The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has released a statement in response to the multi-university report Who Gets to Tell Australian Stories? which revealed 75 per cent of Australian TV news and current affairs presenters, commentators and reporters have an Anglo-Celtic background, while only six per cent have an Indigenous or non-European background.
The ABC said the findings of the report into cultural diversity in television news broadly reflected the results of its own tracking and showed that while the ABC was making good progress in how it reflected diversity, it could certainly do better.
“Although ABC News performs well in the report compared to the overall television sector, we know we have significant work to do to live up to the goals we have set for ourselves,” the ABC said.
“ABC News has both workforce and content goals around diversity, which are outlined in the News Diversity Action Plan,” it said.
“That means we’re taking steps to ensure the make-up of the News team is more diverse as well as to increase diversity in our stories to better reflect the community.”
The ABC said its diversity initiatives included the roll out of diversity hiring guidelines; putting diversity goals in managers’ job plans; the overhaul of its training, internship and cadet programs; retention of diverse staff as a critical issue; and a mentoring program for its Indigenous staff.
“We’ve been seeing good progress with our work to better represent women in our stories,” it said.
“The 50:50 project has been going for about 18 months and nearly all our teams are tracking and, importantly, talking about how we tell stories relevant to women and that include women’s voices.”
It said the 50:50 Project team was developing a methodology for tracking diversity in ABC’s News content and sources/talent as well as gender.
The report, Who Gets to Tell Australian Stories?, was based on research led by Macquarie University, with support from the University of Sydney, Deakin University and Western Sydney University.
The report says it’s the first forensic examination of how Australian media treats cultural diversity at a workplace level.
Then universities’ 42-page report can be accessed at this PS News link.