Chapter 8 More than Skin Deep: Australia's Indigenous Heritage

Chapter 8 by Michael Meadows and Jacqui Ewart

Journalism is an important cultural resource at both the regional and metropolitan levels.

Journalism it seem is an influential component in relation to societies beliefs and views, there is as the chapter also suggests evidence to suggest that regional journalism has a unique place and role in the formation of identity and the creation of the concept of community.

Key to note that the majority of Australians have had limited contact with indigenous individuals and it is therefore the regional or local level that non-indigenous Australians come to to formulate their ideas about the subject from.

Regional journalism does play a unique role in the formation of the notion of community, helping to unite and connect groups of people. Metropolitan media can not provide the same kind of unity because they focus on the national and international issues.

FRAMING THE NEWS:

Studies of the coverage of Ingenious affairs in the Australian news media suggests a lack of ability by journalists - from first contact - to accurately represent 'the other' in anything by stereotypical , patronising, assimilatorist, or ignorant terms. Though there are exceptions.

Understanding journalists practice and how they impact on the representation of Indigenous Australians requires insights not only into those practices but also into the field in which journalists work, particularly their workplace cultures.

Van Dikj (1991) identifies the need to examine the semantic significance of the text of news stories - their implications and irrelevances, for example - as well as what he terms 'news schemes' such as headlines, story introductions, key events, content, history or background, quoted passages, and commentary.

This should also include omissions from stories.

THE JOURNALISTS:

The key problematic area when addressing indigenous affairs stories include the journalists concept of readership, the use of sources and the granting of authority status to those sources, newspaper policies, and constraints in the routine gathering and writing of news. (Meadows and Oldham 1991: Goodall 1993; Trigger 1995; Ewart 1997b)

READERSHIP:

Readership is a predominant factor which influences journalists

Journalists often claim they are reflecting society in their coverage of news, as they are writing for the reader. However, journalists are more likely to gain their ideas of readership from two sources: their immediate supervisors and colleagues and their sources. Their reliance on a limited number of people has a huge effect on the way journalists report , gather and write their news stories.

SOURCES:

Indigenous related articles are often not covered in news situations because they are not seen to appeal to the majority of those reading or watching the coverage.

Many journalists also have limited contact with Indigenous people, rare;y talk to Indigenous sources about issues and these are then only considered newsworthy by some sources if they are sensationalised in some way.

NEWSPAPER POLICY: what makes news?

Journalists are not always directly told not to cover a story, rather they learn by being steered in other directions by colleagues, or by the editing or rejection of their copy.

Journalists take their cues for reporting the news from the editorial hierarchy rather than community.

Sometimes this selectivity is designed to suit the unwritten policies of the media about not covering certain issues.
DAILY ROUTINES:

The daily practices of journalism can be seen to reinforce stereotypes and the thus restrict the ways in which indigenous people and issues are treated in the news.

The impact of reporting on limited Indigenous events when linked with the limited use of indigenous sources as information means that journalists often receive unreliable and culturally inappropriate interpretations of indigenous news.

TREATMENT OF INDIGENOUS ISSUES:

Journalists consider the issue of 'race' problematic. There are significant disjuncture's between their ideas and practices in this area.

The existence of the MEEA's code of ethics has further complicated the issue of reporting on race. Many journalists report being pressured into acting contrary to the code by editorial management. The 'reality' of gathering and writing news is frequently cites as a justification for journalists' inability to strictly adhere to the code.

Journalists approach their work though a value system that positions them as watch dogs on government and as promoters of democracy. The notion as journalism as a fourth estate is a timely debater given the increasingly public disillusionment with both government and the media.

CONCLUSION:

Regional journalists and their perceptions of journalism practices provide a starting point from which to examine the broader aspects of reporting on indigenous people and issues.

This area remains a largely ignored in scholarly research.

The chapter has shown journalists reluctant to use Indigenous sources of to engage in any meaningful research despite apparent easy access to background material.

The struggle over journalists representations of Indigenous affairs is not a recent one. From first contact indigenous people have been positioned from, and within, the dominant ideas and assumptions of Anglo-European culture.

The role of journalism as a set of cultural practices in this quest is critical. Journalists claim to professionalism, primarily on the MEAA codes of ethics do not provide and adequate framework for the representations of indigenous affairs.

Journalists need to re-conceptualise journalism in terms of how it 'imagines' society within the context of the shift as a colonising cultural institution.