Australia, with greater representation and active recruitment required.

Patricia Karvelas "tackled" this at her Inaugural Honorary Professorial Lecture at the RMIT Capitol Theatre last night and discussed the report ‘Who gets to tell Australian stories 2.0’.

While "one in four people living in Australia today are from non-European cultural backgrounds, they represent just 6.1 per cent of Journalists and Presenters talking about Current Affairs," Patricia Karvelas said.

Researchers from Diversity Australia, the University of Sydney and the University of Technology were unable to identify one indigenous journalist who appeared on the Seven Network.

"I believe strongly now that we must have Aboriginal Australians in the driver's seat of reporting on [their] organisation," Ms Karvelas said, and that "it takes a bit of active recruitment,".

"Corporate Australia has been on notice for some time now to shift how it hires and promotes diversity radically," Ms Karvelas said.

Channel 7 digital sports reporter Harrison Reid said, "Our digital sports team doesn't have an indigenous voice; however, we aim to tell indigenous stories,".

He said, "I do think when the stories are coming from a place of an indigenous voice itself, then it's more powerful, and it's something that we've always had to work on,".

Mr Reid said, "I think it's an area of weakness if you've got no indigenous voices in your workforce", and he said, "The more diverse the media landscape, the better,".

“When we hear and see stories outside of that traditional white male experience, they do tend to stand out,” Ms Karvelas said.

Mr Reid said, "There are more voices than straight white males, and I think we are making strides in that area, and there need to be voices from the indigenous community from the LGBTQI+ community and females’ voices,".

Contact details:

Harrison Reid digital sports reporter 7NEWS.com.au – hreid@seven.com.au