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Press Council targets Chinese newspapers as it looks to broaden its membership base

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The Australian Press Council is targeting Chinese community newspapers as part of an initiative to better reflect Australian diversity by broadening the council’s membership.

The chair of the Australian Press Council David Weisbrot pledged to broaden the council’s membership in a speech at the Melbourne Press Club earlier this month.

Weisbrot today told a media conference that the council cannot remain content with only representing mainstream publications and online news sites.

“There is still a glaring — and I would say inexcusable — gap in the council’s membership: the thriving multicultural press that reflects the reality and vibrancy of Australia’s multicultural society,” he said.

“The current leadership of the council is strongly committed to engaging with the multicultural press in Australia and encouraging the Council’s inclusiveness, both in terms of formal membership as well as in access to council programs and activities.”

As part of the push to broaden the council’s membership, the APC’s eight key standards have been translated into Chinese.

Weisbrot said the council has identified Australia’s Vietnamese, Filipino, Greek, Italian, Indian, Korean, Serbian, Turkish and Arabic-speaking newspapers and communities as the next publishers to talk to about inclusion in the council’s membership.

“People in those communities should have the same right as any other citizen to expect their news media to be accurate, fair and balanced,” he said.

Weisbrot said membership in the council would bring multicultural publications “immediate benefits”.

Publishers can display the Press Council logo on on their mastheads and by virtue of committing to the council’s standards media organisations are exempt from the operation of the federal Privacy Act 1988.

Miranda Ward

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