The Australian media has remained defiant in the face of multicultural diversification says chief executive of Africa Media Australia, Clyde Sharady.
Sharady said that negative media representation has put African Australians and refugees in a box by projecting fatalistic images and stories, associating Africans with disaster
“The reporting of Africa and Africans is more important because in my view, it leads [journalists] to choose particular stories that they think [are] right for them to publish and how they go about doing that,” Sharady said.
“A simple title of a story can have devastating consequences on people. We live in an environment where people can be attacked for who they are; for being black.”
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that South African refugees are in the top 10 countries of birth, making up 0.8 per cent of Australia’s population.
The Apex gang, who ran riot through the streets of South Melbourne in May, were labelled by the media as “predominantly African”, along with members from the Middle East and the South Pacific.
Sharady said the motivation behind linking Apex to Africans in the media stemmed from satisfying an imaginary audience and reporting what they thought the community wanted to hear.
“If you don’t know any black people and the only time you hear about black people is when they’re doing bad things, it’s a natural to develop a bias that says ‘black equals bad’”, he said.
Zione Nthenda-Walker, founder of Incubate Foundation, said social responsibilities in the media are critical to normalising the experience of Africans in Australia, even more so than government.
“Professionally, I was starting to see an influx of people who are having challenges, particularly with the justice system,” she said. “Most people coming from these countries are coming as skilled migrants.”
“And not just challenges, but they actually blunted their own dreams because they believed that there was no opportunity for them in Australia.”
Ms Nthenda-Walker said that the number of assaults against African Australians increased with the amount of negative reports which circulated through the media.
“Young people of every background commit crimes every day,” she said. “It doesn’t impact you if a young white person commits a crime because everyone knows there are about a million white people doing amazing things.”
“Because it’s the only gateway to those communities, I would argue that the gatekeepers of that information, major practitioners, have this added responsibility to contextualize this information.”
Both Sharady and Ms Nthenda-Walker said disappointment with the lack of diversity in the media led them to create programs and pathways for Africans into the media industry.
“What was most important for me on a media context was that young people wanted agency,” Sharady said. “They wanted to be able to articulate their own experiences directly.”
“When media organizations are thinking of reporting on stories more accurately and fairly, you have to actually reflect that by making sure you have diverse staff.”
Sharady began a website called Africa Media Australia in 2012 to promote positive stories for and about African communities to encourage diversity in the media and create insight into the challenges faced.
Africa Media Australia has previously run 12-week media training courses for community ambassadors in which representatives from different communities learned how to interact with journalists in mainstream media.
Ms Nthenda-Walker said what stood out to her most in a media context is that young African Australians want to be able to talk about their experiences directly.
Incubate Foundation are currently assisting with media diversity programs and workshops that Ms Nthenda-Walker said is connecting young African Australians to more established people.
“At the moment, we’re developing job ready programs. We’re developing entrepreneurial programs,” she said. “These established communities actually had no idea about these African communities that were struggling.”
Human Rights Activist and founder of Resilient Aspiring Women (RAW), Mariam Issa, was born in Somalia and grew up in Kenya before migrating to Australia in 1998.
Ms Issa said she believes that the stories shared by refugees strengthen them and create a platform for people from many different cultures to learn from.
“I feel like that’s why we’re here. In the beginning I did not know why I was in Australia,” she said. “I think this is a universal way of bringing us together to remind each other what we’ve lost of ourselves and what you’ve forgotten.”
Sharady said that the Australian media also reflects society and whilst Australian society has been extremely successful in promoting diversity, the media is falling behind.
“I think the media does pay a lot of attention to democracy, but not enough for diversity,” he said. “The moment the media becomes as interested in diversity as it is in democracy, then we will see much better things happening.”