Australia’s media has been too white for too long. This is how to bring more diversity to newsrooms

The case for a more diverse and representative media should be clear by now – it’s been made time and time again.

But it’s instructive to take stock every now and then. Over the last month alone, we’ve seen a number of clear examples of why greater diversity in media matters:

• the all-white, 20-seat Melbourne Press Club board failing to elect a single person of colour in recent elections
• ABC’s Insiders being criticised for having no people of colour on the program for the last ten years (something it finally rectified by inviting on Triple J’s political reporter Shalailah Medhora and the ABC’s first-ever Indigenous foreign correspondent, Bridget Brennan)
• The Age being called out for having only one Indigenous reporter in its 166-year history
• Sky News host Peta Credlin falsely blaming South-Sudanese Australians for the recent rise in Victoria’s COVID-19 cases (Sky News later apologised)
• the decision by four arts critics at the Nine newspapers to quit or reduce their hours to make room for more diverse writers to take their place
• and Channel 9’s hamfisted interview with a protestor at a Black Lives Matter protest in Los Angeles.

Alan Porritt/AAP