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Speaker 1: My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda

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Speaker 1: Bunjelung Calcotin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres

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Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the

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Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.

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Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily os. It's Wednesday,

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Speaker 2: the twenty third of November. I'm Sam, I'm Zarah. A

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Speaker 2: new study looking at diversity in TV news and current

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Speaker 2: affairs has found there's a long way to go to

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Speaker 2: reach representation on screen, severe.

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Speaker 3: Under representation when it comes to non Europeans. The figure

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Speaker 3: is just so grossly underrepresented.

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Speaker 2: In today's deep Dive, I'm going to speak to the

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Speaker 2: CEO of Media Diversity Australia, Mariam Vesadare. But first, Sarah,

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Speaker 2: what's making headlines this morning?

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Speaker 4: Debate on the Australian Government's National Anti Corruption Commission resumed

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Speaker 4: in the House of Reps yesterday. This is that piece

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Speaker 4: of legislation that was really a big part of Labour's

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Speaker 4: election campaign and they promised to pass it by the

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Speaker 4: end of this year. There are only six more days

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Speaker 4: in the sitting calendar to pass the bill through both

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Speaker 4: houses of Parliament.

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Speaker 2: Businesses and non for profit organizations impacted by the ongoing

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Speaker 2: flooding in New South Wales will be eligible for up

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Speaker 2: to fifty thousand dollars in recovery grants. The initiative is

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Speaker 2: part of a new joint fund announced by the New

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Speaker 2: South Wales and federal governments. New South Wales Premier Dominique

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Speaker 2: Perreite and Prime Minister Anthony Aberanezi made the announcement in

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Speaker 2: the flood affected town of Ugara yesterday. A town that's

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Speaker 2: been devastated and we've seen that today, but it's a

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Speaker 2: town that's resilient. It's a town where people want to

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Speaker 2: rebuild this town and this community.

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Speaker 4: Specialized domestic violence support and services will be bolstered under

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Speaker 4: a one hundred million dollar package announced by Queensland Premier

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Speaker 4: Anastasia Palichet this week. Palochet said the package, which would

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Speaker 4: also provide further protections for people exposed to domestic violence,

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Speaker 4: was a quote renewed opportunity to make sure victims get

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Speaker 4: every support they need and deserve.

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Speaker 2: And today's good news. The Orion spacecraft, which is part

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Speaker 2: of NASA's artemus I program, has flown within one hundred

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Speaker 2: and fifty kilometers of the surface of the Moon a

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Speaker 2: week after launching. Orion is set to travel further than

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Speaker 2: any spacecraft design for humans. This is all part of

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Speaker 2: NASA's plan to return astronauts to the Moon. Media Diversity

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Speaker 2: Australia has done some research looking at the diversity of

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Speaker 2: news and TV presenters which finds we're a long way

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Speaker 2: off from representing the broader community. CEO of MDA, Mariam

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Speaker 2: Vesade is with us this morning. Mariam, what would you

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Speaker 2: say is the key finding of the report?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the key takeaways that while there has

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Speaker 3: been pockets of progress and pockets of improvement since last

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Speaker 3: time this research was done, the headline is that our

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Speaker 3: screens are largely still Anglo Celtic. There's been an increase

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Speaker 3: in that figure in terms of frequency of appearance. It's

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Speaker 3: a severe underrepresentation. When it comes to non Europeans, that

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Speaker 3: portion has increased slightly, but when you compare it to

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Speaker 3: the broader population, the figure is just so grossly underrepresented.

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Speaker 2: So how did you guys go about measuring engaging diversity

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Speaker 2: to prepare this report.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, look, it's certainly not a perfect science. We specify

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Speaker 3: the fact that this is measuring perceived cultural diversity. It

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Speaker 3: is looking at people's names, it's looking at any publicly

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Speaker 3: available information about how they identify. It's using a whole

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Speaker 3: host of other academic methods to verify the details. We

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Speaker 3: hope in future that with further funding and with the

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Speaker 3: further support from ME to the broadcasters, that we can

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Speaker 3: provide richer data, which includes actually going in speaking to

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Speaker 3: on air presenters and asking them about their heritage. More broadly,

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Speaker 3: I'd love.

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Speaker 2: To take a bit of a deep dive into the

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Speaker 2: on air appearances. Specifically, what are we looking at in

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Speaker 2: Australia when we look at who is presenting the news

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Speaker 2: to us on our TVs.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so in terms of like deep dive, we are

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Speaker 3: obviously looking at two weeks slice. The research is based

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Speaker 3: on a two week slice of television. We're talking twenty

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Speaker 3: five thousand items, a huge amount of footage that the

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Speaker 3: academics have gone through and what it measures two things.

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Speaker 3: One is the numbers in terms of just purely numbers

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Speaker 3: of people of various backgrounds on television. Then it's the

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Speaker 3: frequent see on which they appeared. So say the Anglo

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Speaker 3: Celtic category, in terms of frequency they appear about seventy

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Speaker 3: eight percent, but the general population figure of Anglo Celtic

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Speaker 3: background sits at about fifty four percent, So that gives

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Speaker 3: you an idea of the overrepresentation. If you, by comparison,

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Speaker 3: look at the non European category, they in terms of

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Speaker 3: how frequently they appear on our screens, we're talking at

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Speaker 3: about six point one percent, and that has actually increased

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Speaker 3: a little bit slightly, just about one percent since last

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Speaker 3: time we did it. But then you compare that, you know,

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Speaker 3: six percent to the general population Australia general population in

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Speaker 3: terms of non Europeans, and that figure sits at twenty

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Speaker 3: five percent, So again huge underrepresentation Indigenous representation. I think

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Speaker 3: one of the key wins here is that Indigenous representation

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Speaker 3: since last time around has increased. That figure sits it

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Speaker 3: just over five percent that we specifically know, and it's

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Speaker 3: really clear on the data that that is based on

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Speaker 3: frequency of appearance. So it means that sometimes one or

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Speaker 3: two presenters are working so hard appearing multiple times across

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Speaker 3: multiple platforms, and the point we make is what if

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Speaker 3: one of those first Nations reporters happens to be away

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Speaker 3: one week and there happens to be, you know, a

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Speaker 3: Black Lives Matter protest for example. And these are real

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Speaker 3: life things that have played out in the media where

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Speaker 3: there is a very obvious absence of a voice that

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Speaker 3: has a lived experience and can speak to the nuances

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Speaker 3: of the issues that are playing out on our screens.

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Speaker 2: Why do you think there is this disparity? I mean,

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Speaker 2: what's the rationale behind this gap?

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Speaker 3: Look, there's probably a multitude of reasons. What we think

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Speaker 3: some of the rationale and some of the reasoning behind

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Speaker 3: is that that talent pipeline doesn't exist to the extent

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Speaker 3: that we would want it in other industries. And a

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Speaker 3: big part of that is the strained media is a

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Speaker 3: loudspeaker for culture. It's kind of like a shopfront to society.

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Speaker 3: And so who you see visually matters. If people do

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Speaker 3: not see themselves reflected in the industry, the likelihood of

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Speaker 3: them wanting to perhaps want to one enter into that

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Speaker 3: profession will will be or two have the confidence that

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Speaker 3: they will be able to make it in the industry.

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Speaker 3: Those two things become an issue and so that is

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Speaker 3: precisely where Media Diversity Australia is trying to focus its

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Speaker 3: efforts in terms of the programs that we're delivering in

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Speaker 3: terms of scholarship opportunities, mentoring secondments, internships, fellowships, a whole

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Speaker 3: host of different programs in partnership with each of these

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Speaker 3: media companies as well to try and actually address those issues.

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Speaker 2: So it sounds like you're taking a very kind of

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Speaker 2: building up approach, kind of starting with scholarships etc. Down

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Speaker 2: the bottom of the tree. Do you think that there

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Speaker 2: needs to be a discussion about who's at the top of.

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Speaker 3: The tree though, definitely, and the research so unpacks each

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Speaker 3: one of the broadcasters boards makeup. We definitely highlight the

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Speaker 3: fact that cultural diversity impersonations representation is very poor, and

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Speaker 3: of course that has a trickle down impact. Who's calling

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Speaker 3: the shots at the top have implications for the way

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Speaker 3: that stories are framed, curated, how they presented, which perspectives

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Speaker 3: are included, which perspectives are excluded, and so the representation

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Speaker 3: provides diverse perspectives which can only have enrich the final

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Speaker 3: stories that go to air.

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Speaker 2: Let's have a chat about the relevance of television you

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Speaker 2: know where we serve an audience at Velios, which, largely

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Speaker 2: based on all the kind of research out there, doesn't

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Speaker 2: watch breakfast TV and is less inclined to watch even

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Speaker 2: primetime television at night. Do you see that as a

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Speaker 2: good thing, because perhaps they're getting more diverse faces on

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Speaker 2: social media or wherever else they get their news. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I think that's a really good point and absolutely right.

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Speaker 3: You know, perhaps audiences are going to switch off, switch elsewhere,

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Speaker 3: look to alternatives to seek out those perspectives that speak

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Speaker 3: to them. There's this analogy about either agitate at the

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Speaker 3: table or go and start your own table. Right, there's

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Speaker 3: that analogy that we hear about, and if you think

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Speaker 3: about it in this context, I guess the point is,

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Speaker 3: you know, if everybody goes off and starts their own tables,

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Speaker 3: it just gets to the.

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Speaker 2: Point where it it's a very busy, right.

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Speaker 3: It gets it very exactly. But you do want to

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Speaker 3: ensure that that agitation at the table and the perhaps

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Speaker 3: the demanding of justice more broadly, is still done at

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Speaker 3: that table. It is unfair that people feel the need

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Speaker 3: to go and start their own tables. If there shouldn't

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Speaker 3: be that sense of exclusion to begin with. But I

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Speaker 3: think it also speaks to the issue of trust and use.

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Speaker 3: And the report actually highlights as a section that speaks

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Speaker 3: to audiences and ask them, you know, well, does it

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Speaker 3: actually matter, like do people care who's telling them the news,

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Speaker 3: whether it's on in style, whether it's on breakfast television.

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Speaker 3: And the interesting thing with the results of that survey

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Speaker 3: is that non European audiences, so like culturally diverse sort

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Speaker 3: of non white audiences, non European audiences do I actually

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Speaker 3: mention that they will switch off because they feel that

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Speaker 3: what they're consuming is perhaps biased. So I think it

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Speaker 3: does speak to the broader issue of trust and if

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Speaker 3: people are not trusting what they're seeing on their television screens,

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Speaker 3: they will switch off. They will switch elsewhere. They will

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Speaker 3: go to digital news, which which is far more representative.

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Speaker 2: We're going to take a short break, will be right

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Speaker 2: back quickly, And I wanted to give you a chance

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Speaker 2: to respond to some of the comments by the ABC's

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Speaker 2: head of Diversity Inclusion, and the general vibe of his

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Speaker 2: statement was that the report doesn't really scratch the surface

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Speaker 2: of who's behind the camera as well and the importance

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Speaker 2: of those roles. What do you have to say to

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Speaker 2: that response.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we appreciate where Gavin Fang is me from in

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Speaker 3: terms of his commentary, and the point that we make

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Speaker 3: is we would love to expand the braw the remit

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Speaker 3: of this research. We simply don't have the funding. And

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Speaker 3: what this research I think has helped do in the

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Speaker 3: last version and this iteration is actually be a conversation starter.

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Speaker 3: It is not the final destination. It's not the answer.

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Speaker 3: It is a conversation starter. It is holding up a

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Speaker 3: mirror to the industry. Sometimes that's deeply uncomfortable. We totally

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Speaker 3: get that. But through that deep uncomfort comes change and

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Speaker 3: we hope to see progress. That's what MDA is here for,

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Speaker 3: right We're here to provide solutions, not just agitate for

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Speaker 3: change and hold up the mirror to but actually provide solutions,

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Speaker 3: and we certainly hope to do that.

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Speaker 2: I guess in the dream world there wouldn't be a

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Speaker 2: need for an MDA. There would be just the media industry.

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Speaker 3: That's exactly it. Yeah, our vision is to put ourselves

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Speaker 3: out of the job. Put it that way.

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Speaker 2: That's really interesting. Marian. Thank you so much for your time.

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Speaker 2: We really appreciate it.

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Speaker 3: It's a pleasure thanks how much, saying.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on the Daily OS this morning.

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Speaker 2: If you learn something from today's episode, don't forget to

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Speaker 2: hit subscribe so there's a TDA episode waiting for you

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Speaker 2: every weekday morning. We'll be back again tomorrow. Until then,

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Speaker 2: have a great day.