Ethnic conflict and the Australian media · “Ethnic Conflict and the Australian Media”, 1996. ... through an arms-length Board ... complaint has to go to the Advertising

Jakubowicz, Andrew and Seneviratne, Kalinga“Ethnic Conflict and the Australian Media”,1996.

by Andrew Jakubowiczand Kalinga SeneviratneAustralian Centre for Independent JournalismUniversity of Technology, Sydney

Excerpts

The Media and the Statein a Poly-ethnic Context

Social Institutions

The Australian media and their relationship togovernments are complicated by the existence ofstates and territories, as well as a centralCommonwealth national government. Thussome legal responsibilities rest at the nationallevel (posts and telecommunications, televisionand radio regulation and licensing, “Australiancontent”, film censorship of imported material,multicultural affairs, immigration, foreignrelations, overseas investment, funding for thearts, national security, intellectual property,company law) while some rest with the states(defamation, censorship, arts funding, ethnicaffairs). In some cases, it is apparent thatresponsibility overlaps.

The electronic media are far more closelysupervised by government than is the press, butthe emphasis on deregulation and industry self-regulation, reflecting moves in the USA, the UKand New Zealand, has intruded heavily intotelevision and radio. In addition, thedevelopment of new narrowcasting and pay andsatellite television delivery systems has raisedissues of control which have yet to be resolved.

In this context the national government hasfocussed on the development of its own Special

Broadcasting Service (see Jakubowicz andNewell, 1995), through an arms-length Board(which at times has been in major conflict withthe government over the future of the service).The other national broadcaster (ABC) has beenreluctant to “go multicultural”, though it hasmoved strongly in areas associated withAboriginality, including a drama series in whichthe male Aboriginal star is allowed to have acontinuing love affair with a white actress - arare event in Australia’s monochrome media.

A number of government inquiries into racismand race relations have focussed on the media asa key point of concern. Thus the Inquiry intoBlack Deaths in Custody, a four year projectwhich examined over one hundred cases ofAborigines who had died while in policedetention or in prison, recommendedimmediate action to improve media reporting ofAboriginal/white relations. Proposals included amajor development of curriculum concerningrace, in the education of journalists.

The National Inquiry into Racist Violence alsofound that the media played a crucial role inlimiting communication between ethnic andracial groups, to the point where the populationwas seriously under-informed about diverseexperience. While it pointed to particularnewspapers in some rural areas as keycontributors to increased local interracialtension, its more general point was that themedia failed to reflect diversity, and onlyreported minorities when they emerged as athreat to the dominant value system or socialorder. It also recommended action to improveeducation and training of journalists, andsupported affirmative action strategies to recruitminority community people into mainstreammedia positions.

Given the formal government commitment tomulticulturalism in relation to cultural diversity,

1Making Multicultural Australia Ethnic conflict and the Australian media

Ethnic conflictand the Australian media

and reconciliation in relation tosettler/Indigenous people relationships, it is notsurprising to find these same principles espousedthroughout the bureaucracy. In relation to itsown media the national government requiresthat they follow principles of Affirmative Actionin relation to the employment of women, EqualEmployment Opportunity and a principle ofappointment and promotion on meritthroughout the public sector, with principles ofAccess and Equity being applied to the deliveryof services and the meeting of client andconsumer needs. Needless to say, theseprinciples can face difficulties in theirimplementation, with sustained criticism thatthe underlying values embedded in the servicesand the expectations of appropriate performanceembody assumptions which discriminate againstpeople from minority cultural groups. The moredistinctively different from the mainstreamnorms those people are, in terms of colour,belief systems, cultural practices, language,accent etc., the more difficulty they will have inmeeting the unspoken rules that guide decisionmakers.

In order to handle these sorts of problems,Australian governments at various levels haveestablished human rights institutions to monitorand defend the interests of minorities. At thenational level, these institutions include theHuman Rights and Equal OpportunityCommission, with Commissioners coveringAffirmative Action (women only), Race,Aboriginal Social Justice, general Human Rights(with recent reports on homeless youth andmental illness), Disability, and Privacy. There arealso government direct policy and serviceagencies such as the Office of MulticulturalAffairs (in the Department of Prime Ministerand Cabinet), and the Aboriginal and TorresStrait Islander Commission, with its boardelected by Indigenous people from around thecountry.

State bodies include Anti-Discrimination Boardsand Equal Opportunity tribunals, as well asdepartments of Aboriginal Affairs, Ethnic AffairsCommissions or departments. In somecircumstances state bodies act as agents for

national bodies.

This confusing overlay of jurisdictions andagencies can create difficulties in taking actionon race related issues. Thus in New South Walesthere is racial vilification legislation, thoughthere is no national legislation in this area(despite years of promised action). Thedistinction between discrimination andvilification is important, as it affects the sort oflegal recourse groups and individuals have whenthey experience discrimination. Self-regulationin the media has proved unsatisfactory; actionunder the NSW law against media organisationshas provided a way forward - however all suchaction is confidential, so that while individualsmay gain redress, the wider society never usuallyhears that a case has even occurred.

Australian Broadcasting Law and RegulatoryBodies

The confusion in regulation has been furtherexacerbated by the process of deregulation towhich we have referred. In 1992 theCommonwealth revised the legislative base ofthe electronic media, through the BroadcastingServices Act. One effect of this Act was toreplace the former Australian BroadcastingTribunal with its powers to set standards andhold inquiries, with an Authority which was tooversee the process of industry self-regulation.

By November 1993 there were at least eightdifferent places in which standards, guidelinesand codes of practice could be found whichwere concerned with issues of ethnic and racerelations. Both of the electronic industry bodies(Federation of Australian Commercial TelevisionStations - FACTS, Federation of AustralianRadio Broadcasters - FARB) had developed andcirculated draft codes, which had been finallypublished in August 1993.

The Australian Press Council principles hadbeen in the public domain for a number ofyears as the basis for community complaints.Both the Australian Broadcasting Corporationand the Special Broadcasting Service had Codesof Practice which allow for community

2Making Multicultural Austral ia Ethnic conflict and the Australian media

consultation and complaints. The HumanRights and Equal Opportunity Commissionadministers Commonwealth law on racialdiscrimination in the provision of goods andservices, while a number of states have racialvilification legislation either in place or underpreparation. The Screen Producers’ Associationadopted a policy on cultural pluralism and non-traditional casting in 1992. The AdvertisingStandards Council monitors advertisements, andparticipates in the Media Council of Australia.Finally the Media Alliance (the union coveringjournalists) has an ethics statement which seeksto constrain journalists from using race orethnicity in inappropriate ways.

Guidelines and Practices

When the Broadcasting Services Act was aboutto come into effect (October 1 1992) thecommercial television industry produced a seriesof Draft Codes for public discussion. Thesewere the positions preferred by the industry,though they realised that there might have to besome movement if public reaction was hostile. Itwas good that the realisation was there, as ethnicorganisations such as the Queensland EthnicAffairs Bureau and the various ethniccommunities’ councils were decidedlyunimpressed by the first offerings from thechannels. It is important to recognise that theCodes arose in an attempt by government togive the industry what it had desired for manyyears - a chance to run its own affairs. In returnthe government asked that the industryundertake consultation and have a procedure inplace for managing complaints.

The most surprising element of the draft newcodes was the total silence on any issue thatvaguely resembled the Racial Vilification clausesof the old standards. In the crucial area of“proscribed material” where one might haveexpected some reference to these issues, therewere four items - no simulation of news so as toalarm viewers, and three clauses banninghypnosis and subliminal techniques. It was asthough the industry response to the debates overmulticulturalism, over racism and over theprocesses through which discrimination and

marginalisation were reproduced, was todemonstrate a total ignorance. These concernshad apparently made no impact at all on thei n d u s t ry managers, leaving them as monoculturalin their perspectives as their predecessors whohad established television in 1956.

The organised political reaction from the ethniccommunities made dramatic inroads into thisstructure of denial. One senior state ethnicagency bureaucrat observed that a sustainedcampaign had been run, with FACTS boss TonyBranigan being particularly targeted. By May1993, when the Office of Multicultural Affairsorganised a round table conference in Sydneyon media self-regulation, FACTS had moved itsposition significantly. FACTS Chairman BobCampbell, could write then that “the Code setsout requirements which the industry haswillingly (sic) embraced as part of its service toviewers”. These now included two additionalprohibitions.

A program may not now be broadcast which:

1.6.5 seriously offend the cultural sensitivities ofAborigines or of ethnic groups or racial groups in theAustralian community

1.6.6 stir up hatred, serious contempt or severeridicule against a person or group of persons on thegrounds of race, colour, national or ethnic origin,gender, sexual preference, religion or physical ormental disability.

These proscriptions do not apply where it isdone reasonably and in good faith, in anyartistic work including comedy and satire, in thecourse of a broadcast in relation to an academic,artistic, scientific or any other identifiable publicinterest purpose, or as a fair report of orcomment on a matter of identifiable publicinterest.

In addition, news and current affairs have totake account of cultural differences in thecommunity, so that they:

4.3.7 must not portray any individual or group in anegative light by placing gratuitous emphasis on


race, nationality, religion, colour, country of origin,gender, sexual preference, marital status orintellectual or physical disability. Nevertheless, whereit is in the public interest, licensees may reportevents and broadcast comments in which suchmatters are raised.

So how does this procedure work for theaffronted viewer - who has to be an individual,rather than a group representing a class ofpeople ?

Our viewer is affronted. She phones the station.Her message is taken and if she leaves her nameand number, a staff member has to phone herback. If the matter cannot be resolved she cancomplain that the material breached the Code(if she knows about the Code... however theimplication is that the staffer will tell her of thisprovision). She then has thirty days from thebroadcast to complain in writing. The licenseehas to reply in writing, within ten days ifpossible but within thirty days all up (unless thematerial was on relay from another licensee andthen the complaint is passed on and anotherthirty days is available before a reply). If theconcern is about an advertisement, then thecomplaint has to go to the AdvertisingStandards Authority or to the ABA if it isadvertising directed at children.

If the complainant is not satisfied after all this,she can write again... the licensee has threechoices: reply again, advise she complain to theABA, or refer it on to the chair of FACTS.

If it goes to the FACTS chair, the complaint isreferred back to the licensee for comment! Thenafter a response, the FACTS chair decides onany further action, and lists the complaint andoutcome in the Annual Code AdministrationReport.

In addition every licensee has to report everyquarter on complaints received and dates ofresponse. FACTS then reports these quarterly tothe ABA.

By the time this process is completed thecomplainant may well have exhausted herself.

The radio broadcasters stayed closer to theformer ABT standards, preferring not to ventureinto the uncharted territory of new semioticvoyages. For FARB the arrangements are that nocommercial broadcaster shall broadcast aprogram which:

(a) is likely to incite or perpetuate hatred against; or

(b) gratuitously vilifies

any person or group on the basis of ethnicity,nationality, race, gender, sexual preference, religionor physical or mental disability.

Presumably the radio codes miss out television’s“colour” because the listener cannot see radio...The complaints system also misses out both thespecificity and the feedback loops of television.Complaints can be made orally or in writing, innormal office hours, and must be“conscientiously considered, investigated ifnecessary and responded to as soon aspracticable” (5.2(b)). If the licensee thinks thecomplainant is not satisfied with the response,the licensee shall advise the complainant of herright to complain to the ABA. Records need tobe kept, and on request from FARB, sent toFARB for FARB to report to the ABA. Noindication is made as to how often this takesplace.

These arrangements in the electronic mediareflect the “stick” rather than the “carrot”approach to the whole issue. While FACTShead Campbell affirms the record of thetelevision industry as an EEO employer and itscommitment to reflecting “our complexmulticultural society” (a position that mostindependent research in the field suggests is notreflected in on-air practices of the channels),there are no broadcaster guidelines forimproving practice. This issue is left toproducers who choose to follow the SPAAcommitment on non-traditional casting inrelation to drama etc., and to the advertisers intheir relationships with their advertisingagencies.

The Advertising Ethics Code of the Media


Council indicates similar sorts of problems. Theconcern is for the impact of ads on reasonablepeople in the class to which the ad is directed,and to others who may have the adcommunicated to them. The only prohibition inthis regard is on unlawful discrimination, while“general prevailing community standards” areused as the basis of assessing “serious offence tothe community or a significant section”. Theconcept of significant is extremely importanthere, as the women’s movement has found in itsforays against sexist advertising. Feminist valueshave been found for the most part not to be“significant”, and indeed the code leaves itselfopen to being used to justify racist advertising ifracist values extend significantly through thecommunity and anti-racism is not voicedwidely.

The commercial press have long had a fairlyprotected run under the benign gaze of the PressCouncil. While the Council affirms the publicinterest as the first and dominant considerationin its principles, and is committed to news andcomment as honest and fair, it does not addressissues of structural discrimination in the media.Thus the prohibitions are made againstgratuitous emphasis on race, nationality,religion, colour, country of origin etc., andirrelevant references to race, nationality, religiousor political views of people charged or convictedof crimes. Where material damaging to thereputation or interests of a group is published,the press are required to provide an“opportunity for prompt and appropriatelyprominent reply at reasonable length”, wherefairness so requires.

Two adjudications in 1993 provide evidence onhow the Council deals with the rare examplesof complaints over racism. (The Council willnot deal with any matter which is before anylegal body for determination). Both related toconcerns from members of the European/Jewishcommunities over the use of what they saw asracist slurs. In one a Sydney columnist wascriticised for comments which were madeagainst Hungarians - in the context of foreigntakeovers. The Council ruled that the commentwas “clearly intended as a joke.(It was not) a

deliberate attempt to incite racial and ethnicdisharmony”. The decision in this case was thatthe right to “joke” was more important than theoffence taken by a Hungarian Australian at thejoke.

In general the Press Council affirms the right foroutrageous statements in relationship to raceand ethnicity to be made, as long as they are notgratuitous and do not intend to cause offence(Adjudication 639, Press Council News, May1993), are the views of a columnist and notnews or editorial content, and a full right ofreply is given to persons who feel offended.However the Chair of the Press Council hasvigorously defended its record in relation tomulticulturalism, arguing that “the AustralianPress Council has provided a significant forumwhere the balance between free speech andensuring that gratuitous reference to race isavoided can be tested” (Flint 1994:8). Inreference to the standards for the portrayal ofcultural diversity sought by public interestgroups against the electronic media, Flint wenton to argue that “while such an approach wouldnot be acceptable to the press if imposed fromwithout, there remains scope for theencouragement of positive portrayals ofmulticulturalism in the press” (Flint 1994:8). Aswe report below, an analysis of the current pressscene suggests the need is rather more urgentthan the Press Council’s protestations mightindicate.

In summary, the regulatory environment givessome limited protection to individuals to seekredress once the damage has been done.However the most valuable avenue remainsaction against racial vilification under state lawswhere these exist. Arab Australians have usedcomplaints under this legislation to forcenegotiated changes with conservativenewspapers such as Sydney’s Telegraph Mirror, aNews Ltd tabloid that had run a series ofdenigratory editorials and cartoons during theGulf War. The details of these negotiations arenot in the public domain, as they wereconciliated through the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board, which does not reveal theoutcome of satisfactorily conciliated complaints.


The Media System

Media Structure and Ownership in Australia

It is not an exaggeration to say that Australia hasone of the most concentrated media ownershipstructures in the world. It is most acute in thenewspaper industry where just two organisationscontrol almost all the metropolitan dailies andsuburban newspapers. Rupert Murdoch's NewsLtd owns about 70 percent of these and theFairfax group (taken over by the CanadianConrad Black with support from Australiantelevision and magazine magnate Kerry Packerin 1992) most of the rest.

In 1923 Australia had 26 metropolitan dailiesowned by 21 companies. By 1950, this haddropped to 15 newspapers and 10 owners.Today there are only 8 metropolitan dailies and5 of these are owned by Rupert Murdoch, twoby Conrad Black. Among the 38 regionaldailies, Murdoch controls 5 with the Fairfaxgroup 3 and 13 by Irishman Tony O’Reilly whobought them from Murdoch after TradePractices Commission pressure.

In television just three companies among themcontrol almost the entire metropolitancommercial market with the government-funded ABC and SBS providing two othernational channels. The smaller regionalcommercial TV stations are either owned bysubsidiaries of the large metropolitan companiesor are dependent on them for the supply ofprograms. In 1993, the government issued anumber of community television licencesaround the country but most communitygroups have found that without any substantialgovernment financial support it is almostimpossible to set up a community televisionstation. Subscription television (PAY-TV) isexpected to be introduced to Australia in 1994or 1995, but again it’s the big boys who areexpected to dominate the sector ultimately.

In radio, four companies control a large chunkof the commercial radio market especially thehighest rating metropolitan stations. The

commercial radio industry has been in a state offlux in the last few years and many major radiostations have changed hands recently.

In the magazine publishing business theconcentration of ownership among the topcirculation magazines is not any different to thenewspapers. Kerry Packer's AustralianConsolidated Press controls 47 percent of themarket while News Ltd has 26 percent of themarket.

Packer owns Australia's biggest commercial TVnetwork, Channel Nine, which has an audiencereach of over half the market. He also owns astring of radio stations. His initial attempt tobuy into the Fairfax group in 1991 wasthwarted by complications in the cross-mediaownership laws, but he was able to ensurechanges in the law occurred which allowed himto continue with his plans, albeit as a minorplayer in the short term. His strategy is to arguefor changes in the law which will enlarge hisopportunity to extend his role in newspapers.

The domination by Packer and Murdoch of theAustralian media and the way they were able toextract concessions from the Bob Hawke Laborgovernment in the 1980s prompted mediaanalysts to dub the Minister forCommunications as the "Minister for theMates".

Referring to how the Labor government hadbent rules to accommodate these two men,leading economics writer Max Walsh wrote inthe Fairfax press in June 1991: "A nationalmedia dominated by two men would be theantithesis of what any fully-functioningdemocracy should accept. It is no exaggerationto say a media duopoly would simply be atemptation to institutionalised corruption andthe undermining of our political system".

Referring to News Ltd's domination of theAustralian newspaper industry, leading mediaanalyst Paul Chadwick (1989) says: "It has gonefrom being one of three roughly equalcompetitors in the Australian press to being thedominant player, with only an enfeebled Fairfax


for competition. As a result, News may becomemore arrogant, more overbearing in the exerciseof its political influence”.

Alternative Media

Community Radio was introduced to Australiain 1974 after the election of the GoughWhitlam Labor government. The number ofcommunity radio stations has graduallyincreased since then and currently there are over120 licensed community radio stationbroadcasting around the country.

Australia can rightly claim to be a world leaderin the field of community radio. Perhaps there'sno other country in the world where a strongindependent sector has arisen where establishedstate and commercially operated systems werealready in existence.

The community radio stations are spreadthrough all states and territories of Australia - incapital cities, country towns, big city suburbs,and remote Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander,agricultural and mining communities.

The stations vary from large university orcommunity owned operations serving one tothree million population, with paid staffapproaching 20, to little stations with 10 watttransmitters, entirely volunteer operated andserving as few as 2000 people.

Some stations have a charter to provide specifickinds of programs like specialised music,multilingual programs, Aboriginal programs,Christian programs, educational services or evenradio for the print handicapped. Others are torespond to any need in their communitieswhich the established services are not meetingadequately. Community radio is essentially aservice for the community by the community,whatever the mix of programs it offers.

Because Australia has a fully funded nationalbroadcasting service (ABC and SBS), thecommunity broadcasting sector does not receivemassive government funding, although itcontinues to lobby hard for more government

assistance, particularly to help communitybroadcasters to equip themselves better. In1991-92, the community radio sector received amere A$2.9 million from the Government.

Community radio is non-profit and non-commercial, thus it cannot broadcastconventional advertising. Most stations arefunded by listener subscriptions, regulatedsponsorship announcements, selling of air timeto community groups, community fundraisingventures, donations, limited governmentsubsidies and the efforts of volunteers.

The community radio sector employs around300 people and is supported by over 30,000volunteers. It has over the years become thecurrent and future breeding ground for manyradio presenters, editors, technicians and so on.

A survey conducted for the Federal Governmentin 1992 by a leading audience research bodyestimated that around 2.5 million people overthe age of 14 years listen to community radioduring any given week.

Community Television is a second and morerecent area for alternative media. In early 1993,the Federal government issued four communitytelevision licenses in Melbourne, Sydney,Adelaide and Lismore - a small country town innorthern New South Wales. There are at leastanother 15 groups in capital cities and ruralAustralia awaiting a decision from the AustralianBroadcasting Authority (ABA). These licencesare valid for an initial period of three years only.

Lismore and Adelaide went to air in late 1993,but within months both stations were infinancial strife. Almost a year since beinggranted a licence both Melbourne and Sydneyare yet to go to air.

Ethnic Press

Ethnic newspapers are those which arepublished in languages other than English orthat are published in English by ethniccommunity based groups targeted at a particularethnic community. These are basically


community publications directed at those whohave migrated to Australia as adults or lateadolescents.

Ethnic press varies widely with both format andcontents. For many, it’s the link with their placeof origin keeping them up to date with newsabout their old country. Given the Anglo-centric bias of Australian mainstream press andsometimes the language barriers, the ethnicnewspaper fills this gap. Also for older migrants,keeping track of significant cultural and socialchanges in the old country helps them tounderstand younger, newer migrants from thesame country and accept them readily.

There are over 100 ethnic newspapers publishedin Australia, with over half of these publishedfrom Sydney and another one-third fromMelbourne. Twenty one of these newspapers aremore than 30 years old (Bell et al. 1992).However, many of the ethnic publications arepublished infrequently and many struggle tosurvive financially, but it could also be said thatthere is a thriving ethnic language press inAustralia.

While the concentration of ownership andfinancial constraints of the mainstream Englishpress in Australia have been on the publicagenda for many years, the ethnic press isseldom seen as publicly significant. The lack ofdata and information on the ethnic press hasalso got to do with the fact that mainstreamnewspapers are in the limelight on businessmonopoly issues, while radio and televisionservices come under government controlledspectrum space licensing. No such governmentcontrolled licensing regime applies to the ethnicpress which in turn results in a lack of economicdata on the industry.

However the government is discreetly curiousabout the ethnic press and the Department ofImmigration and the Office of MulticulturalAffairs have recently commissioned studies onthe ethnic press. The Departments ofImmigration and Social Security are also knownto employ “stringers” to monitor some of themore widely read ethnic newspapers,

particularly their editorial comments on issueslike immigration, multiculturalism, foreignpolicy and ethnic affairs.

In Australia, historically there has beenxenophobia towards the ethnic press. As recentlyas 1934, a regulation was passed specifying “theconsent of the Prime Minister to the publicationof a newspaper or periodical in a foreignlanguage”. This was of course difficult toenforce and the government relinquished itscontrol in 1956. Nowadays, governments aremore tolerant of such publications and in fact,have even given seed money to help establishsuch ventures, especially for small newly arrivedmigrant groups. Recently, governmentdepartments have also started targeting some ofthe important ethnic publications to place theircommunity information bulletins andadvertisements.

In its discussion paper, “Towards a NationalAgenda for a Multicultural Australia”, thegovernment’s Advisory Council on MulticulturalAffairs said: “The ethnic press helps to preserveinterest in its readers’ original culture or countryof birth. But, equally important, it providescritical information on Australian society and avaluable sense of belonging to many non-English speaking background Australians”.

As recently as 1988, 72% of ‘recent arrivals’ inAustralia, whose first language was not Englishreported reading newspapers in their ownlanguage. A 1983 study by Tenezakis (reportedin Bell et al. 1992) indicated that thepercentages of people reading ethnicpublications varied widely between differentethnic groups with Greeks, Turks, Argentiniansand Chileans having high readership rates.

Among the biggest ethnic newspapers inAustralia is the Greek Herald, which wasestablished in 1926 and is now published daily -the first ethnic newspaper to do so in Australia.It prints 24,000 copies daily and is distributednationally. They employ 15 journalists and evenhave a news bureau in Athens.

Vietnamese newspaper Chieu Duong is the

8Making Mult icultural Australia Ethnic conflict and the Australian media

biggest Asian language newspaper in Australia.Started 12 years ago, for the last five years it hasbeen published daily from Sydney with acirculation of 100,000 copies per week. AsDavid Giang, Assistant Editor put it: “This isnot an alternative newspaper, it is the mainnewspaper for most of the readers”.

By May 1994, there were four Chinese languagedailies selling into the Sydney 115,000 strongChinese community. In addition some 20 bi-weeklies, weeklies and monthlies were available.The dailies included the Hong Kong backedSing Tao Jih Pao and Australian Chinese Daily,the Australian backed Chinese Herald, and thenewly established Taiwanese basedIndependence Daily (Signy 1994).

At the other end of the scale is The PhilippinesCommunity News which is published bi-monthly with a circulation of about 5000copies. It is published in English with newsabout happenings within the community liketalent shows, accomplishments of FilipinoAustralians, as well as alternative news reportsfrom the Philippines, news about investmentopportunities there and articles of cultural andhistorical significance. This publication is widelycirculated among the Filipino migrantcommunity who are comparatively welleducated and speak good English. The IndianDown Under and Serendib are similar monthlypublications for the Indian and Sri Lankancommunities here.

Among the 12 main language groups identifiedby the Australian Bureau of Statistics, four seemto have relatively few publications (Italian,Chinese, German and French) compared totheir size and four (Arabic/Lebanese, Serbo-Croatian, Polish and Vietnamese) have arelatively large number.

Views of Media Practitionersand Gatekeepers

Who are the Gatekeepers?

Australian mainstream media organisations areclearly distinguishable by the fact that their

Gatekeepers - the Editors, News Directors,Executive Producers - are almost exclusivelyAnglo-Celtic and very likely to be upper middleclass males living in expensive suburbs ofSydney or Melbourne.

A survey of 1068 journalists found only tworespondents of Aboriginal background(Henningham 1992). The lack of representationwas not only confined to Aboriginal people.Out of that survey sample, 85 percent camefrom an Anglo-Celtic background, 70 percentwere clearly middle class, while 13 percent wereof European (non-Anglo) background and only3 percent were not Caucasian. While Australiaprides itself as a multicultural society - especiallyto the International Olympic Committee - thesefigures show that the media remains resolutelymonocultural.

Reporting Ethnic Issues

Peter Wilson, the Sydney Morning Herald’sTraining Editor, observed that Australianjournalism has just made a major shift frombeing virtually an all male profession to that of amixed gender one, where young journalistsentering the profession are predominantlyfemale. He saw the next challenge as that whichwill broaden the profession to include morenon-Anglo-Celtic journalists.

The Herald, according to Wilson, had tried todiversify its ethnic base a few years ago by hiringcadet journalists of non-Anglo-Celticbackgrounds, but once they joined theorganisation they have tried to be as Anglo aspossible. “Some of our second generation(ethnic) Australian reporters sometimes arenarrow because they are trying to get out oftheir Greek community or Italian community tobe like their mates, their peers, their schoolfriends and they tend to play down those ethnicmatters” said Wilson.

The Herald has had an ethnic affairsroundsperson on their permanent staff for anumber of years now, but Wilson acknowledgedthat it has been a problem for that journalist toget his or her stories on to the newspaper. “To

9Making Multicultural Austral ia Ethnic conflict and the Australian media

get a run, an ethnic story has to be veryshrewdly covered, because there’s a lot ofpressure on space, it will need to have a humaninterest angle and not be confined to a narrowinterest of a particular community. In otherwords, the story must have some glamour toconvince an editor to run it.”

“A lot of editing is done on gut feelings andyour own knowledge of the subject. So if youhave got a section editor who lives in an allwhite Australian community, has no ethnicfriends, mixes in a particular circle, his scope toappreciate the breadth of the Herald’s readershipmight be too narrow” observed Wilson,acknowledging the biggest problem facingethnic reporting in the mainstream media.

In 1994 the Herald’s ethnic affairs reporter wasHelen Signy, a British-born journalist, who wastrained in Hong Kong and worked there forfour years before coming to Australia. Thoughthere are no guidelines set for her reporting, sheadmitted that there are problems in getting arun for her stories in the newspaper.

She said that the major impediments to herwork is the language barrier and also the factthat perhaps ethnic communities are moredistrustful of the press than Anglo-Australians.For instance Signy found access to the largeVietnamese community very difficult. Mostjournalists do interviews over the phone, but shesays if you are to gain the respect of acommunity it is important to visit them andmeet the people in person. Thus a lot of peopleshe tend to interview are academics andpoliticians.

Signy agreed that it was difficult to get ethnicstories into the mainstream media if they werenot controversial, because the chief sub or theeditor would not see them as newsworthy.“Good news stories seldom seem to benewsworthy unfortunately. I agree in most ofthe mainstream media, ethnic communities areonly contacted if there are allegations of racialtension or crimes or something like that. There’sa definite problem with ethnic reporting inAustralia”.

Jack Lunn argued that when you have arecession, a balance of payments problem orother economic difficulties these stories wouldtake preference over ethnic community ones.Balance is a large part of putting out anewspaper, and if there’s allegations of ItalianMafia activities or New Zealanders taking out alarge chunk of Australian unemploymentbenefits, they will make certain to contact thesecommunity representatives to get their views.

As for the media playing a proactive role inpromoting community relations, David Nasonargues that it will open up a whole can ofworms and some people may argue then themedia should promote things like tourism,mining or development in the Gold Coast all ofwhich may promote jobs and export revenue.He argued that the media should not take on anadvocacy role - but accurately report theposition of issue advocates.

Audience Perspectives

Ethnic Community Members’ Views

Ethnic community responses to questions onthe media tend to focus on television, ratherthan the print media. They were asked how theyperceived Australia through their use of themedia. The groups found it fairly easy todescribe how the typical Australian waspresented in the media. They also had notrouble in describing how they felt about thisand how they saw themselves in relation to thistypical Australian. However, responses to howreal they felt the media picture of Australia waswere much less clear. Generally it was thoughtto be not or only partly accurate with a divisionbetween those who thought it was a better orworse representation than the reality. Somegroups said they were unable to compare as theydidn’t know any Anglo-Australians.

Questions on how the media should showAustralian society, whether they liked theAustralia seen in the media and how the mediapresentation of Australian society made themfeel about themselves got strong responses.These largely related to the lack of

1 0Making Multicultural Australia Ethnic conflict and the Australian media

representation of non-Anglo people, values andfamilies and how that resulted in the groupsfeeling different and excluded from Australiansociety. There was also some discussion of thenature of the representation of non-Anglos,which was generally considered to be negative,particularly in relation to news and currentaffairs.

The majority of groups also concluded that theway the media show Australian society did notmake them feel like an Australian. Of the 61groups, 5 were unable to respond or decide. Afurther 7, or 11 %, said that they identified asAustralians. The minority who did were eitherEuropeans who have lived in Australia for atleast 20 years, younger people born in Australiaor women who had married Australians. Ofthese, a further 3 groups contained individualswho said that while they felt part of Australiansociety, they still felt different to the Australianspictured in the media.

Television was undoubtedly the main referentfor “the media”. The visual nature of thismedium could have some influence on the waythe groups responded in that they coulddescribe what Australians in the media lookedlike and did, but found it harder to say directlywhat the values of Australians were.

When asked about what picture of an Australianthey get from the media, the most commonresponse, by 47 of the groups, was thatAustralians were ‘only white’, ‘Anglo-Saxon’,‘blonde and blue eyed’ and ‘fair skinned’. Thisblonde, Anglo norm was seen as particularlypervasive in the representation of women, whenmales and females were described separately,although on the whole the ‘typical’ Australianwas likely to be masculine.

This perception of a predominantly Anglo-Australia also stood for the media’s exclusiverepresentation of Anglo values, morals, culture,family structures and religion. When groupswere asked how the media should showAustralia, almost all of the responses related to adesire not only for a greater range of ethnicity ofpresenters and actors, but also for the

presentation of a greater range of cultural andethnic viewpoints. This resulted in the majorityof groups concluding that the way the mediashow Australian society made them feel thatthey were different to or excluded fromAustralian society.

All the participants, with the exception of someyoung people, emphasised the importance of thenews to them. This was also the one area wherethere was significant discussion of radio and thepress as sources of information. Nine groupsreferred to radio news with three groupsindicating it was their preferred source of news.Nine groups also referred to newspapers, withthree groups being of the opinion that the pressgave the most accurate and detailed coverage ofevents.

International news was of obvious importanceto many groups and in this respect governmentfunded broadcasters the SBS and the ABC werethe most highly rated. News and current affairsprograms on the commercial stations were mostfrequently criticised for sensationalism, althoughall programs came under attack for bias,parochialism and pushing negative news. Onlythirteen groups found news and current affairsprograms satisfactory overall; while 21 thoughtthe media was biased in some way; 15 thoughtreporting to be too sensational and 17complained of the emphasis on 'bad' news, thatis reports of war, conflict, violence, disaster,unemployment, economic downturn and crime.

Despite a few cynical comments, it is obviousthat news reports are stories that are expected tobe an accurate representation of reality. Theveracity of news programs is judged not only bytheir content but also on the style of reportingand the relative importance they are given interms of their detail and frequency with whichthey are featured.

With regards to the general coverage ofinternational news, the groups were unhappywith the lack of news, or the way in which newsfrom particular areas were reported. Seventeengroups thought there was a general lack ofinternational news and 14 thought that news

1 1Making Multicultural Austral ia Ethnic conflict and the Australian media

coverage was skewed towards some and awayfrom other countries, regions or populationsoutside of Australia. The areas described weregenerally of particular interest to theparticipants by virtue of their language, cultureand family relationships, or as places whereindividuals or their parents were born, that istheir specific region of origin. When askedabout the representation of their own group orarea of origin 39, nearly two thirds of thegroups, responded that there was no orinsufficient coverage.

While most groups were mainly concerned witha lack of news from those parts of the world ofparticular importance to them, an overallpattern emerged. Those familiar with mediaconcepts of 'news worthiness' or of the relativecoverage of regions by Western news gatheringnetworks would not be surprised with what wasdescribed. It was felt that local, Australian,British and North American stories dominatedthe news, even when the issues reported were ofa trivial nature. In Europe, the UK and thenWestern Europe got the most coverage; 'firstworld nations' got more coverage thandeveloping nations; news of Asian countries wasnot reported in the same proportion as that ofEurope and the USA; in Asia, stories wereusually about Japan and Hong Kong; moststories regarding the Middle East were aboutIsrael and news of Africa was focussed on SouthAfrica. In this sense Australian media can besaid to be Anglo-centric, concentrating on newsof English speaking countries and the ex-colonies of the British empire that remaindominated by an Anglo population (hence morenews of Canada and South Africa than India).

Participants were also very 'angry' about theextent of media coverage given to the L.A. Riots(1992) compared to the civil war in Croatia.One participant commented that 'every radio,television news and current affairs program hadcontinued hourly updates. What did we get?Nothing'. Another participant commented,'they (the news) made such a big deal about thelow Los Angeles fatalities and didn't bother tomention the hundreds that are tragically dyingin Croatia to save their country'.

One participant vocalised the sentiments of thegroup saying that Australian newspapers have animportant obligation to their readers to providea consistent account of changes in the political,social and economic processes in South-EastAsia. Others saw commonsense in the notion ofmore Asian Australian news. "The Australianpeople are changing - there is not much left forthem with Britain."

Twenty nine (about half) of the groups felt thatnews of their region of origin was mainlynegative. There were also some more generalcomments on the reporting of 'Third World' or'developing' nations.

News of the 'Third World' countries are usuallyrelated to famine, natural disaster, violation ofhuman rights, and domestic troubles which aregreatly sensationalised. Reporting of such eventswas magnified and for extravagant effect to theviewing public, news tends to be dramatic, thusdistorting the facts. Sometimes old footage isused to focus attention and create moreemotion, with the result of humiliating thepeople who came from that country beingreported. Seldom do the media televise or printbeautiful or success happenings. There is astrong bias for reporting the good news fromthe Western world and bad news from Asiancountries. Africa and Bangladesh are alwaysshown where there is famine or flood andstarving children are repeatedly portrayed ratherthan the event itself.

As the quotes above show there are a number ofhypotheses for why these patterns exist in themedia. These include a general Anglo-centrism,which could be deliberate or the result ofignorance, and a need to pander to a real orperceived audience demand for sensationalstories. Another refers to political pressure fromthe Government:

The participants believed that as the Australianforeign policy is identical to those of the UnitedStates and most of European countries, inpolitical matters, there is always a bias in thenews in favour of those countries. The newsabout the Gulf War and events in the Middle


East are good examples of this bias. In the Araband Israel issues favour is extended to Israel as acountry supported by the United States. Thereis no equality in length and quality of coveragebetween the similar news of a European and anAsian country, for example the events inYugoslavia and Afghanistan. In regard to newsof so-called 'Third World' countries someexpressed concern about the negative way thatmost of these countries are shown which can bevery misleading.

The lack of journalists from non-Englishspeaking backgrounds who were sensitive tomulticultural issues was seen to be acontributing factor. Once again the commercialstations came under attack for their exclusion ofinformation which may be of interest tomigrants ie. events in their homeland.

The groups thought that the media shouldpresent news from different regions equitablyboth in coverage and in the balance of 'bad' and'good' news, that is positive stories ofachievements. The lack of balance was found tobe frustrating in that they found it difficult toassess the actual state of affairs in areasimportant to them. There was also considerableconcern that, by presenting only the dark half ofthe picture, the media constructed an imagethat reflected poorly on these regions, and byextension, on migrants from that region.

Similar problems to those above were perceivedin the reporting of news and current affairs ofnon-Anglo people and issues in Australia. Fromthe point of view of the participants there wasoften substantial bias in reporting, withinsufficient coverage of issues important tomany Australians. Ethnic issues and populationswere negatively associated, for example withviolence, conflict and unemployment, and fewpositive stories, emphasising achievements andthe contributions of ethnic groups to Australia,provided balance.

Three quarters (48) groups brought up examplesof news stories that associated ethnic groupswith bad news, conflict or social problems.Over half (35) groups specifically mentioned

unfair media treatment of Asian migrants.Interestingly this complaint was not alwaysraised by the 'Asian' groups surveyed, that is ofthe seven south east Asian and Chinese groupssurveyed only four mentioned this. TheVietnamese and Cambodian groups who wouldbe expected to bear the brunt of prejudice didnot. However it is difficult to assess the reasonsfor this in the light of the Cambodian group’scomments which indicated they didn't want tovoice dissent and risk being deported.

The 35 groups that asserted that Asians werediscriminated against in terms of theirrepresentation in the media all referred to newsreports about Asian immigration, usually in thecontext of the 'boat people'. The mediarepresentation was thought to be biased in anumber of ways, such as, throughmisrepresenting the facts, giving informationabout the nationality or questioning howgenuine individual claims for refugee status werebefore the facts were ascertained or by linkingstories about Asian immigration with the issuesof unemployment, illegal immigration andviolence or by not reporting relevantinformation, for example the reasons formigration, the conditions in the countriesmigrants were coming from, the hardshipsendured by migrants, and direct quotes orstories of the individuals referred to in stories.

Many said that the way the media have handledthe Asian immigration issue has 'encouragedracism'. The incident when four young Asianstudents were set upon by a group of mostlyAnglo students around Chatswood (in 1991)was clearly "ignored" by the media as there wasno follow-up to the report and even when policehad arrested the victims rather than theattackers. This was despite one witness whowrote in to "report the facts" of what really tookplace.

Some respondents commented that theAustralian media seldom described the lives andthe problems of adjustment faced by the Asianimmigrants in Australia. They were of theopinion that such programs might help theAustralian public understand better the feelings


of the Asian immigrants living in Australia.

As regards to the general portrayal of migrantsin the media, three quarters of groups thoughtthat non-Anglo Australians were representeddifferently and less positively than AngloAustralians in news and current affairsprograms. (Non-Anglo) migrants were thoughtto be used as scapegoats for the variouseconomic and social ills of Australia. Byhighlighting negative stories and failing to coverpositive stories the media gave an overallnegative picture of non-Anglo Australians, thatis ethnicity becomes a problem. The practice ofspeaking for non-Anglo groups or the choice oflow-status individuals as representatives ofethnic groups exacerbated negative perceptionsas well as presenting a limited and oftenincomplete story of important issues.

Some groups (10) also felt that certain ethnicgroups were stereotyped, particularly as violent.This not only was a slur on the groups butmade it less likely fearful Anglo-Australianswould get to know and therefore dispelstereotypes about members of such acommunity.

The practice of identifying ethnic groups onlyin association with stories of violence, conflict,unemployment and so on was seen to be carriedout exclusively in relation to non-Anglo/Celticethnic groups. Thus not only were Anglo-Australians presented as better than non-AngloAustralians, non-Anglo Australians weren't reallyAustralian at all.

Another kind of representation that was not asovertly negative but could lead to bigotedattitudes was the presentation of non-Anglocustoms and traditions as quaint, strange orbackward. This can come about simply bydefining anything non-Anglo as non-Australian(other) and also by not contextualising thecustoms and traditions.

The exception to this media rule was highprofile non-Anglo Australians whose ethnicitywas not always acknowledged, even when theirappearance or accent was easily distinguishable

from those from Anglo backgrounds. Ethno-specifically, the group expressed their concernabout the media's habit of being so prompt toidentify criminals through their 'ethnic'appearance if still on the loose, and throughtheir country of origin, if in custody, whilerefraining from giving kudos to 'the goodies' forbeing of a particular ethnic extraction.

Members expressed the view that when migrantshad achieved positive things the mediaembraced them as "true blue Aussies", but whenthere were negative repercussions from migrants'actions, their ethnicity was thrown to theforeground. A minority of groups felt that thesemedia practices were in decline or that theywere already a thing of the past. However,improvements were still needed in thepresentation of the history, both before and afterthe colonisation of Australia, of non-Angloethnic groups.

Ethnic and IndigenousJournalists In The MainstreamMedia

There are a few but a slowly increasing numberof ethnic and Aboriginal journalists nowworking for mainstream media organisations.Most of the Aboriginal journalists are employedby the public broadcasting organisations ABCand SBS - both in TV and Radio. Many of theethnic journalists working in the mainstreammedia, especially the commercial organisations,are of European backgrounds, who have grownup in Australia and thus have a very Australianoutlook and accent. Many of them resent beingseen as ethnic journalists and evade the ethnicaffairs rounds. In the three newspapers surveyedfor the project, no Aboriginal or ethnicjournalist was in any senior editorial position.

Following are some observations about theAustralian mainstream media from some ethnicand Aboriginal journalists working within themainstream media.

Emilia Bresciani, a journalist of Peruviandescent, who has worked for both SBS radioand television, says of her experience,


There is a general restriction from the western worldtowards anything else that does not reflect their wayof thinking. They're so arrogant, and we all knowabout it and they can just blame SBS or Australia forthat attitude. Australia is perhaps a bit more guilty inthat having such a multicultural population it’s stillsort of playing the role of the British type lord herewhen it comes to the media format, or anycommunication package that is ever broadcast. Ihave been restricted culturally, by the mould thatexists in this society of which many people are slaves- unconscious slaves I would say - and so one of thethings that I want to do particularly when I say I'ma developmental journalist is to promote a differentapproach to news and current affairs anddocumentary making, that departs from everybody'sown cultural understanding. But it can only happenwhen those people consider themselves strongenough and self-confident enough to bring out theirown cultural understanding of the world aroundthem. It must take a lot of people to convincemainstream approach to everything that anotherpoint of view, another way to look at life is alsoenriching, and therefore productive and attractive.And I suppose I try to do that with my approach,but again my approach may not appear verydifferent, because of the very restrictions of time andstyle that we are subject to all the time.

Rhoda Roberts, an Aboriginal journalist whopresents a weekly current affairs program onSBS television, reflected on her work with themedia and the pressures that operate to fashionmedia product.

Most of the Aboriginal people who are now workingin mainstream areas got their basic training skillsfrom community stations. Now, because once we getthose skills we still owe the community and we reallybelieve in broadcasting in our community, what wetend to find is that our community is accessing usfor our skills while we are still trying to keep a jobworking in the mainstream. And, when we work inthe mainstream we do not just work as a journalist,we work as a consultant. When anyone is doing anews tape for the evening bulletin, they come to usfirst to check their script, to look at the story, if theyare sensitive to the issues. So, between trying to getour story together, we are doing theirs as well. We donot get any extra money for that.

Other journalists bring different values from themainstream in their political orientation to theirwork. The late Vassili Manikakis, an Australianborn SBS-TV journalist of Greek descent, hadbroken a least one major ethnic story in thenational arena, noted of his involvement,

It’s true that I come from a Greek background. But,if you hear my voice, my accent, my ideas are verymuch Australian. I’m a product of this society. Whenwe talk about access to ethnics, we are talking aboutaccess to minorities, minority viewpoints andunfortunately a minority viewpoint is a left-wingviewpoint in this country. My perspectives comesfrom both a minority viewpoint and commitment toput alternative viewpoints to air. That doesn’t meanminority viewpoints in an ethnic way, but politicalviewpoints which many people don’t get a chance toput across, but are very valid points. Often theestablishment will see you as left-wing for trying togive access to minorities, but within thecommunities it will be a different ball game. Youcould even be a journalist from the right wing of thecommunity trying to get this access.

Vladimir Lusic, a Croatian born journalist andex-presenter of a weekly current affairs programon SBS-TV, was involved for many years withethnic broadcasting.

The attitude of the average Anglo-Saxon is this: theAnglo-Saxon has a right to have a view on any issue,and you do too as long as that issue is not related toyour original background. For example, if an Arabstarts debating Iraq, the Gulf Conflict, then he isseen differently. Why? We cannot be trusted because,we are not equal, this society is a racist society. Itdiscriminates against the people that it claims areequal. We are not equal.

Karim Barbara, a Lebanese born journalist, whohas worked for ABC radio and SBS television:

During the Gulf War, I was called in on contract forfive weeks, and my brief was "give us the Arabicpoint of view"; they were starving for someone togive the Arabic point of view which was extremelycomplex, and varied, and unless you know thebackground you weren't able to reflect it. And thatwas a good experience, because before I went in I


was looking at it as a an outsider, as a recipient, andI was wondering why on earth didn't they thinkmore about what they were saying because all wewere fed was re-hashed American and Britishpropaganda. Some stories were disgustinglyunprofessional. Well when I went inside, I foundthat there was a lot of pressure, they wereunderstaffed, the programs were run with whateverthey could get there hands on because of theimportance of the moment, and because of the thirstby the public to know, or the perceived thirst by thepublic to know. Not having the infrastructure ofinformed journalists to think what was going on, sothey took anything that came up, and at the endwhat it turned to be, was to run with CNN andChannel 4 from London. Within there was lack ofexpertise, lack of thought, high volume of outputexpected, low volume of personnel, and that morethan the perception influenced it. When I came in Istarted doing interviews with various Arab leadersand exponents and things like that. In the program Iwas working in, the perceptions started to change,because they started listening to a different voice andit became much more balanced.

Minority community media workers engagedwith mainstream media can often be confrontedwith the tension between their ownprofessionalism and desire to develop theirwork, the resistance by employers and superiorsto minorities whose “difference” from thedominant culture may be equated with a lowerlevel of professional competence, and theexpectation that they are both expert on andcompromised by any issue which draws on theircommunity backgrounds.

Mainstream Media Reportingof Ethnic Affairs - Two CaseStudies

The “Arabic Riot”

Every year in October for the last 10 years,Sydney’s Arabic community has held an outdoorArabic Carnivale - a day long festival of dance,music, food, socialising and so on. It has builtup to become one of the biggest multiculturalfestivals in Sydney with large numbers of non-Arabic Australians attending the festival as well.

On October 17th, 1993, over 35,000 wereestimated to have attended the festival. Towardsthe end of the day, as most people were alreadyleaving or preparing to leave, an ugly battle tookplace between police and a group of youngsters.

On that evening’s television and radio news andfor the next few days this was the major newsstory in the mainstream media in Sydney. Sincethen, the Arabic community, many other ethniccommunity groups and even the New SouthWales state government’s own Ethnic AffairsCommission has criticised the media coverage ofthis event.

Thus we have chosen to take this as one of thecase studies for our project, because it is atypical example of how a predominantly Anglo-Celtic media react to an ethnic communitywithin their own society which looksdistinctively different to themselves. In thiscontent analysis, in addition to the SydneyMorning Herald, The Australian and BrisbaneCourier Mail, we have also chosen an Arabicnewspaper, El-Telegraph published in Sydney.

The Sydney Morning Herald: On 18thOctober, it carried a front page story with theheading “Family brawl turns carnival into ariot”. The article was accompanied by twophotographs, one showing a police dog biting aman’s leg and the other showing a family tryingto protect an infant. “An argument between twoteenage girls turned into a wild riot in whichhundreds of people and police clashed for morethan two hours at the annual Arabic DayCarnivale at Tempe yesterday. What had been apeaceful family day - and was shaping up as ahighlight of the Sydney Arabic community’ssocial calendar - turned into a disaster about4.30 pm when police moved to quell whatwitnesses said was an isolated argument betweentwo girls and one of their brothers.” These twoopening paragraphs to the story set the tone forthe rest of the report which was a piece ofresponsible reporting describing the attacks onthe police, as well as giving wide coverage to theArabic community’s point of view which wascritical of the police behaviour which itdescribed as “aggressive” and an “overreaction”.


It even went as far as quoting an Arabic-Australian youth who said that the policeprovoked them by lining up behind them, whenthey were just watching two people arguing.

The next day, the Herald ran a story on pagefour titled “Griffiths backs his police at brawl”,which gave preference to the police ministerGriffiths’ point of view defending his policeforce, while at the same time quoting Arabiccommunity spokespersons who defended theircommunity. In the same issue, an editorial waswritten on the subject titled “Brawl in a day’spolice work?” which attacked the main Arabiccommunity spokesperson, for suggesting thatthe incident has been blown out of allproportions. It welcomed the Police Minister’sannouncement of a departmental inquiryarguing that “this inquiry should be able todetermine whether police officers were ham-fisted in their approach to crowd control”, whileat the same time it attacked the Chairman ofthe Ethnic Affairs Commission’s announcementthat they would be setting up an independentinquiry suggesting that it “may simply becomean exercise in police bashing”. The editorial’sarguments were based on a number ofstereotypes, which suggested that one of theproblems may be that the Arabic communityfinds it difficult to adjust to and accept theAustralian lifestyle and another may be that theyhave divisions within the community itself.Though the editorial concluded by suggestingthat both sides needed to take a long hard lookat themselves with regard to the incident, theoverall message was clear - an ethnic communityshould not blame the police: if you have aproblem it’s because you can’t behave as otherAustralians do.

The Australian: On October 18th, a short six-paragraph article was carried on page one titled“Fight turns to riot at Arab festival” with apicture of a police dog and a policemanpatrolling the area after the riot. It said that theconfrontation occurred when the police tried tobreak up a fight between two women and theywere attacked “by members of a 4000-strongcrowd”. It quoted an unnamed person as sayingthat knives were used and broken bottles

thrown at the police. The report also quoted anArabic community leader who said that itshouldn’t have ended this way if the police werenot that harsh. “After all it was a fight betweentwo girls” he said. The Australian carriedanother report on the incident next day, spreadright across the top of page 2, which was abouttwice the length of the previous day’s article.Titled “Arab community criticises ‘heavy-handed’ police tactics at riot” the article gavewide coverage to views of the Arabic communityand the Chairman of the Ethnic AffairsCommission (EAC) of New South wales, alongwith that of the Police Minister. Arabcommunity leader Ms Hind Kourouche saidthat the community was concerned at the waythe police unleashed dogs on a crowd whichincluded families with children, young men andwomen and elderly people. The Chairman ofthe EAC attacked media’s handling of the riotand he accused the commercial radio stations ofbeing “irresponsible”. He said that this was nota dispute about multiculturalism or about theconsequences of immigration.

Brisbane Courier Mail: On October 18th, theMail carried a page 2 article under the heading“Hundreds in festival brawl”. The article ofabout 8 paragraphs started with: “Hundreds ofpeople were involved in a wild brawl yesterdayat Gough Whitlam park at Marrickville inSydney’s inner west, police said. More than 60police using dogs and batons were required tostop the brawl, which erupted between twogangs during an Arabic community festival, thepolice said”. Thus by the time the news reachedBrisbane, the two women have become “twogangs” and the story seem to have been writtenthrough police media releases. They quoted anArabic community spokesperson, who did notappear in any of the Sydney reports, who saidthat the fight started after water had beenthrown at the police. Later the same personseemed to contradict himself by saying thatfrom what other people had told him the fightwas started by two people. The article wasaccompanied by a picture of police arresting aman.

El-Telegraph: This Arabic newspaper gave front


page coverage to the event on 20th October (asit is not a daily) carrying five articles with thefollowing headings: “Inquiry into Carnivaleincidents”, “International media reactions”,“Police Minister Defends Policemen”, “ArabAustralian Council blame all”, “Kerkyasharian(chairman, EAC) criticises Australian media”.The paper starts by asking who should bearresponsibility for this cultural catastrophe. Bothorganisers and police are responsible, they say,because the incident left a great crack in thestructure of multicultural society, which wassubjected to the most vicious racist attack bythose who stand against multiculturalism andthe supporters of a white regime in Australia.The paper questioned the police use of dogs andhelicopters at a family picnic and asked whypolice don’t make use of liaison officers with thecommunity and suggested that there should becourses for the police to help in awarenessraising and understanding of various ethniccommunities. It also accused the commercialTV stations of aggressive and hostile reporting,especially the use of “Arab Gangs”. The paperalso ran an editorial in the same issue under theheading “Media Hit” which argued that theTempe incident represented a favourite item of abias media. It said that the newspaper’stelephones lines were busy receiving insultingcalls from “ultra-white” people asking them topack up and go home. It argued that the mediareporting provided the racists in the society withan opportunity to exploit to provoke peopleagainst ethnic groups.

While The Australian and the Sydney MorningHerald reported the incident with a fair degreeof responsibility, most of the more provocativereporting was done by commercial televisionand talkback radio, especially the stations whichclaim to be broadcasting to the “AverageAustralian”. Analysis of this is beyond the scopeof this research project, but the followingcomment from John Laws, Australia’s highestpaid radio talkback host, will illustrate how thisincident was exploited by many commercialbroadcasters to provoke Anglo-Celtic audiencesagainst both ethnic groups and more specifically- multiculturalism. This comment was made onhis radio program on October 27th, that is ten

days after the incident:

Remember last Friday, ...we were talking aboutmulticulturalism, and the question came up howmany ethnic groups and associations are there inAustralia. We said we’d find out. Gosh! From theEthnic Affairs library, we got hold of a book called‘The Directory of Ethnic Community Organisationsin Australia’. It’s put out by the Department ofImmigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs,I suppose at our cost. 367 pages of it, average 8organisations per page, so approximately 2,936organisations in Australia, ethnic organisations.Sounds a lot. Pretty diverse groups, everything fromthe Goulburn Valley Irish/Australia Club to theAlbanian Saki-Islamic Society of Dandenong; theVictorian Elderly Chinese Welfare Association. Isuppose if an Australian went overseas we could jointhe Australian Ex-Patriot Polo Club of Hong Kongor the Australian Carlton Cold Drinkers Club ofEarl’s Court in London, I don’t know. Humannature, I suppose, to congregate with your own kind,birds of a feather as they say in the classics. As longas those who are welcomed into Australia are willingto participate in the community, pay taxes, livepeacefully, speak English, then there shouldn’t be anyworry about it. But, I’m afraid it doesn’t seem towork that way as far as I can see.

Police Racism and the Ombudsman’s Report

In recent years there have been persistentcomplains from ethnic community groups,particularly Asian, of police harassment andracism. In one instant, in 1991, a group ofAsian high school students were arrested andcharged by the police, in a northern suburb ofSydney, when they appeared to be victims of agang bash-up.

In October 1993, the New South Wales StateOmbudsman David Landa released a damningreport on police and ethnic relations, whichprompted the state’s Police Minister AllanGriffiths to order a major inquiry into the NSWpolice force.

The Sydney Morning Herald did a major reporton these findings on page 4 of their issue of28th October 1993 under the headline,

1 8Making Multicultural Austral ia Ethnic conflict and the Australian media

“Minister orders police to face inquiry onracism”. In that article, Mr Griffiths was quotedas saying: “several aspects... of race relationshipswhich the police should be utterly ashamed of”.He pledged to recruit people of ethnicbackgrounds to the police force. The next day,the Herald carried a front page lead articleheaded “Police cover-up on racist bashing”. Itwas based on allegations made in the StateParliament by an opposition MP about how thepolice bashed and made derogatory remarks at aVietnamese man in the streets of westernSydney, and how a police internal investigationhad covered up the incident.

The next day - a Saturday, the Herald publishedan editorial titled “Copping It sweet, again”,which was obviously a reference to an ABC-TVdocumentary a few years ago under the samename which exposed similar police attitudestowards Aboriginal people in the Streets ofRedfern - an inner Sydney suburb. It was acritical assessment of police attitudes towardsethnic and Aboriginal people, especially the useof offensive language. Towards the end of theeditorial it tended to defend the police force byarguing that “up to a point, police are onlyreflecting views that, sadly, do have somecurrency in the wider society and to condemnthem for that may do more harm than good”.This last comment is a typical example of howAustralia’s mainstream media assumes that theyare talking exclusively to an Anglo-Celticaudience, who are insular in regard toperceptions of the world and culturaldifferences, and perhaps racist in their attitudesor in other words think and act in similarfashion to those who are working for thesemedia outlets. On page 5 of the same issue,there was a large feature article headed “Pick ofthe Cops”. It argued that the face of the policeforce is changing with more women, and ethnicbackground recruits and higher educationalstandards of these recruits. The article was asympathetic look at how the police force istrying to change itself by trying to recruit moreethnically diverse trainee officers.

Meanwhile The Australian carried one report on29th October 1993 headed “Police accused of

‘rampant racism’ ”. It referred to allegations inthe NSW state parliament about the policebashing up and abusing a Vietnamese man. Thearticle also referred to the Ombudsman’s reportto be tabled in Parliament that day andallegations of a death threat against the formerpolice minister by a police officer. A boxedarticle within the main article was headed“Officer was shot after stealing cannabis, secretreport claims”. It dealt with allegation of policeinvolvement in drug dealing and in-fighting.

The Herald obviously gave more coverage to theissue than The Australian because the latter is anational newspaper. The Herald did show someunderstanding about and recognition of theproblem of police racism. What was lacking inthe reporting was a feature article focusing onthe Asian community’s views on the issue. The“Pick of the Cops” article focused on the policeforce’s viewpoint on the issue and another articlein similar style talking to the Asian communitymay have put the issue in perspective. In thisregard, a mainstream media organisation likethe Herald has two disadvantages. One is that,because of the Anglo-centric nature of theirnews values and staff they lack expertise andcontacts in the Asian community. This isreflected in the second problem, which is, thatmany members of the Asian community wouldnot trust the journalists and thus they wouldnot speak to them - especially about policeracism.

Conclusions

The media present a picture of being “reactive”rather than “proactive” in relation to ethnic andracial conflict. For the most part, they seemunwilling or unable to recognise theimplications of their construction of news andother stories, and broader entertainmentoffering, on race and ethnic relations. Despiterecommendations of bodies such as the HumanRights and Equal Opportunity Commissionthrough its 1991 report on Racist Violence, themedia have done little to change theirfundamental practices, particularly in relation tonews. The Press in particular, continues to resistany action which it perceives might be


construed as an infringement on its freedom tocontinue to behave as it has in the past. Themedia continue to depend in large part on theflow of media releases from powerfulorganisations as their primary sources, usingthese as points of departure to seek commentetc. Thus the control of the flow of newsbecomes crucial.

At points of direct confrontation, for instancebetween police and “rioters” (be they Aboriginalor Arab) police media relations units are activelyinvolved in presenting the police version ofevents. Even where there have been flagrantattacks by police on minority communities andthese have been condemned by governmentinquiries, police media management practiceshave not been modified to ensure more accurateaccounts reach the media.

The reporting of ethnic and IndigenousAustralia still appears to follow the patternsdocumented by Bell (1993) in his study ofMulticultural Australia in the Media. Bell hasargued that the ethnic (in this case Anglo-Australian) elites who control the media areengaged in a process of cultural reproduction.Where the media deal with issues ofAboriginality and ethnic diversity, they do soalmost solely from a perspective of the problemsthey represent for the majority culture or to thedominant economic interests in the society. Bellhad noted that the “exclusion of (non-stereotyped) diversity is almost total in all themedia studied... the general exclusion of all non-Anglo-Australian interests from both theinformation and entertainment media” (Bell1993:79). The major items of interest weredebates about immigration numbers and costs,and around Aborigines in relation to land rights.

The focus on the centre ground, and theassumed commonality of interest that isconfined there, continues to typify mediainvolvement in ethnic conflict. Where there is“heat”, that is violence or conflict or heightenedemotions, the media responses tend to be interms of the news values associated with theevent, rather than the social consequences ofparticular reportage. Good pictures, an

opportunity to write morally indignanteditorials, and a sense that the story will “sell”(more copies, bring in bigger audiences) isimportant. Stories which report collaborationand harmonious progress between groups areperceived by media decision makers as dull andless valuable as product. Thus where theyappear, Aborigines and ethnic minorities arestructured as riotous, uncontrolled, dangerous,and volatile. The very concept of “ethnicity” isused to shorthand these other characteristics(e.g. de Blas, Gibbes and Gunn, 1994; Cronau,1994; Eggerking and Plater, 1993; Plater, 1994;Bacon and Mason, 1995).

Our research supports the conclusions ofprevious studies The media agenda setting roleis compromised by control in key areas - such asthe metropolitan daily press - lying with a smallgroup of self-reproducing members of the elite.Despite one-off strategies to increase thediversity of reporters, the news agenda processrewards conformity (through publication) andpunishes innovation which might threaten thecentre ground (e.g. through non-publication ofoffending stories).

Young minority journalists repeatedly expressedthe view that their editors were not interested instories from points of view which moved awayfrom that of the editorial group. Given thedesire to develop as professionals, many of theseyounger media workers found it more effectiveto follow the centre line, and try to occasionallyslip in a different perspective. Few felt they hadthe time or energy to fight on every story, whentheir superiors were really not interested inchange. Indeed evidence suggests that onlywhere the law provided an equalisation in thepower relationships involved (e.g. under racialvilification legislation) were media managerswilling to invest time and energy in modifyingpractices (and then this seemed to be a shortterm thing).

Another clearly problematic area is therecruitment, training and professionaldevelopment of media workers. Most comethrough an educational system where issues ofappropriate professional practice in relation to


race and ethnicity are not part of thecurriculum. Cadet training rarely deals withthese issues in any depth, while other in-houseprofessional development focuses on technicaland managerial skills rather than socialresponsibility. Guidelines are still very limited,and reflect the concerns with the prohibition offorbidden behaviour rather than encouragementof best practice.


Ethnic conflict and the Australian media · “Ethnic Conflict and the Australian Media”, 1996. ... through an arms-length Board ... complaint has to go to the Advertising

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