The Media and Indigenous Policy

Home , Pat Dodson, Television in Australia, Warren Mundine

How news media reporting and mediatized practice impact on Indigenous policy

A preliminary report

Copyright © Kerry McCallum, Michael Meadows, Lisa Waller, Michelle Dunne Breen, Holly Reid, 2012 ISBN: 9781740883658 Editor: Associate Professor Kerry McCallum, Journalism & Communication Studies, Faculty of Arts & Design, University of Canberra Editorial Assistant: Monica Andrew

Contributors: Kerry McCallum Michael Meadows Lisa Waller Michelle Dunne Breen Holly Reid

Further information about the Australian News Media and Indigenous Policy-making 1988-2008 project is available at http://www.canberra.edu.au/faculties/arts-design/research/active- research-groups/public-communication/Indigenous-Policymaking

This research was supported under the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme (DP0987457), with additional funding supplied by the Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra.

Contents

Acknowledgements v Executive summary vii Researchers ix Introduction 1 Media reporting and Indigenous policymaking 3 Kerry McCallum Policymaker perspectives 11 Managing the optics of Indigenous policy 13 Kerry McCallum & Lisa Waller When the stars align 23 Michael Meadows Media perspectives 33 Indigenous health reporting 1988–2008 34 Framing Indigenous Health, 1988–1995 37 Kerry McCallum Practice imperfect: media, discourse and intervention 43 Michelle Dunne-Breen Journalists, ‘remote’ Indigenous sources and cultural competence 51 Lisa Waller From little things big things grow: campaigning journalism and Indigenous policy 59 Holly Reid Indigenous policy actor perspectives 67 Intractable or indomitable? How Indigenous policy actors issues alive and contested 69 Lisa Waller Academic perspectives 77 Academics, think tanks and journalists: the trouble with expert opinion, empirical evidence and bilingual education 79 Lisa Waller Reciprocity and Indigenous knowledge in research 89 Lisa Waller Appendices 97 Appendix 1: Media and Indigenous Policy database 99 Appendix 2: Key sources 101

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Acknowledgements

The Media and Indigenous Policy project team would like to thank the following people and institutions: The Media and Indigenous Policy project was funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant: ‘Australian News Media and Indigenous Policymaking 1988- 2008’ (DP0987457). Additional funding and support was provided by the Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra. As non-Indigenous researchers, we are indebted to those Indigenous Australians who participated in the project, including staff and colleagues from the University of Canberra Ngunnawal Centre, Yolgnu collaborators and participants from Northeast Arnhem Land, and representatives of Indigenous organisations who were interviewed for this project. The ANMIP advisory committee: Professor Meredith Edwards, University of Canberra; Mr Jack Waterford, The Canberra Times; Mr John-Paul Janke, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies; Ms Kaye Price, UC Ngunnawal Centre, for their advice and support. The Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) for providing me with a visiting fellowship in 2011. Monica Andrew, senior researcher, project manager, statistician and editor for the Media and Indigenous Policy project, for her patience and expert oversight of so many aspects of the project. Research assistants Kynan O’Brien, Nils Langford, Erika Mudie and Arika Errington. Kerry McCallum, University of Canberra Michael Meadows, Griffith University Lisa Waller, Deakin University Michelle Dunne Breen, University of Canberra Holly Reid, University of Canberra Honours Program 2010

Executive Summary

The Media and Indigenous Policy report is presented as a series of essays addressing the outcomes of six independent but interlinked research projects. Each paper addresses a different research question in a particular policy field, utilising a range of qualitative research methods. Together, these essays shed light on the complex relationships between Australia’s news media and the development of Indigenous social policies. Our research concludes that the way Indigenous issues are portrayed in mainstream news media does impact on the way Indigenous affairs policies are developed, communicated and implemented. Australia’s news media exerts its power over the policymaking process in complex and multifaceted ways. Taking a policy-specific approach has demonstrated that news media impact on policy is variable and inconsistent across policy fields. Between 1988 and 2008, Australia’s news media paid very selective attention to Indigenous policy issues, unless they were the site of controversy or politically salient. Indigenous broadcasting policy received virtually no public attention, while health and bilingual education received occasional intense media attention. Newspaper journalists told the story of Indigenous health policy through a small number of routine and predictable news frames. Reporting Indigenous affairs is a complex and difficult sub-field of journalism. Journalists faced a range of barriers that impeded their ability to report on the full range of Indigenous voices and experiences. Sections of the Australian media have engaged in campaigning journalism that can be seen to have made direct incursions into the policymaking process. Our case study of The Australian’s coverage of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) documents the strategies used in campaigning journalism. Policymakers working within government departments were media experts who have adopted ‘media logic’ in their practices. They pre-empt, monitor and use news media strategically in their policymaking practices. These ‘mediatized’ practices varied in intensity between policy fields and moments, but our project concludes that this is a significant manifestation of media power in the policymaking process. The 2007 Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) was the template for media-driven policymaking. It is difficult for Indigenous people’s voices to be heard in the policymaking process, but Indigenous policy advocates utilise media practices to keep alive the intractability of Indigenous policy issues and influence government policy outcomes. This finding challenges dominant understandings of ‘intractability’ in policy, leading us to conclude that maintaining the intractability of an issue can have constructive policy outcomes. In the field of bilingual education policy, think-tank experts opposing bilingual education became increasingly prominent and influential in mediated policy debates across the 20-year period under investigation, whereas academic voices were rarely heard. Waller’s research with Yolngu people on bilingual education policy has demonstrated how Indigenous research goals, methodologies and ethics can be incorporated into journalism and policy research, resulting in new models of research and journalism.

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Our policy-specific case studies identified gaps in understanding among the media- related practices of Indigenous policy advocates, public servants, journalists and academics. Further research in a wider range of policy settings is required to develop protocols for understanding and bridging these gaps.

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About the researchers

Kerry McCallum Associate Professor Kerry McCallum is first chief investigator on the Media and Indigenous Policy project and Head of Discipline of Journalism and Communication at the University of Canberra. Her research focuses on public opinion, media and policymaking practice in Indigenous affairs and related social policy. In 2009 Kerry was awarded an ARC Discovery grant (with Michael Meadows) for the ‘Australian News Media and Indigenous Policymaking 1988-2008’ project (DP0987457). She led a team of researchers investigating the relationships between news media representation, the ‘mediatized’ practices of policymakers, journalists and Indigenous policy advocates, and how these operate together to impact on policy outcomes. Kerry is actively involved in the field of communication and media studies in Australia, as President (2010-2011) of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA), and organizer of the 2010 ANZCA conference: ‘Media, Democracy and Change’ at Old Parliament House, Canberra. Kerry is staff representative on the UC Research Committee and an inaugural member of the News and Media Research Centre. She is a Member of the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), and has held visiting fellowships at AIATSIS and at George Washington University, Washington, DC. Prior to entering academic life, Kerry worked in federal politics as policy and media advisor to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer, and as an electorate officer to Members of Parliament in the ACT, NSW and SA. She brings this professional experience to her teaching and research, and maintains an active interest in Australian politics, ‘mainstream’ and Indigenous. Michael Meadows Professor Michael Meadows worked as a print and broadcast journalist for 10 years before moving into journalism education in the late 1980s. Since then, his research interests have included media representations of Indigenous affairs in Australia and Canada, Journalism theory and practice, media representations of the Australian landscape, and community media audiences, policy and practice. He has published numerous academic and generalist articles dealing with his work and three books: Songlines to satellites, with Helen Molnar, Voices in the wilderness and more recently, with co-authors Susan Forde and Kerrie Foxwell, Developing dialogues. He is based at the Griffith Centre for Cultural Research, Griffith University, in Brisbane. Michelle Dunne Breen Michelle Dunne Breen joined the University of Canberra’s Faculty of Arts and Design as a Teaching Fellow in journalism and communication in 2011. Her PhD research explores the Australian print media’s coverage of the Northern Territory Emergency Response 2007, between its announcement and enactment. Michelle’s areas of research interest include social justice, Aboriginal affairs, journalism practice and journalism’s democratic role, and she is a devotee of Norman Fairclough’s dialectical relational approach to critical discourse analysis. She obtained her undergraduate degree in sociology and German (Mod. Hons.) from the University of Dublin, Trinity College, in 1991, before training as a journalist. Michelle has worked as a journalist for newspapers and magazines (both political and lifestyle) for more than 20 years, in Australia, Britain and Ireland. Her most recent staff position was at The Canberra Times, where she edited the Saturday news review and analysis section Forum. This year Michelle has been convening UC’s second-year print journalism units while simultaneously grappling with the implications of the ongoing industry changes both for her PhD research and her students’ futures.

Lisa Waller Lisa Waller began her career in news as a student of journalism at the University of Canberra in 1986. She returned to the University of Canberra to undertake her PhD in Communication in 2009, after a 20-year career as a reporter and editor on some of Australia’s leading newspapers. The Canberra Times editor-at-large, Jack Waterford, was her mentor as a young journalist, so for Lisa it is most fitting that he is also the distinguished journalist on the advisory board that has overseen this project. After working as a journalist on newspapers including The Canberra Times, The Australian and the Australian Financial Review, Lisa is familiar with the practices of journalism and the workings of newsrooms. Her interest as an early career researcher in journalism studies is not so much what happens on editorial floors or on journalists’ rounds, but conceptualising how journalism affects different areas of society. She is particularly interested in theories of how media power operates. Her work on the ‘Australian news media and Indigenous policymaking 1988–2008’ project documents how news has shaped the Northern Territory’s bilingual education policy. Another recent research project at Deakin University, where she lectures in journalism, examines how media power is exercised by journalists through the changing cultural practice of shaming people who come before the courts accused of minor offences. Lisa aims to contribute to the discipline of journalism studies through research that develops new theories and methodologies and advocates for the media rights of marginalised people. She also writes works of academic journalism using the methodologies she has developed, based in her research findings. Inside Story and Arena Magazine have published some of the journalism written as part of the Media and Indigenous Policy project. Lisa is an award-winning textiles maker and examples of her work can usually be found in The Alice Springs Beanie Festival exhibition, which is held each June. She has conducted a number of workshops with Anangu on the APY Lands in South Australia, at Ernabella and Mimili. These workshops produced beautiful work which is part of the national Beanie Festival touring exhibition. Her ongoing relationship with Anangu, the first people to have a bilingual education program in Australia, inspired her to focus on an Indigenous language policy for her PhD study. She is pleased to have undertaken research that advocates for Indigenous peoples’ right to learn in and use their own languages and contributes to their struggle for self-determination. Holly Reid In 2009, Holly graduated from the University of Canberra with a Bachelor in Journalism and a major in Indigenous Affairs. She was the recipient of the Australian Press Council Award for the highest achieving print journalism student, and the Deans Excellence Award for obtaining a GPA of 7. She successfully applied for the University of Canberra Honors Scholarship and in 2010, graduated with First Class Honors in Journalism. Her thesis is a comparative frame analysis of the 2007 Little Children are Sacred report into child sexual abuse in the Northern Territory, its representation in the Australian newspaper and the subsequent announcement of the Northern Territory Emergency Response program. The paper, A failure in the symbiosis of media democracy, was awarded the University of Canberra Medal for the faculty of Arts and Design. After graduation, Holly began work as an assistant media advisor to You Me Unity, a campaign for the Constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, facilitated by Reconciliation Australia. In 2012, she co- authored a publication with her Honours supervisor, Weighing In, which was presented at the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association conference and awarded the Christopher Newell Prize for the best paper dealing with a social justice issue. Set against the backdrop of Australia’s rapidly changing news media landscape, Weighing In provides evidence of the Australian’ agenda-setting style of journalism and the intensity of the relationship between news media reporting and Indigenous affairs policy making in

Australia. In April 2012, Holly moved to Ghana, West Africa, as part of the Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development program, to volunteer as the Communications Manager for a child and maternal health NGO for twelve months. In July 2012, she established the Jaynii Streetwise Campaign, a fundraising initiative to provide disadvantaged Ghanaian children with access to basic human rights like safety, health and education. Holly plans to begin her PhD in the field of media, policy and Indigenous affairs in 2014.

Introduction

Kerry McCallum … policy debates in the Australian power in policy, it is not a simple task to media have presented Aboriginal issues tease out the elements and direction of as if they are unsolvable and influence. Nearly a century of media studies intransigent and caused by ‘deviant’ research concludes that demonstrating characteristics inherent in Aboriginal direct causes and effects of news media communities. (Baum, Bently & content on audience, political or policy Anderson, 2007) responses is a fraught exercise. Attempts to Indigenous affairs policy is widely demonstrate the influence of a single news considered to be one of Australia’s most story on public opinion, or impacts of news ‘intractable’ policy fields (APSC, 2007), reporting on a government policy decision, characterised by fierce policy battles, have proven elusive (Koch-Baumgarten & strongly-held ideological positions between Voltmer, 2010). But this does not mean that political and advocacy groups, and sharp it is futile to study the relationships shifts in policy direction that impact on the between news media and policymaking — lived experience of all Indigenous in fact, it makes it even more important. Australians. The Media and Indigenous Policy project Indigenous Australians say their was born of a desire to move beyond relationship with government is highly superficial accusations about the media’s public and problematic (Meadows, 2005). role in Indigenous policy development, and Issues that affect lives, such as child safety, to tease out the factors that characterised or access to services, or particular health Indigenous affairs policymaking in a problems, are frequently debated via public ‘mediatized’ environment. A key concept in media. Indigenous communities are often media studies, mediatization theory excluded from the discussion, with media describes a media-saturated culture where and political leaders talking ‘about’ media norms and resources become part of Indigenous people rather than ‘with’ them. everyday activities (Lundby, 2009). As media studies researchers with professional Analysts of Indigenous policy frequently backgrounds in journalism and public point to sensationalist or biased reporting affairs, our approach to the debate can offer as contributing to the problematising of insights grounded in empirical evidence Indigenous issues and to poor policy informed by media history and theory. outcomes, without fully analysing these factors. At the same time, both mainstream In contrast to more traditional approaches and alternative news and social media that see news media as an external outlets have played an important part in influence on policy, we took a ‘discursive’ holding governments to account for the way approach to policy analysis (Bacchi, 2009), they develop and implement policies to deal starting from the premise that public with social issues such as Indigenous discussion of Indigenous issues was central disadvantage. Intense media reporting has to the development of both policy problems at times forced governments to address and policy outcomes. More than most other issues such as access to policing, alcohol policy fields, the development of Indigenous abuse or school retention rates. In short, affairs policy is played out through public journalists’ reporting practices would media, with journalists taking a central role appear to both contribute to and reflect the in both constructing and representing intractability of Indigenous affairs policy Indigenous people and issues as problems problems. to be solved. Despite occasionally simplistic accusations We identify that Indigenous affairs policy is thrown around in debates about media rooted in the bureaucratic process of

colonisation and the complex history of implemented. Australia’s news media exerts Australian federalism. It is inherently its power over the policymaking in complex political and subject to strong partisan and multifaceted ways. ideologies. Ministers are advised and supported by their public servants in the The Media and Indigenous Policy project development of policy, but our project The Media and Indigenous Policy project argues that mediatized practices occur team examined the relationships between throughout the political and the policy Australia’s news media and the realms. development of Indigenous affairs policies. Our project also acknowledges that media We addressed the following questions: engagement in the policy terrain is so How did policies in specific fields of uneven that it is necessary to take a policy- Indigenous affairs shift between 1988 specific approach. Drawing on the work of and 2008? Gamson (1992), Couldry (2009) and How did Australia’s news media report Bourdieu (1990), we have paid particular Indigenous affairs between 1988 and attention to the localised practices of policy 2008? actors in particular Indigenous policy fields. How did policy bureaucrats’ mediatized Some policy areas are of great interest to practices impact on Indigenous policy? the media, but in fact many are of little or How did Indigenous policy advocates use no interest unless they are perceived to media to influence Indigenous policy? offer scope for a story of crisis or How did news media reporting impact controversy. Even within a politically on the development of specific sensitive field, such as Indigenous health, Indigenous affairs policies? media interest waxes and wanes (McCallum, 2011). We recognised at the outset that no single research method was adequate to fully Our research concludes that the way explore this topic. We drew on our Indigenous issues are portrayed in backgrounds as qualitative media studies mainstream news media does impact on the researchers to design a multi-method way Indigenous affairs policies are project to address our research questions. developed, communicated and

Indigenous policy timeline

We wanted to examine specific policies in ‘intractable’ of all Indigenous policy their broader historical, political and issues. McCallum chose the suite of discursive environments, so we chose a 20- policies around the delivery of primary year period beginning at the highly health care, with particular reference to symbolic Bicentenary of Australian Indigenous community-controlled health Federation and ending with Prime Minister as her case study of news media Rudd’s 2008 apology for the forced removal representation and influences on policy. of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander 2. Waller’s doctoral research focused on Children from their parents. As illustrated key moments in the policy of bilingual in the timeline below, the period between education in the Northern Territory and 1988 and 2008 can be separated into how challenges to the policy had been distinct policy eras across the Hawke, played out in public media. First Keating, Howard and Rudd prime implemented in the 1970s, bilingual ministerships. education policy in the Northern Territory has undergone a number of The range of portfolio areas within the shifts in direction, characterised by Indigenous policy field is diverse and broad, periodic attempts to abolish bilingual so we took a policy-specific approach. This education programs for Indigenous enabled us to explore in fine detail specific children. policy developments over the 20-year 3. Meadows continued his long period. Policies developed within each of engagement with federal Indigenous these fields are marked by a few big broadcasting policy, with a particular announcements, at times by political focus on the announcement of the leaders via news media, that radically National Aboriginal Television service changed the direction of the policy. Our (NITV) in 2007. research tracks those policy changes and 4. One policy moment stood out beyond all the roles played by news media in their others — the 2007 Northern Territory development, announcement and Emergency Response (Intervention, or implementation. NTER) — whereby on the eve of a 1. A key social indicator program, federal election, the Racial Indigenous health is arguably the most Discrimination Act (1975) was

suspended and the military was database (see Appendix 1) was employed to ‘stabilize, normalize and developed to house more than 4,000 exit’ remote communities in the media and policy items on Indigenous Northern Territory (Altman & Hinkson, health between 1988 and 2008. 2007). This radical five-year policy Quantitative content analysis was agenda has recently been consolidated conducted to map the extent and nature by the Gillard Labor government in the of reporting, and qualitative analyses 10-year Stronger Futures legislative identified dominant frames and program. The Intervention provided discourses. Reid and Dunne Breen with a unique 2. Policy actor Interviews. Underpinned by a policy moment in Indigenous affairs and ‘media as practice’ methodology an exemplar of mediatized Indigenous (Couldry, 2004), interviews with more policymaking. than 50 journalists, bureaucrats, Indigenous policy advocates and We argue that in order to understand the academics provided rich insights into the media-policy relationship it is necessary to ways in which policy actors ‘read’ hone in on the media-related practices of mediated texts and how news media policy actors within specific policy fields. reporting was incorporated into their Couldry (2004) defines this approach as policymaking practices. Interviews were disarmingly simple: ‘what do people do conducted in Darwin, Townsville, with media and what do people say about Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and media’. We asked those questions in Canberra, with a small number of relation to the development of policy to the telephone interviews. following groups of policy actors: The project received approval from the journalists working for newspaper, University of Canberra and Griffith broadcast, Indigenous community and University Human Ethics committees, and online media organisations — a small was overseen by an advisory committee of minority were specialist health or Indigenous and non-indigenous experts. education reporters; Indigenous perspectives and methodologies public servants and policy advisors were incorporated into the research working in federal, state and territory methodology through close participation agencies — we made a strategic decision with Yolngu participants, and a major not to focus on the relationships outcome of the project was to address between journalists and political offices, Yolngu participants’ self-determinist aims but to explore the media-related for the research. practices of those deepest inside the policymaking process; and Structure and content of the report Indigenous policy advocates working for The essays included in this report non-government community-based summarise the key findings of the Media organisations. and Indigenous Policy project. Our report is The project team developed a project- designed for wide public dissemination and specific set of research methodologies to complements findings presented in explore these key policy moments and academic conference presentations and policy actor perspectives. We examined journal articles (see Appendix 2), and is a policy documents, media reporting, and the precursor to a longer academic monograph. practices of those actors involved Managing the optics of Indigenous policy, by developing, communicating and McCallum and Waller, presents a key implementing Indigenous affairs policies. finding of the project. Interviews with those We drew on two broad research approaches deepest inside the Indigenous health and from media studies to conduct our bilingual education policymaking fields — enquiries. federal and Northern Territory public 1. Textual analysis of policy and media texts. servants — demonstrated that not only The Media and Indigenous Policy were these policy actors acutely aware of

media content, but that the media had been Waller’s doctoral research took as its case incorporated into their policymaking study bilingual education policy in the practices. For many, their role as policy Northern Territory, with a specific focus on developer or implementer had been how the media-related practices of those usurped by their role in managing the responsible for developing policy played ‘policy optics’. Drawing on quotations from out for the Yolngu people of North-east the interviews, this essay describes the Arnhem Land. Taking a ‘media as practice’ features of the ‘mediatization’ of the approach focusing on the way people use policymaking process. media (Couldry, 2004), Waller draws on interviews with Indigenous community Meadows takes a policy focus in When the members, policymakers and media stars align, documenting how the policies professionals to document the media’s around Indigenous broadcasting were powerful role in the development of developed in isolation from mainstream bilingual education policy. media attention. His historical analysis and interviews with key policy managers and McCallum, Waller and Meadows show in Indigenous media policy advocates Intractable or indomitable? How Indigenous highlights the ‘strategic dance’ played by policy actors keep issues alive and contested actors in the policymaking process. how Indigenous policy advocates, such as those involved in the community-controlled Statistics on how Indigenous health was health sector and the bilingual education reported in three Australian media outlets lobby, have been able to harness between 1998 and 2008 is depicted in sophisticated communication practices to graphs in Indigenous health reporting 1988– keep policy issues alive. Importantly, this 2008. Framing Indigenous Health, 1988– essay challenges the assumption dominant 1995 presents the findings of a news frame in Indigenous policy studies that Indigenous analysis of reporting of Indigenous health in health and education are ‘wicked’ or the Hawke and Keating eras, and how ‘intractable’ policy problems to be solved, changing news frames correlated with a suggesting instead that Indigenous policy shift from self-determinist to advocates keep complex policy issues alive mainstreaming policies. in the interests of better policy. Dunne Breen extends these analyses of In Academics, think tanks and journalists: the news media reporting to explore in fine trouble with expert opinion, empirical detail media discourse around the 2007 NT evidence and bilingual education, Waller Emergency Response. Using critical asks ‘who has a voice’ in a mediatized discourse analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 1992) Indigenous policymaking process, finding that locates Indigenous affairs reporting in that, in the case of bilingual education, its broader political, social and industrial media and policymakers overlooked the contexts, she identifies how a changing ‘evidence’ of academic studies and opinion, media landscape impacted on the reporting instead turning to a small number of think- of the Intervention and theorises the tank spokespeople such as Noel Pearson impacts of that on public policy. and the Centre for Independent Studies’ In From little things big things grow: Helen Hughes. This essay opens up campaigning journalism and Indigenous questions about the future of academic policy, Reid examines the role of Rupert engagement in the policy process in an Murdoch’s flagship newspaper, The online media environment. Australian, in setting news agendas and The report closes with Waller’s reflexive framing nationally-significant Indigenous essay, Reciprocity and Indigenous knowledge policy stories for its audience. Analysis of in research. Indigenous perspectives and The Australian’s coverage of the Little research methodologies have been central children are sacred report (Anderson & Wild to her work (Connell, 2007), with close 2007) demonstrates how selective framing collaboration with Yolngu researchers of issues is central to its campaigning style informing Waller’s approach to of journalism.

methodology and analysis. This essay The Media and Indigenous Policy project has challenges researchers and policymakers opened up a range of new research working in this field to listen and complexities and possibilities. We incorporate Indigenous research confronted a range of theoretical and perspectives into their practices. methodological challenges when researching such vast disciplinary terrains Outcomes and future directions as policy studies, journalism studies, Our research provides a better Indigenous studies, media and cultural understanding of the interplay of the media theory, and political communication. We practices of policy actors — Indigenous have drawn on all of these, but the project policy advocates, bureaucracts, journalists, essentially sits within the field of academics — in the Indigenous communication and media studies. While policymaking field. In summary, our key we address policy issues and examine the findings are: practices of policymakers, we don’t purport to be policy analysis experts. And while we

News media impact on policy is variable were advised by, engaged and collaborated and inconsistent across policy fields. with Indigenous scholars, communities and Through their reporting practices, research perspectives, the chief journalists both contribute to and reflect investigators are not Indigenous. the intractability of Indigenous affairs policy problems. Our research was designed so that it would Reporting Indigenous affairs is a have tangible benefits for those involved in complex and difficult sub-field of developing, influencing and reporting on journalism. We found that reporters who public policy about this issue of national cover Indigenous affairs face a unique importance. It contributes to the body of set of challenges and we have Australian research examining the nature of documented those challenges and the media and government in Australia, and to changes specialist reporters believe informing contemporary media practice. To would improve reporting. that end, we have built the Media and Media reporting amplifies the already Indigenous Policy website, a publicly problematic relationship between available repository for the data collected Indigenous Australians and their for the project. To be progressively updated, governments. the website currently houses the media It is difficult for Indigenous people’s graphs, an annotated bibliography of voices to be heard in the policymaking newspaper reports on Indigenous health process, but Indigenous policy advocates between 1988 and 2008, and a bibliography utilise media practices to keep alive the of key references as a resource for other intractability of Indigenous policy issues researchers. It is our hope that the database and influence government policy and this report will provide seeds for future outcomes. research to continue to address such a Government managers, policy advisors complex and enduring research issue. and communication officers are media *Our research project was funded through an ARC experts who pre-empt, monitor and use Discovery project grant (Australian News Media news media strategically in their and Indigenous Policymaking 1988-2008, policymaking practices. DP0978456), and supported by the Faculty of Arts The Australian newspaper was found to and Design at the University of Canberra. be the most influential media player in References the field and our project documents how that influence is exerted through the Altman, J. & Hinkson, M. (2007). Coercive investments it makes in covering reconciliation: stabilise, normalise and exit Indigenous issues and the ways in which Aboriginal Australia. Melbourne: Arena. it presents them. APSC (Australian Public Service Commission) (2007). Tackling wicked

problems: a public policy perspective. Canberra: APSC. Bacchi, C. (2009). Analysing policy: what’s the problem represented to be? French’s Forest, NSW: Pearson. Baum, F., Bentley, M. & Anderson, I. (2007). ‘Introduction’, in I. F. Anderson, F. Baum & M. Bentley (Eds), Beyond Bandaids: exploring the underlying social determinants of Aboriginal health. Papers from the Social Determinants of Aboriginal Health Workshop, Adelaide, July 2004, CRC for Aboriginal Health, Darwin, pp. ix-xvi. Connell, R. (2007). Southern theory: the global dynamics of knowledge in social science. Cambridge: Polity. Couldry, N. (2004). ‘Theorising media as practice’, Social Semiotics, 14(2): 115-132. Gamson, W. (1992). Talking politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Koch-Baumgarten, S. & Voltmer, K. (Eds) Public policy and mass media: the interplay of mass media and political decision-making (pp. 1-13). London: Routledge. Lundby, K. (2009). ‘Introduction: mediatization as key’, in L. Knut, (Ed.). Mediatization: concept, changes, consequences (pp. 1-20). New York: Peter Lang. McCallum, K. (2011), ‘Journalism and Indigenous health policy’, Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2: 21-31. Meadows, M. (2005). ‘Journalism and indigenous public spheres’, Pacific Journalism Review, 11(1): 36-41.

Policymaker Perspectives

Managing the optics of Indigenous policy

Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller

It was one of their favourite words, unidirectional influence on policy (e.g. the optics of it. Have you heard that Cook et al, 2009; Althaus et al, 2007). This one yet? ... Optics, how it looks to the essay draws upon mediatization theory to outside. Yeah, do you hear that? It's a explore and map the discursive very public servant word … The environments in which specific optics. When you’re dealing with Indigenous affairs policies are developed. stakeholders and do you something, This has enabled us to reconsider the way it’s the optics. How will this be seen policy is developed in a mediatized world out there in the world? and to re-theorise how the media can play A major outcome of the Media and a key role at certain policy moments. Indigenous Policy project has been to The extreme example of mediatized identify and document the ways in which policymaking was the announcement via news media practices have increasingly the news media of the Northern Territory been incorporated into the development, Emergency Response (NTER or communication and implementation of Intervention) in June 2007, whereby Indigenous affairs policymaking. We Australia’s Prime Minster announced a found that at every level, from Minister to military-led incursion into NT Indigenous junior bureaucrat, news media routines, communities to instigate a suite of priorities and practices have been policies that fundamentally changed the internalised and embodied by direction of Indigenous affairs policy bureaucrats working on Indigenous (Allen & Clark, 2011). This dramatic affairs policies. Rather than policy policy announcement was made in the professionals simply reading and wake of intense publicity surrounding the responding to mediated messages, shocking but by no means new however, they had adopted a ‘media logic’ documentation of child sexual abuse in into their practices (Althiede & Snow, the Northern Territory. As Meadows 1979). We conclude that the portrayal of points out in his essay for this report, not Indigenous issues in mainstream news all policies are developed with such media had a significant, but indirect, political scrutiny or media attention. impact on specific Indigenous policies in Meadows gives the example of remote the 20 years between 1988 and 2008. Indigenous broadcasting as a policy area This essay outlines how ‘mediatized’ that has developed in a ‘vacuum’. This policymaking practices operate in point is reinforced by the graphs in the particular fields of Indigenous affairs. A Indigenous health reporting 1988–2008 key concept in media studies, section of this report that demonstrate mediatization theory, describes a media that, more often than not, Indigenous saturated culture where media norms and people and issues are ignored rather than resources become part of everyday attended to by Australia’s news media. activities (Couldry, 2008; Silverstone, Koch-Baumgarten and Voltmer (2010, p. 2007). It is the process whereby 219) concluded that ‘any shade of media ‘everyday practices and social relations influence is possible, from ‘non-existent’ are historically shaped by mediating to ‘high’. Moreover, even within a policy technologies and media organisations’ field, long periods out of the limelight may (Lundby, 2009, p. x; Davis, 2007). This be interspersed with short bursts of emphasis on mediated policy practice media attention’. But the participants contrasts with traditional approaches to interviewed for the Media and Indigenous policy analysis whereby news media is Policy project argued that behind this frequently understood as an outside, apparent lack of media and political

interest in Indigenous affairs lies a deep In late 2012 bilingual education policy political sensitivity to Indigenous issues in was reintroduced by the new Country Australia. Liberal Party Government. We have therefore taken a policy-specific Interviewing Federal, state and territory approach to understanding the media’s bureaucrats about their media-related role in the policy process. This essay practices has enabled us to tease out the focuses on two distinct policy fields — precise way they incorporate news media Indigenous primary health care and practices into their everyday routines. In bilingual education. Our examination of this essay we summarise the results of Indigenous health policy since 1988 takes our analysis of interviews with public as its focal point the delivery of primary servants working in Indigenous health, health care through the network of education, and related social policy areas Community Controlled Health about their understanding of the news Organisations. Four key ‘policy moments’ media’s role in policymaking. Rather than, were chosen that characterise the say, ministerial advisors or politicians, we tendency for governments to propose chose to speak with the public servants dramatic policy changes to tackle the responsible for developing, implementing, Indigenous health ‘crisis’: and promoting Indigenous affairs policies. We wanted to access the local knowledge the 1989 National Aboriginal Health of a group of people whose roles were not Strategy, which placed Indigenous self- traditionally oriented towards media and determination through community public opinion, but whose primary control at the heart of health service functions included providing expert policy delivery; advice on behalf of their departments to the removal of Aboriginal health from their portfolio Ministers, and to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait implementing and communicating the Islander Commission in 1995; policy decisions of their government. the declaration by Minister Abbott in Drawing on Waller’s innovative doctoral 2006 of a policy of ‘new paternalism’ in research, we took a ‘media-as-practice’ Aboriginal health; and approach (Couldry, 2004), where we the 2007 Intervention which proposed asked simply: ‘what do people do with mandatory health checks on media and what do people say about Indigenous children. media’. In this way, we have been able to Bilingual education provides a second explore the media-related experience of example of a policy field characterised by those deepest inside the policymaking periodic radical policy announcements. processes. First introduced in the 1970s, bilingual Our participants spoke candidly and with education policy in the Northern Territory extraordinary expertise about the way has undergone a number of shifts in they orient their practices toward the direction: Minister’s office and the public. A number In 1999 the NT government backed of themes emerged from the analysis of down on a decision to abolish its the interviews. The first finding was that bilingual education programs Indigenous policy bureaucrats were following community opposition and media experts with a sophisticated the independent Collins Review of knowledge of news media processes. They Indigenous education. described in detail their operation at the In 2008 the NT Minister for Education political, Ministerial, communication and announced by media release a policy policy levels. Secondly, they explained the that the first four hours of the five- localised media practices of their policy hour school day would be in English field. They identified that policymaking only, a move that effectively shut down practices had become increasingly media bilingual education programs. oriented over time, with the Northern Territory Intervention given as an

extreme example of media-driven indirect relationship with its Indigenous policymaking. They rarely had any direct affairs journalists. She told us: contact with a journalist, but they were, Because the Australian doesn’t have nevertheless, media experts who could the same parochial interests as states, monitor news, anticipate how an issue it has a greater ability to determine, might play out in public media, adapt perhaps more so than its readers, its their practices to pre-empt the public particular campaigns, where it will go response to their policies, react with skill in hot pursuit. It's often referred to as to negative and positive news stories, and a campaigning newspaper. use the news media strategically to Many were critical of media practice, and develop publicly-successful policies. related examples of where the media ‘got Finally, through their interviews, it wrong’ or misrepresented a policy issue policymakers revealed a high level of they were working on. Some of those who reflexivity about the media-related nature worked closely with Indigenous of their policymaking practices, and its communities found the constantly impact on policy outcomes over the 20- negative, sensationalist reporting, and the year period between 1988 and 2008. recycling of the same issues, frustrated Media experts their efforts to realise policy solutions. One manager in NT Health bemoaned that Policymakers have a fine-grained and ‘media … don’t tend to report on good sophisticated understanding of news things that happen or the strengths in a media processes. They are passionate community … ’ Another observed: about their area of policy responsibility They’re incredibly complicated issues, and they follow the content of print, radio, and the media is just light years away television and online media. Many of the from getting its head around how, in public servants we spoke to could be these days of hype and public grabs, described as media experts with a good how do you present public issues in a understanding of why journalists cover way that will raise public awareness, controversial or prominent issues. A or bring people to an understanding former communications officer said of the to share the solutions? It’s hugely 2007 NT Intervention: ‘Whether you were challenging. for or against the Intervention as a Some of those who worked closely with journalist, it was just a big story and go in Indigenous communities found the and cover it.’ A senior manager revealed constantly negative, sensationalist an intimate working knowledge of the reporting, and the recycling of the same Australian newspaper, and a close, if

KEY POINTS Indigenous policy bureaucrats: demonstrated a high level of policy commitment and accountability to their Minister and the Australian public had increasingly media-oriented policymaking practices were media experts with a sophisticated knowledge of news media processes saw the NT Intervention as the extreme example of media and politically-driven policymaking monitored news, anticipated coverage, pre-empted and adapted policies to negative and positive news stories used news media strategically to develop publicly-successful policies Revealed a high level of reflexivity about the media-related nature of their policymaking practices, and its impact on policy outcomes.

issues, frustrated their efforts to through this close relationship with implement policy solutions. A senior the political environment. manager in Indigenous policy told us: Government departments have What gets frustrating is where you established routines for monitoring media get deliberate mischievous behaviour interest in their policy area. in media, which can happen ... Like Communication sections of each there is a continual pulling forward of, department employ media specialists to you know, you wasted all this money formally monitor media activity. Ward on consultants, you’re expending this (2007) has described the growth of huge amount of people, very selective communication and public affairs within presentation of information. the Commonwealth, but our study found Policymakers, for whom accountability is that these functions take place within central to their professional practice, policy areas as well as in specialist were bemused by journalists’ perceived communication units. One senior manager fickleness — that they could campaign so described in detail how the monitoring of strongly on an issue, and then a few news occurred in his section: weeks later take an almost oppositional Okay. So physically every morning I stance in their reporting. A former have somebody that comes into my communications officer gave the media’s office. So we have a communications intense campaigning against the branch, there’s a team in there. We Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander buy a media monitoring service. That Affairs (ATSIC) as an example: team pulls together clips. I’ve got a team in my group that particularly Journalists, who were almost the focuses on issues we know will be same people who’d helped get rid of running. I can log onto my email at ATSIC, suddenly said, ‘Oh, this bloody 8.00 and I’ll see the news clips. We’re government’s got rid of ATSIC, now very regular stories on the weekend, they're doing all these terrible things’. so I have a little text message service The next lot of scandal. that comes to me from the communications area about what’s Monitoring on page 3 of The Australian etc. Policy bureaucrats explained in precise detail how they incorporated media Anticipating, and pre-empting practice into their daily routines. They We were surprised to learn the extent and described how they monitored media closeness of the working relationship coverage of issues they were working on between senior managers and the and accepted that monitoring media communications sections of their coverage was an integral part of their job, departments for the implementation of not one that was left to the domain of the new policies. One senior Northern department’s communication specialists. Territory bureaucrat said: In doing so they revealed that there was a much closer distance between journalism Media management and media and policy practice than we had interaction just became a necessary previously assumed. A former public part of the functions, and particularly servant in bilingual education told us: in terms of dealing with Indigenous remote contexts with all of the Folk in the ministerial environment … overlays … of the Intervention. and at senior levels in bureaucracies are scanning media endlessly and Another commented that the responding to it endlessly, and communications team was also involved shaping themselves in relationship to to some degree in policy development: what is increasingly intimate dialogue, I … guess it’s some of the core of your because journalists’ storytelling … is work … the media was seen as absolutely hand in glove with

successful policy implementation. Not I was in the hot seat and suddenly we necessarily so much policy had that one picture of a kid with a development, although there had needle in Redfern … it made the been in the policy development entire world spin on its axis and before it was decided, a fully suddenly we went off in this other comprehensive consultation — public direction. And [my colleague] used consultation, site by site. So that had this as an example to me to say, ‘you involved the full-blown media. can go to all these meetings ’til the cows come home but decisions are Another described the centrality of media made on talkback radio and in the routines to policy work: paper’, and it certainly seemed that So we do run on a media cycle every way to me … day, we check media … we do our In 2008, poor national numeracy and media response work. We need to get literacy results in national testing became our media response back so that you the subject of intense media focus, which can get back into press the next day if you need to refute a story. was seen to put political pressure on the education minister and her department to This senior manager highlighted how, at change its bilingual education policies. A the highest levels of the department, former education department CEO said practices were oriented outwards. A key this ‘was absolutely a critical lever in the function of her job was to pre-empt the series of events that then impacted on the outcomes of policy decisions that might bilingual program’: cause trouble for the department or the Minister. We were told that ‘in an area I mean the media was actually the trigger behind all of that policy such as the bilingual education policy change to go from bilingual to a four- normally there would have been heavy hour full-on English experience, and it consultation with the media…’ Likewise, a was the national publication of health department bureaucrat told us that results, the Northern Territory’s need her area would adjust their policy advice to respond to look like they were on or the announcement of a policy, top of this and handling it … so it was depending on ‘the optics’ — their fine- part of that role out of tuned understanding of how a policy responsiveness to the media. would be ‘seen out there in the world’. As Most participants accepted that another explained: responding to media stories was an You have to be aware of the political integral part of their job. If the monitored implications of what’s going to news is perceived to have political happen if something you do goes significance, ‘… then that means we go public. Is it a good news story or a into a media response arrangement. So bad … if it’s not saleable to the we will pull together the information general public … it won’t happen, or it that’s required in order to respond to the will be defused, rather than put in story in a timely way’. This very senior place something that … the talkbacks bureaucrat was pragmatic, saying, ‘but the or the tabloids might get hold of. other thing also is, if one of those stories Reacting is mishandled, or the wrong information gets into them, it might put me out for a While they understood the news values month if I’m there on the front page’. that drove media outlets to sensationalise Media and policy scholars Voltmer and controversies in Indigenous health, policy Koch-Baumgarten (2010) say that professionals argued that this frustrated increased media scrutiny leads to their ability to implement long-term ‘amplification’: policy issues. Policymakers were divided in their levels of cynicism. One relayed the … the dynamic and direction of a advice of an older colleague: policy can change dramatically. Increased media coverage usually

intensifies conflict … Policy for ways of making the most of the pot of alternatives must then be formulated funding for Indigenous health that was in a manner that suits the media’s part of the package. One said: ‘And, so thirst for sound bites and catchy obviously the decision had to be made headlines, and since the conflict is about how the huge additional resource now enacted in front of the public was to be used positively’. A health policy eye, compromises and backstage advocate told us that: deals become less likely. (Voltmer & Koch-Baumgarten , 2010, p. 5) … people in the Health Department were totally unaware of what was Straddling political and policy realms being done. So they’re playing catch up and in a big way it’s to Tony While senior policy bureaucrats oriented Abbott’s credit, they came up with a their practices towards their Minister’s hundred million straight away for the office, they made a clear distinction Intervention we kind of negotiated between the policy realm and the political with the community controlled sector realm. There were certain times when a … I’m sure they would have been told policy announcement was so politicised the morning of the announcement, that it was announced with minimal that’s what I reckon. departmental involvement. Policymakers identified the 2007 NT Intervention as a Strategic ‘template’ for media-driven policymaking Policy scholars Schön & Rein (1994) and in Indigenous affairs. News media Gamson and Modigliani (1989) found that reporting, particularly the The policy uncertainty occurs at those sites of Australian’s coverage of child sexual most political controversy, over abuse, was attributed with great ‘intractable’ policy problems that are significance in providing the Prime hardest to resolve. As the essays in this Minister with the justification for volume demonstrate, news media itself overriding the NT government and its can amplify the intractability of an issue, own racial discrimination laws. This or Indigenous advocacy groups can keep policy announcement was so politicised an issue alive and unresolved (see the that even senior departmental officials essay, Intractable or indomitable? on p. 69 were caught unaware: of this volume). In these situations, the They’re on their way … Everyone was media often provides the platform where shocked. It was a public the various stakeholders, including announcement ... And these were government departments, play out their senior managers, and they had to get policy battles. They work closely with ready for, who was it, the army, and Indigenous ‘stakeholders’ in their area God knows, was arriving on their and know their stakeholders’ media doorsteps – ‘Oh, God, no’. They were strategies. One tactic is to ensure that the shocked. Scrabbling to find out what Minister’s office is provided with this was all about. information to counter a negative news In such cases, departmental officers were story. We found that bureaucrats used required to adjust to the new policy their knowledge of how the news media direction and amend existing programs in operate to capitalise on opportunities for line with the new policies. They may have gaining positive attention for their been ambushed by the Prime Minister’s programs. One explained: reaction to the media’s portrayal of the I use the media team the other way. Little Children are Sacred report, but So if I’ve got something like the senior health department officials minister’s going to do a launch or described how they were opportunistic something, open a new facility. We about the Intervention announcement. would do talking points and a media Even before the dust settled, pragmatic release. It would go to the departmental workers said they looked communications area, they’d make

sure it was well presented as a media Some journalists did claim that public release and then it would go over to servants spoke ‘off the record’, especially the minister’s office. regarding a policy they thought the Our findings accord with international Minister had implemented without research that concludes increased consultation, but they agreed that over scrutiny leads to intensified media time, governments had become management (Voltmer & Koch- increasingly expert media managers: Baumgarten, 2010). Journalists we spoke We found it increasingly hard to get to talked of ‘tight drip feeds’ and ‘laughing leaks, but there were still people who drains’ of information, depending on were ideologically just opposed to whether the department wanted a story what was occurring under the to be publicised or hosed down. One Intervention. So on that grounds they journalist described her experiences of were leaking and we got leaked a lot trying to procure comment about of stuff. bilingual education programs from NT education department staff: Reflexive The education department … are real As media experts, policy professionals thugs. They have no hesitation in were surprisingly reflexive about the role bullying, threatening staff. The of media in the policymaking process (cf. department does not tell the truth, Tanner, 2012). They acknowledge their certainly not the truth as we hear it own role in a mediated policy from other people who aren’t being environment and are aware of their told what to say by the department. mediatized policy practices. Study It's a really forceful, repressive, far participants working on health and from free speech environment. bilingual education policy accepted that … And people who are at the coalface the policy issues they worked on were aren’t allowed to speak and you get highly significant and politically sensitive, some trumped up director from the subject of scrutiny by interest groups whatever region, parroting the line. and opposing political parties, and There’s no resemblance to what the therefore the subject of media interest. people on the ground are telling you. But they understood the media’s Fourth Despite this ‘strategic dance’, most public Estate role: servant have only an indirect relationship Oh, look, I think media have a huge with journalists, adhering to influence on policy … media tends to departmental policy that generally allows highlight the issue and demand that only media advisors to speak directly with there be some result, which then I the news media. The relationship is suppose, prompts the government to indirect however; while public servants’ respond in a faster way, or at least be practices are intimately involved with seen to be respond in a faster way … news media, very few outside of the Most participants were critical of communication area of the department or practices of ‘policy by press release’, the Minister’s office have direct contact ‘knee-jerk policy’ and ‘policy on the run’. with a journalist. A senior manager who They argued that the short news cycle worked on Indigenous policy explained: encourages bad policy, discourages I don’t know, there’s certainly much evidence-based policy, discourages more political sensitivity around genuine community consultation, and responding to media and how it’s discourages risky or long-term policy portrayed. But I don’t remember decisions. They find these aspects of their ever, in my time, it being the norm jobs frustrating and frequently that public servants would have demoralising, but many have a passion for spoken to media. their area of expertise that enables them

to continue in the hope that they can Conclusion make a difference: This examination of policy bureaucrats’ A policy bureaucracy always wants to local understanding of the relationships be getting it right. I actually think between the news media and their health there’s a bit of a disease which is and education policy areas has found that people want to move from one policy mediatized practices had been to another, there’s not enough incorporated into the very heart of the patience to say well, let’s get it right, policymaking process. Contrary to our let’s get it right with the community expectations, Australian public servants and let’s think in five and ten years demonstrated a strong appreciation of the They were also sensitive to the Fourth Estate role of journalists and distinctions between the political and media organisations. They were reflexive bureaucratic realms. The Minister’s office about their position in a mediated policy operated on an agenda driven by political environment and acknowledged that their and public opinion imperatives, while mediatized practices fed the journalists’ these processes were less overt within routines, reacted to Minister’s political government departments. Those working agendas, and used the media strategically at the most senior levels of the to promote their policies to the public. department oriented themselves towards While they were at times uncomfortable the Minister and his or her office and about the outcome of ‘managing the therefore towards those political optics’, they skilfully negotiated the imperatives. They understood implicitly changing technological, political and that issues that were the subject of industrial media landscape as they intense news media interest had the developed, communicated and potential to reflect poorly on the Minister. implemented government policy. As political issues, Indigenous health and Our study has found that news media education were more likely to require have played a vital role in the media management. They also saw that development of both health and bilingual news media attention to an issue could, at education policy as a strategic and times, force governments to attend to frequently tactical device in the discursive politically difficult issues: battle to define policy problems and I guess their policies have produced a solutions. The bilingual education policy lot of sensitivity ... And that’s where example provides evidence of the media actually questioned what the ‘intimate dialogue’ between the media government was doing. So, yeah, I field and the policy field that shaped guess government give its reasons public and policy discussion of how best why ... yeah, I suppose media is a to deliver education programs to constant headache for government. Indigenous children in some remote A policy bureaucrat commented that the communities. The outcome of that sustained media campaigning around mediated policy discussion, and the issues of violence in remote Indigenous mediatized practices of policy communities helped focus government professionals, had real and devastating attention on policy issues otherwise impacts on the lived experiences of ignored: children and families living in remote NT We were grateful that some of this communities. The decision to effectively stuff was being promoted in the axe bilingual education from the school mainstream media, at least it meant curriculum has been widely understood that attention was being paid to it as bad policy (Scrymgour, 2012). and that it might attract some Likewise, the mediatized practices of Government attention. health policymakers were found to have real impacts on the delivery of primary health care to Indigenous Australians. While Indigenous health was shielded

from the media spotlight, funding and Altman, J. & Hinkson, M. (eds) (2007). commitment for Indigenous health grew. Coercive reconciliation: stabilise, normalise But a growing tension between players in and exit Aboriginal Australia. Melbourne: the health policy field, played out against Arena. the backdrop of the media’s sensationalist Althaus, C., Bridgeman, P. & Davis, G. reporting of the Indigenous health crisis (2007). The Australian policy handbook and child sexual abuse, culminated in the (4th ed.). Sydney: Allen & Unwin. announcement of the dramatic policy shift towards ‘new paternalism’ and the radical Althiede, D. &Snow, P. (1979). Media logic. policy announcement of compulsory child Beverly Hills: Sage. sexual health checks as part of the NT Cook, I., Walsh, M. & Harwood, J. (2009). Intervention in 2007. Government & democracy in Australia (2nd Participants told us that the Australian ed.). South Melbourne: Oxford University news media’s short-term focus on Press. sensationalised stories of community Couldry, N. (2004). ‘Theorising media as dysfunction, chronic disease and poor practice’, Social Semiotics, 14(2): 115-132. standards of literacy worked against good long-term policy development (Hunter, Couldry, N. (2008). ‘Mediatization or 2007). In the future we can expect mediation: alternative understandings of Indigenous health and education policies the emergent space of digitial will at times be driven by knee-jerk storytelling’, New Media and Society, political reaction to media campaigns that 10(3): 373-391. fit the Intervention template. Most Davis, A. (2007). The mediation of power: significantly, our study has found that a critical introduction. London: Routledge. media-related practices are intimately woven into the fabric of policymaking. Gamson, W. & Modigliani, A. (1989). Media logic operated at all levels of the ‘Media discourse and public opinion on policy process, from development, nuclear power: a constructionist through announcement, to approach’, American Journal of Sociology, implementation. As media experts, skilled 95: 1–37. in monitoring, anticipating, pre-empting, Hunter, B. (2007). ‘Conspicuous responding to and managing news media, compassion and wicked problems: the Australian policy bureaucrats working in Howard government’s national Indigenous affairs portfolios have emergency in Indigenous affairs’, Agenda, incorporated news media routines into 14(3): 35-51. their own policymaking practices. The permeation of ‘media logics’ into the Koch-Baumgarten, S. & Voltmer, K. (Eds) everyday practices of Indigenous policy Public policy and mass media: the interplay development has been found to narrow of mass media and political decision- the range of policy options available for making. London: Routledge. improving the health and educational Lundby, K. (2009). ‘Introduction: wellbeing of Indigenous people. Mediatization as key’, in L. Knut (ed.), Mediatization: concept, changes, References consequences, pp. 1-20. New York: Peter Allen and Clarke Regulatory Specialists Lang. (2011). Evaluation of the Child Health Schön, D. & Rein, M. (1994). Frame Check Initiative and the Expanding Health reflection: toward the resolution of Service Delivery Initiative: Final report. intractable policy controversies. New York: Canberra: Department of Health and Basic Books. Ageing. http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main Scrymgour, M. (2012). Marion Scrymgour /publishing.nsf/Content/oatsih_chci- speaks: Stop playing games with bilingual. ehsdi_report Retrieved 26 March 2012, from

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/201 2/03/25/marion-scrymgour-speaks-stop- playing-games-with-bilingual/ Silverstone, R. (2007). Media and morality: on the rise of the mediapolis. Cambridge: Polity. Tanner, L. (2011). Sideshow: dumbing down democracy. Carlton North, Vic: Scribe Publications. Ward, I. (2007). Mapping the Australian PR state. In S. Young (Ed.)n Government communication in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

When the stars align: Indigenous media policy formation 1988-2008

Michael Meadows

Policy is a wheel continually turning, a regions and a further 20 radio stations in task never completed (Althaus et al., regional and urban areas broadcasting 2007, 40). around 1,400 hours of Indigenous content weekly. There is one Indigenous Introduction commercial radio station — 6LN in The Indigenous broadcasting sector has Carnarvon in Western Australia — and one been one of the most vibrant in Australia in commercial television station, Imparja, terms of development since its emergence based in Alice Springs in central Australia. in the late 1970s. Although the Indigenous There are two Indigenous radio networks: press has been present in various forms in the satellite-networked National Indigenous Australia since 1836, it has been Radio Service (NIRS) and the National broadcasting that has tended to dominate Indigenous News Service (NINS) (Molnar & the media preferences of Indigenous Meadows, 2001; Community Broadcasting audiences and the policy domain (Molnar & Foundation, 2009). Meadows, 2001; Forde, Foxwell & In 2012, an additional 80 Remote Meadows, 2009). Bennett (1989, p. 10) Indigenous Broadcasting Services (RIBS) usefully defines the policymaking process produced a combination of radio and/or as ‘the organisational principles and television transmission in the most remote objectives governing the activities of those parts of the continent. These RIBS units also agencies — governmental or private — re-broadcast the National Indigenous active in the sphere of culture’. So how did Television (NITV) service. Most of the small, this process play out with respect to remote stations are engaged in re- Indigenous broadcasting between 1988 and transmitting available satellite 2008? programming, both mainstream- and Ironically, Indigenous media as a news topic community-produced. In 1988, Imparja is virtually absent from broader public Television became the first Indigenous- sphere discussion promoted by mainstream owned and managed commercial television media. On a handful of occasions during this service in Australia and, arguably, the time has it received even cursory attention. world. Since its launch, largely for financial In this sense, the policymaking processes reasons, Imparja has been able to produce involved in Indigenous communication minimal Indigenous content. differ markedly from other areas. As An Aboriginal-owned and run Indigenous Althaus et al (2007, pp. 10-11) suggest: ‘It community television service (ICTV) began has been said that policymaking is nine- broadcasting from one of Imparja’s spare tenths press release and one-tenth satellite channels in 2001. This innovative substance.’ While the Indigenous media service featured close to 100 per cent policymaking process has certainly Indigenous content, produced mostly by generated its fair share of media releases, small bush communities and often in local few have found their way onto public or regional languages. It was initiated by the sphere agendas through mainstream media Aboriginal-controlled PY Media, and attention. produced around 300 hours of new content Indigenous media in Australia annually from 2005. ICTV ran on an annual budget of about $70,000 and included Community radio and television have been contributions from PY Media, Warlpiri the major communications outlets for Media, Pilbara and Kimberley Aboriginal Indigenous voices in Australia with more Media (PAKAM), Ngaanyatjarra Media, than 100 licensed radio stations in remote TEABBA and other local Indigenous

producers. Former PY media general for National Aboriginal Broadcasting manager Will Rogers (2009) reflects on the program production by the Department of ICTV experience: Canadian Heritage. Maori Television in New Zealand received $28.8 million with an ICTV was a real project started from the grassroots; an opportunity for the un- additional $9.5 million allocated for Maori heard to have the freedom to say what programming on radio and television it needed to. Another funny thing was, (APTN, 2011; Maori Television, 2011; what was said was OK — it wasn’t said Department of Canadian Heritage, 2011; NZ in anger but just an opportunity to say on Air, 2011). something and show the pride of Despite concerted lobbying over decades, the bush and their people that live in Indigenous broadcasting in Australia lifestyles. remains on the periphery. Westerway The launch of NITV in 2007 saw ICTV (2005, p. 300) suggests that the ‘view from displaced from the airwaves, forcing it to the Australian Public Service window’ in the seek alternative delivery systems. This early stages of Indigenous media policy caused great concern amongst remote development was ‘obscured’ by 50,000 Indigenous communities at the time but has years of difference between Indigenous and led to some creative responses, including non-Indigenous cultures: the launch of Indigitube, a database of The well-intentioned settler Indigenous-produced videos available for policymakers tasked to address the viewing online. The federal government issues were predominantly Anglo-Celtic, committed $48 million over four years to middle-class and middle-aged men. develop NITV and, late in 2012, it merged Aborigines — and particularly those with Australia’s national multicultural who still lived in the heartland — were broadcaster, the Special Broadcasting far too often perceived as ‘backward’, Service (SBS). Following some intense too varied in their cultures and ways of lobbying by the Indigenous Remote life, too much the Other to be easily Communication Association (IRCA), ICTV understood. began broadcasting again on its own digital Many would suggest that little has changed. television channel also in late 2012. But while the mainstream continues to have However, it will be seen only by remote and difficulty placing Indigenous media into the regional communities currently able to broader public sphere, Indigenous access the existing remote television communities have long applied their own satellite network (Meadows et al., 2007; frameworks in producing media that reflect Forde, Foxwell & Meadows, 2009; themselves and their lives. A study of the Meadows, 2010; Featherstone, 2012). Indigenous broadcasting sector in 2007 About $16 million each year is distributed revealed Indigenous and non-Indigenous by the Community Broadcasting Foundation audiences access Indigenous radio and (CBF) for Indigenous community radio and television across Australia for various television program production across the reasons. They identify Indigenous media as country. In addition, in 2011, NITV was essential community services that play a allocated $15 million as a one-year support central organizing role in community life. grant until its transition to SBS has been Indigenous media help to maintain social completed (Garrett, 2010). The multifarious networks and play a strong educative role roles played by Indigenous radio and in communities in supporting languages television in their communities makes this and cultures, particularly for young people. investment by government seem modest, They offer alternative sources of news and particularly when compared with funding information without the prevalent for comparable Indigenous media stereotyping present in mainstream media organisations globally. In Canada in 2011, and, in doing so, help to break down the Aboriginal People’s Television Network prejudices for non-Indigenous audiences. (APTN) had an annual budget of $37 million The stations offer a crucial medium for with an additional $7.8 million distributed Indigenous music and dance and, arguably,

are the primary supporters of the vast varied input from participants makes this Indigenous music industry. It is evident that process complex: additional tensions and Indigenous radio and television is playing a conflict between federal government key role in facilitating cross-cultural departments and between Indigenous dialogue between Indigenous and non- media producers from the bush and those Indigenous Australia (Meadows et al. 2007; from the eastern seaboard. All have an Forde, Foxwell & Meadows, 2009; equally valid stake in the process but all do Meadows, 2010). not have an equal voice at the negotiating table: the impact of ‘quiet voices’ and ‘loud The policy process voices’ impacts not only on the policymaking process, but also extends into Indigenous media as an administrative mainstream media coverage of Indigenous entity has always found itself variously as affairs globally. Indigenous participants — part of an eclectic mix of sometimes like any non-government or ‘third sector’ disparate policy domains, although some entity — have always been disadvantaged suggest recent placements are more logical in the process, despite the rhetoric from on (Hart, 2011). A prevailing preference for a high, and despite some notable examples conservative broadcasting model — where ‘a friend at court’ within a accompanied by a conservative political will department has promoted Indigenous — has shaped the policy environment in perspectives (Althaus et al., 2007, p. 18; which Indigenous broadcasting has Hart, 2011). emerged, as longtime policymaker Peter Westerway (2005, p. 180) observes: While some argue that within the Australian policymaking environment there are ‘fresh The national sector model (taxpayer calls for innovative cultural practices that funded, non-profit, government controlled broadcasting intended for deliver global solidarity at the same time as the general public and able to be renewed local identity’ (Althaus et al., 2007, received by commonly available p. 10), there is little evidence of this in the equipment) had been the staple Indigenous policymaking process. In fact, it instrument of broadcasting policy for is notable by its absence. It underlines the more than 30 years. Moreover, it was marginality of Indigenous media when consistent with assimilation. compared with the ‘squeaky wheels’ of social indicator programs — health, The nature of this cultural policy education, housing and justice environment created a tension between (Featherstone, 2011a). Indigenous aspirations for an independent media sector and a preference by Others have argued the need for significant government policymakers for Indigenous changes in the way policymaking in general media to be part of the mainstream. The is conducted in Australia. Edwards (2010,

KEY POINTS Indigenous media in Australia has evolved in a policy vacuum, marked by policy uncertainty and a lack of political will to acknowledge the place of Indigenous languages and cultures. Indigenous media as a news topic is virtually absent from broader public sphere discussion promoted by mainstream media. The key policy moment in Indigenous media policy was the decision to replace Indigenous Community Television (ICTV) with the $48.5 million National Indigenous Television (NITV) in 2007. Indigenous media policy advocacy has been marked by competing policy agendas and tensions between ‘soft voices’ of video producers from the bush communities and the ‘loud voices’ those based along the eastern seaboard There is a lack of understanding of the media-related practices of policy advocates and policy managers.

p. 60) suggests the public sector needs ‘a During 1984 for the first time in Australian different set of structures, principles and policymaking history, Indigenous people values to support collaborative were consulted over their preferred arrangements, both within government and communication needs. And ironically, two also with external partners and citizens’. separate inquiries operated in parallel — She has urged the development of a more Out of the Silent Land, supported jointly by ‘citizen-centred’ environment to improve the departments of Aboriginal Affairs and governance processes which include the Communications and Aboriginal Use of possibility for greater exchanges of AUSSAT, commissioned by AUSSAT personnel between the government and the (Wilmott, 1984; Walsh, 1984). Both private and community sectors (Edwards, recommended Indigenous control of their 2010, p. 61). own media production processes, with the Walsh report going into considerable detail A preference for hard research data — in on how the satellite might be configured as particular, quantitative studies — by a consultative model to facilitate Indigenous government policymakers places the access (Walsh, 1984). However, only the Indigenous media environment in an recommendations of the Wilmott report invidious position. All of the available were adopted by the federal government, research into Indigenous media processes leading to the eventual rollout of the and practice is qualitative — there are few, Broadcasting for Remote Aboriginal if any, numbers involved. It presents Communities Scheme (BRACS) in 1987. policymakers with the challenging task of Many commentators and participants have making sense of ‘values’ rather than relying observed that BRACS was set up to fail, on ‘evidence’ in a narrow sense (Marston & based on a deliberate strategy to provide a Watts, 2003, p. 158). Ramirez’ (2001; 2007) cheap, low-quality package of research into the use of information and communication equipment with no communication technologies in Native provision for training or maintenance, in communities in northern Canada reaches a accordance with perceived ministerial similar conclusion. He argues for the expectations (Molnar & Meadows, 2001; integration of economic and social Westerway, 2005, p. 238). As Featherstone development goals in the policymaking (2011a) observes: ‘It was like a white process but admits there appears to be no elephant … and we see this a lot in set mechanism for ‘policy learning and communities: capital funding but no adaption’. funding to make it work with the support needed’. Indigenous media policy moments 1988– 2008 An Indigenous broadcasting policy Indigenous media in Australia continues to Initiated within the Department of evolve in a policy vacuum. Despite efforts in Aboriginal Affairs (DAA) in 1989, an the 1980s and early 1990s to develop a internal discussion paper flagged the first policy framework — guidelines were review of Aboriginal and Torres Islander actually published in 1993 (ATSIC, 1993) — broadcasting. Significantly, the opening there is no current template from which the paragraph stated what it described as ‘an policymaking process appears to draw. over-riding policy consideration’ since the Plans to launch Australia’s first election of the Whitlam Labor government communications satellite, AUSSAT, led to in 1975 (DAA, 1989, p. i): ‘The first premise several inquiries which identified is that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Indigenous concerns, although most did not Australians have a right to consultation and seek Indigenous input. The Satellite self determination in their own affairs.’ Program Services Inquiry in 1983 led to the eventual licensing of four Remote The social justice argument predominated Commercial Television Services (RCTS). throughout but it was the beginning of a One of these was Imparja Television. drawn out conflict with the Department of Transport and Communication (DOTAC).

The draft was sent to policymakers in industry insiders that the low-key process DOTAC and an amended version was adopted was a deliberate strategy by the returned to the Aboriginal broadcasting Minister to avoid attracting attention from section in DAA virtually stripped of social colleagues less enamoured by the potential justice issues. DAA staff redrafted the of a national Indigenous radio network. Five proposal — replacing social justice years later — in 2001 — the National elements — and sent it back to DOTAC. Indigenous News Service was launched, Resolution of the matter was delayed by the based in NIRS’ Brisbane studios. All of these formation of the Aboriginal and Torres achievements came about largely because of Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) in 1990 the lobbying power of NIMAA and its and, in August 1991, a ‘substantially reliance on the existence of clear revised’ joint discussion paper was released Indigenous broadcasting policy principles. (Paton, 1989; 1990; ATSIC & DOTAC, 1991). It acknowledged six key grounds for the Indigenous television policy debates case for Indigenous broadcasting: equity In May 1997, ATSIC commissioned the first considerations; efficiency of full-scale review of Indigenous media in communication; cultural preservation and Australia. It was the first time that media growth; enhanced self-image; training and other than broadcasting were included, employment opportunities; and educational based on NIMAA’s five defined Indigenous needs (ATSIC & DOTAC, 1991, pp. 9-15). media sub-sectors: BRACS, radio, film and With ATSIC back in control of the process, television, print and multimedia in January 1993, its Infrastructure Branch (Indigenous Management Australia, 1998, released a review report and a six-page p. 2). Undertaken by Indigenous Media draft Indigenous broadcasting policy Australia, headed by academic and (ATSIC, 1993). By the end of the year, the consultant Dr Helen Molnar, the final report six-page document had been accepted as — Digital dreaming — was submitted to the first Indigenous broadcasting policy ATSIC in June 1998. The review team guidelines. Social justice elements featured carried out extensive community strongly in the document along with a consultations across Australia and urged recommendation to support a new industry ATSIC to read Digital dreaming in concert peak body — the National Indigenous with two parallel reviews carried out at the Media Association of Australia (NIMAA) same time: The BRACS report, compiled by (ATSIC, 1993). Until its demise in long-time community media producer Neil September 2001, NIMAA steered the Turner; and Our culture, our future: Indigenous broadcasting sector through proposals for the recognition and protection sometimes troubled waters but achieved of Indigenous cultural and intellectual some significant advances using the basic property by Terri Janke. Digital dreaming tenets of the 1993 Indigenous broadcasting alone compiled a massive volume of policy as guiding principles. One month qualitative and quantitative data about the after NIMAA’s abolition, the Indigenous Indigenous media sector and ran to more Remote Communications Association than 500 pages. ATSIC declined to publish (IRCA) was formed to represent the the full report, arguing that it was ‘too interests of bush broadcasters. The emotional’ in style. Following strong remainder of the sector had to wait until the lobbying from sector representatives and formation of the Australian Indigenous the consultants, ATSIC eventually agreed to Communications Association (AICA), two publish an edited version and, eleven years later. months after the original review was Drawing from the basic principles of the submitted, the only published version of the 1993 Indigenous broadcasting policy, report — edited by experienced Aboriginal Affairs Minister Robert Tickner policymaker Peter Westerway — was encouraged and oversaw the introduction released (ATSIC, 1999). There were 130 of the National Indigenous Radio Service recommendations including acceptance of (NIRS) in 1996. It has been suggested by the crucial principle that Indigenous media

provided communities with a first level of representatives from across the sector were service. That critical point was reiterated in involved, differences between the ‘soft 2000 by a Productivity Commission inquiry voices’ (the bush broadcasters) and the into broadcasting in Australia. The ‘loud voices’ of urban and regional based commission report also acknowledged that producers soon emerged. Discussions over Indigenous media in Australia was what format the proposed NITV would take providing a cultural bridge between tended to divide participants along cultural Indigenous and non-Indigenous audiences. lines. Although ICTV was the pioneer of Perhaps most tellingly, it was the first Indigenous television in Australia, it was public acknowledgement of the existence of being asked to move aside because an Indigenous media sector as a significant policymakers in the Department of Australian cultural industry (Productivity Communication, Information Technology Commission, 2000). and the Arts (DCITA) had decided that there would be just one national Indigenous By 2002, ATSIC had endorsed a key television channel in Australia. Claims by recommendation of the Digital dreaming some that ICTV productions were report to establish a national broadcasting technically inferior and therefore model. Within two years, the commission unsuitable for broadcast on a national was disbanded by a conservative federal television service further deepened existing government and Indigenous broadcasting divisions. When Communications Minister policy was again thrown into chaos. An ill- Helen Coonan announced $48.5 million for conceived review of the sector in 2006 the development of NITV over four years, essentially relegated Indigenous the writing was on the wall for ICTV broadcasting to a 70s development model, (Coonan, 2005). Policymakers made it clear ignoring the thousands of hours of to Indigenous video producers at several innovative video production, particularly by heated meetings that they could take it or membership of IRCA. leave it — there was no room to In fact, Indigenous media organisations in compromise over a single television some remote communities — Yuendumu channel. and Ernabella — had been experimenting This was one historic policy moment in with video since the late 1970s. Yuendumu Indigenous media development that did began the first unlicensed ‘pirate’ television attract some media coverage, albeit muted broadcasts in April 1985 and ‘invented’ a and primarily online. The then general genre of video related to traditional cultural manager of IRCA, Frank Rijavec, published norms (Michaels, 1986). Policymaking an open letter to Senator Coonan, around community television — condemning the displacement of ICTV, particularly in remote Indigenous prompting Noel Pearson to weigh in with communities — was non-existent and his own critique of NITV being irrelevant to would be absent for almost a decade. viewers (Rijavec, 2007; Taylor & Gosch, Following the example set by video 2007; Pearson, 2007). A few days later, producers at Yuendumu and Ernabella Pearson’s comments were refuted by (now known as Umuwa), other bush Imparja chairman Owen Cole, Indigenous communities began to take up the new Film Australia chair Rachel Perkins, and medium. By 2001, the newly-formed IRCA IRCA board member Patsy Mudgedell had organised the first Indigenous (Australian online, 31 July 2007, ‘Response Community Television broadcasts. The to Noel Pearson’s editorial, “More Uncle entity, called ICTV, remains viable today Toms than meet the eye”’; Australian (Rogers, 2009; Featherstone, 2012). Associated Press, 31 July 2007, ‘Indigenous Tensions between video producers from the TV boss blasts Noel Pearson’). bush communities and those based along Despite last minute attempts to re-open the the eastern seaboard were exacerbated by debate, ICTV was taken off the air on 12 July the establishment of a national Indigenous 2007. The following day, NITV began television working group in 2004. Although broadcasting although available only on

channel 31 in regional Australia and pay Departmental staff in key positions seem to television in urban areas. The haste with move regularly, meaning community media which NITV was launched meant it had managers have to constantly ‘train’ new virtually no free-to-air delivery mechanism incumbents. The ephemeral nature of the for most Australians. It was not until policymaking process is not confined to November 2012 that NITV moved to SBS Indigenous media (Hart, 2011). As and was at last available as a free-to-air Westerway (2005, p. 290) observes: service. ‘Canberra is awash with the ephemera of policymaking.’ However, the specialised Negotiations between ICTV and NITV over nature of the sector with its extraordinary bush program access collapsed in 2008 and cultural diversity makes it a difficult the innovative bush community television portfolio to understand for someone with service decided to go it alone, re-launching no background in Indigenous affairs and/or as an online entity in July 2008. Nine media. Overall, there is a perception that months later, ICTV launched Indigtube — public sector staff have an ignorance of like an Indigenous YouTube — with a range Indigenous cultural complexity with all but of video programs produced by various a handful reluctant to engage with bush communities available for viewing. In communities on the ground (Rennie & the same year, ICTV negotiated regional Featherstone, 2008; Featherstone, 2011a). distribution in the Pilbara–Kimberley region through the Westlink satellite It appears, too, that departmental service. In November 2012, ICTV re- policymakers often find it difficult to place launched on a digital television channel for Indigenous representatives into the policy remote and regional audiences. Despite the process. From the communities’ prevailing preference to mainstream perspective, there is no opportunity for Indigenous television in Australia, ICTV may input when the process remains top-down eventually be accessible to audiences (Featherstone, 2011a). Consultations tend around the country. Initially, however, its to become advice about decisions already reach is confined to viewers of existing made rather than seeking expert opinion on satellite television networks (Featherstone, how a particular policy decision might be 2012). better framed. A perceived absence of political will to Responses to the policy process engage meaningfully with Indigenous media I suppose it was all done for money and policy is widespread across the sector. power and the people that ended up Despite Australia being a signatory to the with the buck didn’t have the real United Nations declaration on the rights of passion to achieve what we did with Indigenous people to access all forms of ICTV. The strength of how it happened relevant media, Indigenous media policy was maybe the small budget. We really remains on the margins — its crucial ability achieved the unachievable without the to access audiences that ignore other forms dollar. So it was built with passion and of communication seems to have escaped hard work. (Rogers, 2009) politicians and policymakers alike (Villaflor, The struggle by Indigenous people for 2011). Perceptions by politicians that there access to media that accurately reflects are no votes in Indigenous media are their lives and their life experiences seriously misplaced. continues. Although the two case studies I Within the Indigenous media sector, there is have included here are limited in scope, a general lack of understanding on how they reveal some key challenges facing government operates: decision-making participants in the Indigenous media appears to be arbitrary making it extremely policymaking process. difficult, if not impossible, to predict when A lack of continuity in departmental particular ‘policy moments’ occur. representation remains a serious concern Policymakers acknowledge the existence of for Indigenous broadcasting personnel. political pressures within the broadcasting

sector generally, which sometimes hamper Despite the best preparation in the world, their ability to pursue a particular policy the process hinges on ‘the X factor’. As one trajectory. They argue that policymaking senior policy adviser wryly observed (Hart, processes and outcomes must necessarily 2011): ‘The stars have to be aligned.’ It is a be broadly-based, beyond important ideas salutary observation but it is the way policy such as social justice. They argue that works (R. Ashe (former director, personalities and relationships are community broadcasting section, important dimensions — ‘loud’ voices Department of Communication and the versus ‘soft’ voices. It adds another variable Arts) 2011, pers. comm., 30 August). The to the equation, which complicates the acting CEO of AICA, George Villaflor, agrees process beyond simply responding to a (2011): It’s all about timing.’ He argues for a discussion paper. Communities or return to ‘source documents’ — the United organisations trying to participate in the Nations declaration of the rights of policymaking process need a ‘friend at Indigenous peoples: ‘It should inform all court’ —someone within a department who policy as it means life and death for can promote ideas with a sound base of Aboriginal people.’ knowledge and understanding of the issues involved (R. Ashe (former director, Conclusions community broadcasting section, The uncertainty of policymaking in general, Department of Communication and the coupled with the institutional specifics of Arts) 2011, pers. comm., 30 August; Hart, the Indigenous media sector, make it a 2011). difficult process to define. The vagaries of Senior departmental policy advisers the policy decisions that have shaped the acknowledge that the imperative within the Indigenous media sector are testament to Indigenous media sector is for negotiations this. A continuing absence of to be carefully paced. Former director of acknowledgement of the special place of community broadcasting in the Department Indigenous languages and cultures in the of Communications, Ruth Ashe observes, Australian Broadcasting Services Act ‘It’s all about the conversation. Non- remains an outstanding policy obstacle. As Indigenous people are only just coming to Westerway (2005, p. 272) observes: ‘Major grips with that now. It’s got to be done policy change minimally demands sustained slowly.’ But she and other policymakers application of political will.’ acknowledge that often there is no time to It seems important to acknowledge that do this with timetables being set by other every policy decision has multiple departmental or political agenda. perspectives. All participants must Policymakers’ advice to organisations acknowledge the nature of the ‘game’, both seeking to participate more meaningfully is in terms of the political will for change and to have several projects on the table at any differences within the sector. The evidence one time. If organisations are able to of innovation from across the Indigenous develop draft proposals relevant to media sector suggests a need to ‘make space communities’ needs — and aligned with for all parties to disagree and experiment’ current global, national and local trends — (Featherstone, 2011b). We can all learn then the likelihood of a positive response is from past experiences: history enables us to far greater (R. Ashe (former director, orient ourselves to a future. Genuine community broadcasting section, negotiation involving all stakeholders (as Department of Communication and the opposed to a cursory consultation after a Arts) 2011, pers. comm., 30 August; Hart, decision is made) must be integral to the 2011). Another strategy suggested by process. The complexities involved make several interviewees is to consider pooling this perhaps the most challenging aspect of resources with other like-minded agencies Indigenous policymaking in general but the to strengthen a proposal. lack of dialogue between policymakers and sector representatives is acute (Featherstone, 2011a). Adopting

approaches that do work — for example, Bennett, Tony (1989). ‘Culture: theory and aligning meetings with existing community policy’, Media Information Australia, 53: 9- cultural events — might encourage more 11. effective participation by stakeholders. DCITA (2007). Report on the review of the The sector itself has to engage with broader Indigenous Broadcasting Program. policy arguments. Hart (2011) observes Canberra. that there is a tension between the Department of Aboriginal Affairs (1989). Indigenous media sector’s claim to a first Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander level of service as well as being a cultural Broadcasting Policy Review draft report. bridge and she concludes: ‘Now that everything has become a niche, how does Department of Canadian Heritage (2012). the Indigenous sector position itself in the Northern Native Broadcasting funding new environment? The whole way of allocations 2011-2012. thinking about Indigenous policy needs to Edwards, M. (2005). ‘Social science research change.’ and public policy: narrowing the divide’, Although drawing from his experiences in Australian Journal of Public Administration, working with Native communities in 64(1): 68-74. northern Canada, Ramirez suggests some Edwards, M. (2010) ‘Making research more important dimensions to consider. He relevant to policy: evidence and argues that there is a critical need for the suggestions’, in G. Bammer (Ed). Bridging process to include negotiations of the ‘know–do’ gap: knowledge brokering to ‘worthiness’ (Ramirez, 2007). Ramirez improve child wellbeing. Canberra: ANU e- (2007) reminds us, too, that no single actor press. Retrieved on 22 Octover 2012 from holds the key to success — an observation http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j that suggests that public policymaking is &q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCc too important to be left to policymakers QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fepress.anu.ed alone. u.au%2Fwp- content%2Fuploads%2F2010%2F08%2Fpr References eliminary.pdf&ei=e_uEUJ7HLe2PiAfI4oDYC Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander w&usg=AFQjCNGw6ii- Commission (1993). Aboriginal and Torres QorulEkMTD5qMfkNATZeqA (accessed 22 Strait Islander Broadcasting Policy: Review October 2012). report and draft policy statement. Featherstone, D. (2011a), General manager Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander IRCA, personal communication, Canberra, Commission (1999). Digital Dreaming: A 26 September. national review of Indigenous media and Featherstone, D. (2011b). ‘The communications — executive summary. Ngaanyatjarra Lands telecommunications Canberra: Aboriginal and Torres Strait project: a quest for broadband in the Islander Commission. Western desert’, Telecommunications Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Journal of Australia, 61(1): 1-25. Commission and Department of Transport Featherstone, D. (2012) General manager and Communication (1991). Aboriginal and IRCA, personal communication, Brisbane, Torres Strait Islander Broadcasting 23 October. discussion paper. Forde, S., Foxwell, K. & Meadows, M. (2009). Aboriginal People’s Television Network Developing dialogues: Indigenous and ethnic (2012). Annual report. community broadcasting in Australia. Althaus, C., Bridgman, P. & Davis, G (2007). London: Intellect; Chicago: University of The Australian policy handbook. St Chicago Press. Leonards: Allen and Unwin. Garrett, P. (2010). ‘$15 million investment in the continuation of NITV’, media release

by the Minister for Environment Protection, technologies: a Canadian exploration’, Heritage and the Arts, 17 October. Telecommunications Policy, 25(5), 315-330. Hart, B. (2011). Senior government policy Ramirez, R. (2007) ‘Appreciating the adviser across a wide range of departments, contribution of broadband ICT with rural personal communication, Canberra, 30 and remote communities: stepping stones August. toward an alternative paradigm’, The Information Society, 23, 85-94. Indigenous Management Australia (1998). Digital dreaming: a national review of Rennie, E. & Featherstone, D. (2008). ‘‘The Indigenous media and communications. potential diversity of things we call TV”: Unpublished report. Canberra: ATSIC. Indigenous community television, self- determination and NITV’, Media Maori Television (2012). Annual report. International Australia, 129: 52-66. Marston, G. & Watts, R. (2003). ‘Tampering Rijavec, F. (2007). ‘Careless, Crude and with the evidence: a critical appraisal of Unnecessary: The launch of NITV over the evidence-based policy-making’, The drawing body of ICTV’, Open letter to Senator Helen board: an Australian review of public affairs, Coonan, 12 July. 3(3): 143-163. Rogers, Will (2009) Personal Meadows, M. (2010) ‘Conducting communication, email 18 August. conversations: exploring the audience- producer relationship in Indigenous media Taylor, P. & Gosch, E. (2007). ‘Pearson research’, Observatorio, 4(4): 307-324. turned off by TV station’, Australian online, 28 July. Meadows, M. et al. (2007) Community media matters: an audience study of the Australian Villaflor, G. (2011). Acting CEO AICA, community broadcasting sector. Brisbane: personal communication, 30 August. Griffith University. Westerway, P. (2005). A thousand thousand Michaels, E. (1986). Aboriginal invention of campfires: policy change and Aboriginal Television Central Australia 1982-1985. broadcasting in Australia 1967-1990. PhD Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal thesis. Sydney: University of Sydney. Studies. Willmot, E. (1984). Out of the silent land. Molnar, H. & Meadows, M. (2001). Songlines Canberra: Australian Government to satellites: Indigenous communication in Publishing Service. Australia, the South Pacific and Canada. Leichhardt: Pluto Press. NZ on Air (2011). Annual report. Paton, S. (1989) Personal communication, Indigenous Broadcasting, Department of Aboriginal Affairs, Canberra, December. Paton, S. (1990). Personal communication, Indigenous broadcasting, ATSIC Canberra, December. Pearson, N. (2007). ‘More Uncle Toms than meet the eye’, Australian online, 27 July. Productivity Commission (2000). Broadcasting, Report no. 11. Canberra: Ausinfo. Ramirez, R. (2001) ‘A model for rural and remote information and communication

Media Perspectives

Indigenous health reporting 1988–2008 (derived from the Media & Indigenous Policy database)

Aboriginal Health Articles Sydney Morning Herald

300 140

250 120

200 100

150 80

100 60

50 40

0 20 1988 1989 1994 1995 2002 2003 2006 2007 0 Australian Courier Mail Sydney Morning Herald 1988 1989 1994 1995 2002 2003 2006 2007

Aboriginal Health Articles - 2003 Aboriginal Health Articles - 2006

40 40

35 35

30 30

25 25

20 20

15 15

10 10

5 5

0 0 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Australian Courier-Mail Australian Courier-Mail Sydney Morning Herald Sydney Morning Herald

Aboriginal Health Articles Aboriginal spokespeople Sydney Morning Herald 14

12 40 35 10

30 8

25 6

20 4

15 2 10 0 5 2002 2003 2006 2007 2002 2003 2006 2007 2002 2003 2006 2007 0 Australian Courier Mail Sydney Morning Herald Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Noel Pearson Lowitja O'Donoghue Mick Dodson

2002 2003 2006 2007 Pat Anderson Pat Dodson

Topics - Australian - 2002 Topics - Australian - 2007

Indigenous health standards Child health

Medical services - Indigenous … Intervention

Child health Alcohol & drugs

Violence Indigenous health standards

Alcohol & drugs Living conditions

State politics Violence

Federal politics Women's health

Indigenous politics Disease

Health funding Health funding

Medical services - mainstream Medical services - mainstream

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 0 50 100 150 200

Topics - Courier Mail - 2002 Topics - Courier Mail - 2007

Living conditions Child health

Indigenous health standards Alcohol & drugs

Alcohol & drugs Intervention

Health funding Indigenous health standards

Medical services - Indigenous … Living conditions

Child health Violence

Violence Disease

State politics Suicide

Indigenous politics Women's health

Women's health Health funding

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 0 10 20 30 40

Topics - Sydney Morning Herald - Topics - Sydney Morning Herald - 2002 2007

Health funding Child health Indigenous health standards Indigenous health …

Living conditions Health funding

Child health Living conditions Federal politics Alcohol & drugs Alcohol & drugs Federal department of health Medical services - … Medical services - Indigenous … Violence Federal politics Federal department of … Disease State politics Violence Medical services - …

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Framing Indigenous Health, 1988–1995

Kerry McCallum

This essay documents how the story of implementation of the NAHS. A Indigenous health was told between 1988 remarkable policy shift in 1995 saw and 1995 by The Sydney Morning Herald responsibility for Aboriginal health (SMH) newspaper, and how news transferred from ATSIC to the newly reporting provided a backdrop for a series established OATSIH, located within the of dramatic shifts in Indigenous health ‘mainstream’ Commonwealth Department policy. Historical news frame analysis of Human Services and Health. captures both the enduring and changing nature of reporting of Indigenous health Reporting Indigenous health 1988–1995 in Australia. As Australia’s oldest The way an issue is framed in news media metropolitan newspaper, the Herald has coverage has been found to influence paid only intermittent attention to political agendas, reflect elite agendas and Indigenous issues, most commonly when highlight the public salience of an issue they have had national or local political (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989; Altheide, implications. The way Herald journalists 1997; Reese, 2007). The news framing chose to report Indigenous health news approach provides both a theory and a during the late 1980s and early 1990s methodology for the study of media was found to reflect the reporting of representation of policy issues. Frames Indigenous issues more generally, and are understood to be the ‘organising was found to be conducive to changes of principles that are socially shared and direction in Indigenous health policy. persistent over time, that work Two key policy moments mark this period symbolically to meaningfully structure the of Indigenous health policy: the launch of social world’ (Reese, 2007, p. 150). the National Aboriginal Health Strategy Framing studies typically start by (NAHS) in 1989, and the decision in 1995 analysing the volume, topics and sources to establish the Office of Aboriginal and in a sample of news content, before Torres Strait Islander Health (OATSIH). qualitatively analysing news texts to The NAHS was commissioned by the identify the dominant, counter and Hawke Labor government in 1987 and contested frames, and the wider cultural endorsed by state and territory discourses at play in the reporting of an governments in 1989. The NAHS was a issue (van Gorp, 2007). significant policy statement on Indigenous This paper maps the features of health; it was the first attempt to assess Indigenous health news in The Sydney and co-ordinate the delivery of health Morning Herald through an analysis of all services to Australia’s Indigenous news reports about Indigenous health in populations, and was underpinned by a two time periods — 1988 1989 and philosophy of self-determination (NAHSWP, 1989). The strategy’s central 1994 1995. It identifies the major topics recommendation was the ‘adoption of and sources of news, and the dominant community controlled Aboriginal health frames through which Indigenous health services as the most appropriate service was represented in the SMH (see also type, and for the transfer of primary level McCallum, 2011). It documents and health services’ to Aboriginal Medical analyses direct media incursions into the Services (NAHSWP, 1989, p. 10). In a clear policymaking process in 1994 and 1995 statement in support of Indigenous self- and how these played into the decision to determination, the Commonwealth gave change the way Indigenous primary the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health care services were funded and Commission (ATSIC) responsibility for the delivered. These analyses shed light on

the practices of journalism and 1988–89 Dominant news sources: policymaking by documenting both the Politicians (47) enduring and shifting framing of Police/court (38) Indigenous health in public discourse. The 1994–1995 Dominant news sources: paper demonstrates how news media Politicians (59) Medical experts (39) provides the discursive conditions for sometimes radical, dramatic and While mapping exercises can provide controversial policy decisions on useful baseline data to understand the important national issues. reporting of Indigenous health and its relationship to health policy, close Analyses of health news have found that analysis of the framing of Indigenous Indigenous health receives little coverage health news is needed to develop a more compared with other health stories precise picture of how journalists (Sweet, 2009, p. 1) and with other reported on the issue. The following Indigenous news (Roberts, 2008). But analysis of health news stories in 1988– qualitative studies of media reporting 89 and 1994–95 identifies news frames have found that the way Indigenous used by journalists in their reporting of health is reported has greater discursive Indigenous health and related policy significance than quantitative content issues, and how these frames were analysis would suggest. Australian news sponsored and promoted by policy actors. media has been found to represent Indigenous Australians negatively, as Frame 1: Indigenous health crisis problematic to the mainstream, and to reinforce dominant stereotypes Indigenous health was most likely to be (Jakubowizc, 1994; Mickler, 1998;, reported through the dominant frame of Meadows, 2001). Brough (1999) and the Indigenous health crisis. In both 1988– McCallum (2010) found that media 89 and 1994–95, stories about Aboriginal framing of Indigenous health in news health standards and living conditions media contributes to representing were the most frequent topic of news Indigenous health as a policy problem stories. Analysis of news headlines requiring radical policy action (see also (McCallum, 2011) demonstrated that, in Bacchi, 2009). 1988-89, coverage of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Media items were chosen to reflect the Custody (RCIADIC) generated most news broad discussion of Indigenous health stories concerning Aboriginal health. Five issues between 1988 and 1995. Analysis years later, the Indigenous health crisis included all reports concerning remained the most prominent frame for Indigenous health from the SMH in reporting Indigenous health. While the 1988 89 and 1994 95. The number of RCIADIC was no longer a source of news, Indigenous health news stories, the government and academic statistical dominant topics, sources of news and reports continued to provide journalists spokespeople were coded in the Media with news about the disparity between and Indigenous Policy database. life expectancy of Indigenous and non- 1988–1989 202 health news stories Indigenous Australians, as demonstrated 1994–1995 158 health news stories by the following headlines:

1988–1989 Major topics: Aboriginal infant deaths are double Living conditions (101) national rate (SMH, 17 November Health standards (69) 1988, p. 13) 1994–1995 Major topics: When life is 17 years shorter’ (SMH, Health funding (78 stories) 28 April 1994, p. 11) Living conditions (64 stories) Health standards (58 stories) The Indigenous health crisis was the central frame when the Minister for Health, Senator Graham Richardson,

toured Northern Territory communities Frame 3: Policy failure in 1994 with an entourage of journalists. Richardson gave the crisis story A third news frame evident in much prominence, particularly when he reporting of Indigenous health was policy promised that the federal government failure. Stories generated by the RCIADIC would provide $800 million to ‘fix’ the of appalling living conditions in Aboriginal health crisis to ‘right a horrible Aboriginal communities also highlighted wrong’. the policy priorities of local and state governments that denied basic facilities to Frame 2: Australia’s shame Aboriginal communities. The following headline provides an example: While the Indigenous health crisis was the Officials partly to blame, say Blacks dominant and enduring lens through (SMH, 12 April 1988, p. 9) which Aboriginal health was understood, in 1988–89, news stories about Aboriginal In contrast to earlier media framing of the living conditions and health standards issue, virtually every story in 1994–95 were also likely to be framed as was reported through a frame of policy Australia’s shame (Brough, 1999). failure. Media reports reinforced that it Reflecting political discourse around the was the responsibility of state and federal Bicentenary of Federation, journalists in governments to address the crisis in 1988–89 tended to blame the crisis on a Indigenous health. An evaluation of the history of dispossession, racial NAHS (NAHSWP, 1994) found that discrimination and disadvantage, and governments at all levels had essentially contemporary systems of justice and ignored the recommendations of the government marked by institutional and report and that Indigenous health individual racism towards Indigenous remained under-funded. This report Australians. A January 1988 editorial received significant attention from SMH about Australia’s bicentenary celebrations journalists, as it fed into the policy failure attributed health standards to past racist frame. policies: Shantytown that shames politicians, Aborigines have suffered bureaucrats (SMH, 30 April 1994, p. 6) dispossession, the destruction of their Aboriginal health policy is a flop, culture and racial discrimination committee admits (SMH, 24 (SMH, 4 January 1988, p. 8, ‘The year December 1994, p. 4) of black protest’). Report damns black health system By 1994, however, few news stories in the (SMH, 13 January 1995. p. 3) SMH were told through the lens of Australia’s shame. By 1995 the failure of Indigenous health policy had become the story of Aboriginal health. Throughout 1994–95 the SMH relentlessly pursued the story of the

KEY POINTS The SMH paid intermittent attention to Indigenous health between 1988 and 1995, but reported through a narrow range of news frames. The decision to remove responsibility for Indigenous health from ATSIC to OATSIS in 1995 was played out through news media, with a range of policy actors sponsoring particular issue frames. The dominant and enduring framing of Indigenous health as a crisis, Failure of Government Policy, and Failure of Indigenous leadership was conducive to the decision to ‘mainstream’ Indigenous health in 1995.

failure of the Commonwealth Government inevitable erosion of public to adequately deal with Indigenous confidence … (SMH, 25 May 1989, health, as demonstrated by the following p. 14, editorial). headline: Frame 5: Failure of Indigenous Aboriginal Health Strategy “has leadership failed” (SMH, 24 April 1995, p. 2). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander In 1988–89 there was little focus on the Social Justice Commissioner Mick Dodson role of Aboriginal leaders in health launched a scathing attack on government services, but by 1994 stories of policy failure in his 1994 report, using the corruption, dysfunction and financial Aboriginal health crisis frame to engage ineptitude in ATSIC were common in the the media. The perception of failure of SMH. The institutionalisation of self- government over Indigenous health policy determination policy through ATSIC was exacerbated when Minister provided journalists with a lens through Richardson resigned without securing his which to report all Indigenous issues, promised $800 million in funding for including Indigenous health. By 1995 a Indigenous health. coalition of voices called for the removal of health responsibility from ATSIC Frame 4: Individual blame (Anderson & Whyte 2006). ATSIC: a floundering masterstroke Stories highlighting the national (SMH, 29 November 1995, p. 9). responsibility for the Aboriginal health crisis were juxtaposed against stories that A counter-frame was provided by attributed health problems to the deviant Aboriginal spokesperson, Noel Pearson, behaviour of individuals. SMH journalists from Cape York Land Council. Pearson reporting on Indigenous health, alcohol weighed in on ATSIC’s failure to manage and drug misuse adopted the frame of Indigenous health, but ultimately laid the individual blame. Brough (1999) and blame with the federal government when McCallum (2010) found that news stories he famously said: about alcohol and drug abuse in To land ATSIC with the stinking dead Aboriginal communities tended to cat of Aboriginal health is just unfair reinforce a neo-liberal discourse of (SMH, 8 February 1995, p. 5, ‘Warning individual responsibility. For example, a on black health funds’). series of reports from the RCIADIC in December 1988 focused on the role of Frame 6: Medical hero alcohol abuse and the need for Aboriginal people to ‘take responsibility’ for As the focus on remote Indigenous health addictive behaviours, as demonstrated by increased, some SMH journalists sought the following headline: out stories about the medical professionals and the administrators of Alcoholism among blacks “must be Aboriginal Medical Services. These stories stamped out” (SMH 15.12.88:9). adopted a medical hero frame as they The SMH typically used ‘public opinion’ to reported on the role that health workers justify its argument that, despite the played in tackling the Indigenous health evidence of the RCIADIC, it was the crisis on the front line. They also responsibility of Indigenous Australians highlighted the importance of Indigenous to change their behaviour, as spelled out self-determination in the delivery of in the article headlined ‘Law, order and health services. Throughout 1994 and hope in Redfern’: 1995 the medical hero frame was contrasted with the failure of political If Aborigines do not share the leaders, Indigenous leaders and responsibility for ending violence and bureaucrats on Indigenous health, with disorder in Redfern, they will have to share the consequences of an headlines such as:

An Australian disgrace: Filthy lives, News media framing of Indigenous health early deaths and a car boot clinic as a political story of policy failure — by (SMH, 8 February 1995, p. 5). both Indigenous and federal leadership — can be seen to have intensified the Health reporting and health policy pressure on governments to solve this This overview of how The Sydney Morning ‘wicked’ policy problem (Blood et al. Herald reported on Indigenous health 2008; McCallum, 2010). A range of policy between 1988 and 1995 provides some actors, including Health Minister valuable insights for our broader project Richardson, Mick Dodson, Brendan exploring the relationships between Nelson and Noel Pearson, capitalised on media and policy. Journalists at the SMH their public profiles by providing drew on a range of news frames to tell the journalists with news stories and focusing story of Aboriginal health. Indigenous attention on the Indigenous health crisis. health crisis, Australia’s shame, individual Particularly in 1994–95, when the federal responsibility, policy failure, failure of parliamentary press gallery was intensely Indigenous leadership, and medical hero engaged with the controversy over frames provided news audiences and administrative responsibility for policymakers with contested ways of Indigenous health, pressure group understanding the Indigenous health advocates used the media strategically to story. focus political attention on the problems of Aboriginal health and to affect policy The essay documents a significant shift in change. This finding accords with Herbst the way the SMH framed Indigenous (1998) who found that policy actors both health between 1988 and 1995. While the sponsored particular frames and ‘read’ Indigenous health crisis and failure of news framing of policy disputes, government policy news frames have suggesting a complex interplay of endured as lenses through which to tell influence between journalists’ and the story of Indigenous health, other sources’ framing of policy issues. But the frames have risen and fallen in ultimate policy decision, to remove prominence, reflecting shifts in broader responsibility for Indigenous health and political and social discourse. In 1989 establish and fund OATSIH, did not Indigenous health was frequently framed necessarily reflect the substance of these as Australia’s shame and the result of news sponsors’ calls to increase support individual and institutional racism, but by for community-controlled health services. 1995 few stories were told this way. Their calls for policy change were Likewise, ‘good news’ stories of outback appropriated by media framing of medical heroes were marginalised in Indigenous health as a crisis and failure of media and political discourse. By 1994, government policy, ultimately contributing news reports about Aboriginal health in to the understanding that Indigenous the SMH increasingly tied the Indigenous health was both an intractable problem health crisis to the new issue frame of the and one that warranted a radical change failure of Indigenous leadership. Focus on in policy from self-determination to the ATSIC’s failure to deliver primary health mainstreaming of Indigenous health. services can be seen to have aligned with the decision to remove responsibility for References Indigenous health from ATSIC in 1995, and the ultimate demise of this Altheide, D. (1997) ‘The news media, the ‘experiment’ in Indigenous self- problem frame, and the production of determination. This finding also accords fear’, Sociological Quarterly, 38(4): 647– with Briggs and Hallin’s (2010) finding 69. that, for most metropolitan journalists, Anderson, I. (1997). ‘The National health is simply a non-issue until it Aboriginal Health Strategy’, in H. Gardiner becomes a political policy issue. (ed.), Health policy in Australia, pp. 119– 35. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Briggs, C. & Hallin, D. C. (2010). ‘Health NAHSWP (National Aboriginal Health reporting as political reporting: Strategy Working Party) (1989). A biocommunicability and the public National Aboriginal Health Strategy. sphere’, Journalism, 11 (2): 149-165. Canberra. Brough, M. (1999). ‘A lost cause? NAHSWP (1994). The National Aboriginal Representations of Aboriginal and Torres Health Strategy: an evaluation. Canberra: Strait Islander health in Australian AGPS. newspapers’, Australian Journal of Reese, S. (2007). ‘The framing project: a Communication, 26(2): 89–98. bridging model for media research Cunningham, J. & Baeza, J. (2005). ‘An revisited’, Journal of Communication, 57: “experiment” in Indigenous social policy: 148–54. the rise and fall of Australia’s Aboriginal Roberts, J. (2008). Analysis of the and Torres Strait Islander Commission representation of Indigenous Australians (ATSIC)’, Policy & Politics, 33(3): 461–73. in mainstream print media: An Gamson, W. & Modigliani, A. (1989). exploration centred on the social ‘Media discourse and public opinion on determinants of health. Honours thesis. nuclear power: a constructionist School of Public Health, La Trobe approach’, American Journal of Sociology, University, Melbourne. 95: 1–37. Sweet, M. (2009) ‘Is the media part of the Herbst, S. (1998). Reading public opinion: Aboriginal health problem, and part of the how political actors view the democratic solution?’, Inside Story, 3 March, retrieved process. Chicago: University of Chicago on 20 October 2010 from Press. http://inside.org.au. Jakubowicz, A. (ed.) (1994). Racism, van Gorp, B. (2007). ‘The constructionist ethnicity and the media. Sydney: Allen & approach to framing: bringing culture back Unwin. in’, Journal of Communication, 57: 60–78. McCallum, K (2010). ‘News and local talk: conversations about the “crisis of Indigenous violence’’ in Australia’, in S. * This paper is an edited version of McCallum, K. (2011). ‘Journalism and Indigenous Health policy’, Bird (ed.), The anthropology of news and Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2: 21-31. journalism, pp.151–67. Evansville: University of Indiana Press. McCallum, K. (2011). ‘Journalism and Indigenous health policy’, Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2: 21-31. Meadows, M. (2001). Voices in the wilderness: images of Aboriginal people in the Australian media. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Mickler, S. (1998). The myth of Privilege: Aboriginal status, media visions, public ideas. South Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Arts Centre Press. Murray, R. et al. (2003). ‘Aboriginal health and the policy process’, in S. Couzos & R. Murray (eds), Aboriginal primary health care: an evidence-based approach, pp.1– 37. Melbourne: Oxford.

Practice imperfect: media, discourse and intervention

Michelle Dunne Breen

Reporting of the Intervention before crisis, had a brief timeframe in which to enactment report on an emergency policy response provoked by an apparent crisis situation. From John Howard and Mal Brough’s announcement of the Northern Territory Media reporting in a crisis: through the Emergency Response (NTER or lens of critical discourse analysis Intervention) on 21 June 2007 and the enactment by Parliament on 18 August of Australia’s newspaper industry is the Northern Territory National operating in a resources vacuum. It is Emergency Response Act 2007, the reeling from losing to the online domain Australian media had a two-month the ‘rivers of gold’ revenue from classified timeframe in which to report on the advertising, and it has yet to establish a policy for the citizenry and analyse it for viable online business model. Print its merits and faults. journalism jobs are being lost at an accelerating pace. The journalists’ union, This essay explores the print media’s Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance reporting of the NTER from (MEAA), estimated that, from 2008 to announcement of this radical suite of November 2011, 700 positions had been policies to the enactment through cut from newspaper workforces around legislation. From this analysis it is evident Australia (MEAA, 2011) and that, over that at moments during the policy’s winter 2012 alone, 700 editorial jobs had development, many routine journalistic been lost at Fairfax and News Limited practices were not followed, with combined (Wilson & Cubby, 2012). consequences including that government ministers were unchallenged in making It is at times of policy crisis that the unsubstantiated or misleading claims. policymaking and broader communities are reliant on quality journalism. This analysis highlights some Although always important, fact-checking considerations around journalism — one of the routine practices central to practice that adversely affect the fair and ‘doing’ journalism — becomes absolutely equal representation of Aboriginal critical for journalists grappling with the Australians, in what is characterised as a meaning, origins and consequences of a crisis situation in our transitioning speedily evolving, unprecedented and newsrooms and, as a result, in our controversial policy. democracy. The media is commonly expected to Crisis has a dual meaning here. The perform a Fourth Estate role in a release of Little children are sacred: the democratic society: that is, to enable an report of the Northern Territory Board of informed citizenry and act as a watchdog Inquiry into the protection of Aboriginal on government. While it is arguable children from sexual abuse (2007) whether this ideal was ever a reality prompted then Prime Minister Howard anywhere at any time, it is demonstrable and Indigenous Affairs Minister Brough to that neither of these roles is being launch the NTER in response to what they adequately performed at this critical said was a crisis in NT Indigenous juncture for Australia’s newspaper communities. Meanwhile, media scholars industry. A vacuum exists in the and journalists have been characterising democratic process. Industrial pressures the ongoing print media industrial — including the dismissal of subeditors changes as a crisis in our newsrooms. who, as non-generators of copy, are seen Print journalists, whose industry is in by proprietors as an obvious target in a

cost-cutting climate — are central to this • as news-writing style guides require, crisis. use ‘the active voice’ in news reports — a minor but significant detail. This essay’s analysis seeks to bridge the gap between studies of representation Some critical instances of the breakdown through textual analysis and studies of of this routine journalism practice have news production and the structural been identified in the news reports of the constraints imposed by the political Intervention between announcement and economy of the newsroom. Norman enactment. The context and consequences Fairclough’s dialectical-relational critical are illuminating. discourse analysis (CDA) approach, which is a text-oriented discourse analysis, This essay focusses on one key policy argues that analysing the contexts of moment before the enactment of the texts’ production, as well as the texts intervention: the evolution of the child themselves, is necessary to understanding health checks. discourse, as texts are not produced in isolation (Fairclough, 1992). CDA is Mandatory child health checks: the employed here to look primarily at the moment of change news report, then the journalistic It is common practice in newsrooms to practices involved in its production, and monitor and incorporate the output of the wider cultural context. other media outlets, leading to the Through the textual analysis of news growing trend of ‘inter-institutional news reports about the NTER, with reference to consensus’ (Schudson, 2003, p. 109). This the social context of newsroom practices, gives rise to media outlets referencing and the wider cultural context, this essay each other in their reporting. Although shows that one particular aspect (among this essay’s research focuses on the print others) of the Northern Territory media, the print media itself references Emergency Response policy — i.e. the other platforms. In the examples given rollout of health checks for NT Aboriginal below, ABC News online, news agency children — was not adequately examined AAP, and broadcasters the Nine Network by the news media. and the ABC are referenced in both Fairfax and News Ltd newspapers. This Routine journalism practice is learned in practice is illuminated by the CDA the culture of the newsroom and concepts of intertextuality and discourse increasingly in the university classroom. chains (Fairclough, 1992), whereby These practices, indeed expectations of meaning is constructed and reinforced by news reporters, include that they: adoption and repetition. • get both sides of the story; Then Prime Minister John Howard • ask follow-up questions to, for announced in his speech launching the example, clarify statements or Northern Territory Emergency Response investigate claims; in 2007 that all Aboriginal children in the • check facts; Northern Territory would be subject to • make an attempt to understand the mandatory health checks. These checks context of what they are reporting on would include examination for sexual — i.e. they ‘join the dots’; abuse (‘Crusade to save Aboriginal kids — • hold those in authority to account; Howard declares “national emergency” to • in their quest for accountability, end abuse’, The Australian, 22 June 2007, attempt to get their sources on the p. 1). Following criticism from the record — i.e. that they use unnamed Australian Medical Association, among sources sparingly; others, that such compulsory examination • keep on top of a running story, would in itself constitute abuse, (e.g. knowing who has said what when; ‘Abuse checks could be assault: specialist’, • question inconsistencies in their SMH, 23 June 2007, p. 7), the government sources’ stories and statements; and

said that the health checks would actually are some benefits which are be ‘voluntary’ general health checks conditional on childhood without a sexual abuse examination — immunisation or an exemption that any suspicion of sexual abuse would certificate’, he told the Nine Network. be referred on. (‘Voluntary’ is deliberately ‘So there are different levels of in quotes here, as that aspect is open to compulsion, if you like, already question, see below.) existing in our system’. These claims were repeated in other ABC news online reported on 28 June media outlets — for example, in The 2007 that the health checks for children Sydney Morning Herald on 2 July 2007, might not be compulsory after all. under the headline ‘Medical checks: dole However, three days later, on 1 July, AAP cut warning’ (p. 4) reported that Health Minister Tony Abbott in an interview with the Nine Tony Abbott’s comparison to the Network raised the possibility of parents immunisation requirements is not losing benefits if their children did not explored in these reports. But this paper’s attend for the health checks: analysis of the context to this claim demonstrates that the then health [Abbott] raised the possibility of minister was giving a false impression, cutting off welfare payments to and was allowed to by the media who did indigenous parents who refuse to allow their children’s health to be not inquire into the immunisation policy checked. that Abbott draws on as a template for compulsion regarding the health checks. Prime Minister John Howard’s crackdown on indigenous child abuse It is not compulsory for a parent in in the Northern Territory was Australia to have their child immunised. intended to include ‘compulsory Abbott alludes to ‘an exemption health checks for all Aboriginal certificate’. Such an exemption is easily children’, but Mr Abbott last week obtained by any parent who fills out appeared to retreat from the Medicare’s one-page “Immunisation position. exemption conscientious objection form”, However, he moved on Sunday to which is freely available and which is just differentiate between imposing a signed statement of objection. It is clear financial penalties on uncooperative that immunising your child is a choice, the families, and legal compulsion ‘in the signed statement declaring: sense that a random breath test is compulsory’. I have a personal, philosophical, religious or medical belief involving a He gave the example of childhood conviction that vaccination under the immunisation being compulsory National Immunisation Program because parents lost benefits if their should not take place. On this basis, I children were not choose not to have my child immunised.‘Childhood immunisation immunised. is compulsory in the sense there is a modest payment for parents who (Immunisation Exemption have their kids immunised and there Conscientious Objection Form)

KEY POINTS The rollout of Intervention health checks on children was not adequately examined by the news media. Poor reporting was found to be due a combination of factors, including: Dwindling journalism resources due to the news industry crisis Failure to question information from government ministers Not following routine journalism practice, especially fact checking The media consistently underperforming in Indigenous reporting

A parent does not lose any benefits as a the checks was to uncover and treat result of opting out. Prior to July 2012, cases of abuse … there was a small payment made to the (‘Forced check-ups “would be parent of a child who was immunised assault”’, Australian, 2 July 2007, p. 4) (this was substantially increased in July These two news reports (the similarity 2012), but nothing is now or ever was suggesting the incorporation of a taken away. government press release and the One exception to the reporting of this was duplication, especially on the same page, in The Age (‘Abbott looks at compulsory going very much against good subediting health checks’, 2 July 2007, p. 2), which practice) distance the ‘Government’ from reported that in effect Abbott was offering the plan’s ‘architects’ — obscuring the a cash incentive to parents to have their reality that they were one and the same. children immunised — something very The Government was the plan’s architect: different from the scary spectre of welfare it was the Prime Minister and the cuts. However, even this report failed to Indigenous affairs minister who devised make clear that Abbott, regardless of his it. The effect of The Australian’s reporting intention, was being misleading. here is to distance the Government from its own criticised plan. There were two very interesting reports in The Australian on this issue on 2 July, The passive construction of the sentence, by two different journalists but containing that the plan ‘has been altered/modified very similar language and one message: significantly amid concerns’, erases the that the government was not imposing agency of who it was that has done the sexual health checks, and that it had not altering. This passive construction, which been its idea to do so in the first place. In is not normal journalistic practice for a the first report, spilling from page 1 onto news story, also serves to remove the page 4, under the headline ‘Welfare Government from the picture. penalty for bad parents’, Patricia Karvelas By 6 July (the example here is again from reported: The Australian, but other outlets were The plan to force children in reporting this too), the story had indigenous communities to undergo apparently evolved: parents who did not health checks has been altered amid allow their children to attend a health concerns that mandatory check would be subject to an investigation examinations could amount to about their Centrelink payments: assault. Indigenous parents who refuse to The Government has also backed allow medical inspections of their away from a claim by the architects of children under the Howard the plan that the aim of the checks Government crusade to stamp out was to uncover and treat cases of Aboriginal child abuse will face abuse … welfare checks. While on page 4 itself, Cath Hart reported: Health Minister Tony Abbott The plan to force children in Top End yesterday conceded the checks of all indigenous communities to undergo children younger than 16 in targeted compulsory health checks has been Northern Territory indigenous modified significantly amid concerns communities would be non- that mandatory examinations could compulsory and non-invasive. amount to assault. But The Australian has learned that The Howard Government has also the Government will subject parents backed away from a claim by the to stringent welfare checks if they architects of the plan that the aim of refuse to allow medical inspections of their children. Officials will also investigate children’s backgrounds for reports of previous abuse.

And sources last night said that if the on ABC News online the day that The checks led to reasonable suspicion Australian’s print report was published: that a child might be at risk, authorities could take the child into [Then prime minister] Mr Howard custody for 48 hours and impose a says that under the Federal medical check. Government's intervention program voluntary health checks for children News of the plan emerged after the will only be carried out with the Government confirmed it did not consent of parents or carers. have the power to require parents to submit their children for examination, He says it is a misunderstanding to saying checks would not be suggest that there will be any penalty compulsory. imposed on those who refuse the checks. ... ‘There’s no intention to have a special He [Mr Abbott] would not elaborate. penalty for Indigenous parents who But it is understood that where don’t allow their children to be parents rejected the examinations, medically checked’, he said. officials would put their welfare arrangements under close scrutiny. (‘PM denies health check-welfare restriction link’, ABC News, 6 July (‘Welfare threat over health test 2007) refusal’, 2007.) However, although now denied, the threat This reads as a threat or a scare tactic has been made. It has circulated and is (especially given the qualifiers stringent known. Such a threat would be a scary [welfare checks] and close prospect in a community with a large [scrutiny]).There was no policy link number of welfare recipients, such as in between child health check-ups and adult many remote Indigenous communities. welfare payments, whereby attendance at Furthermore, this news report’s indirect check-ups was required in order to construction itself is a very interesting continue to receive welfare payments. one, in that it erases agency: Whose (There was, however, such a policy link misunderstanding was it? Whose between school attendance and welfare suggestion? These questions are payments.) unexplored by the reporter. Note also that this report, as do other Where agency was erased in some reports on this day, relies upon reports, in another interesting case it was anonymous sources, pointing to an off- oddly imposed. Children were given little the-record briefing from a senior official, agency in the reports about the health perhaps even the minister himself: checks. This is not surprising as children, ‘sources said last night ...’; ‘News of the being minors, are not typically given plan emerged ...’; ‘it is understood that ...’ agency in news reports about policy The Australian journalists’ union’s (the initiatives — their participation would be MEAA) code of ethics states: subject to adults’ inclusion of them. An exception to this is noteworthy: Aim to attribute information to its source. Where a source seeks [Headline] Kids queueing for checks anonymity, do not agree without first No Aboriginal parents have refused to considering the source’s motives and allow their child to undergo a medical any alternative attributable examination four weeks into the source. (Media Alliance Code of Howard Government’s intervention Ethics, par. 3) into Northern Territory Aboriginal Not putting their name to a statement communities. serves a purpose for an unnamed source: …. it obscures the lines of accountability. The “To the best of my knowledge, no one claims or statements can be refuted easily has refused health checks”, Mr later. And that is exactly what happened Brough said yesterday. “Doctors and

medical teams are working flat out have been referred to child welfare and the kids keep coming.” authorities. (‘Kids queueing for checks’, ‘I’ve been told that those screenings Australian, 20 July 2007, p. 6) have led to a number of referrals to the child protection authority’, Mr The headline ‘Kids queueing for checks’ Howard told ABC TV. has the effect of erasing the adults’ role in bringing their children for health checks, ‘Whether that leads to police action, I and also has the effect of contrasting don't know. children’s alleged willingness with the ‘I also know that some of them have reported potential wariness of their led to further checking for sexually parents. (This also aligns with the overall transmitted diseases, the outcome for enthusiasm by The Australian for the those checks I do not at this stage know’. intervention demonstrated elsewhere in this report in the essay by Reid and (‘Intervention bill passes lower McCallum.) This implies an oppositional house’, AAP, 7 August 2007) relationship between the children and Ten days after that, on being questioned their parents — that by extension the about the results of the health checks, the parents do not have their children’s best taskforce commander Major General interests at heart. This can be understood David Chalmers said that no evidence of as a construction which has a long and sexual abuse had been uncovered and that sorrowful history in official government no allegations of abuse had been passed policies relating to Aboriginal Australians to the police: — the Stolen Generations, whereby About 850 indigenous children have children were routinely taken from their received health checks across the parents to be raised in institutions, being Northern Territory in the first phase the most widely known outcome. of the Howard Government’s intervention into Aboriginal In this news report, although the communities. introductory paragraph mentions the The operational commander of the adults’ role, it renders them passive with taskforce, Major General David the children active, and again puts them in Chalmers, revealed yesterday that the an oppositional relationship to one checks had uncovered a range of another. The double negative of the medical concerns, including high sentence construction is noteworthy in levels of dental problems and skin, this regard: “No Aboriginal parents have ear, nose and throat infections. refused to allow their child to undergo a But Major General Chalmers said he medical examination” could have been was not aware of health workers written positively instead — e.g. notifying authorities of any cases of “Aboriginal parents are taking their child sexual assault. No allegations of children for health checks.” abuse have been passed to Territory Eighteen days later, in response to police since the intervention began. criticism from former Northern Territory (‘Child health checks progressing’, The Labor MP John Ah Kit, a member of a Australian, 17 August 2007, p. 8) delegation of Aboriginal leaders, that the A small but significant element of this legislation amounts to “genocide”, John report is the use of the word ‘But’ at the Howard told the ABC television news (and beginning of the third paragraph. It sits at which is repeated here in an AAP report) the beginning of the sentence (which is in that the 500 health checks undertaken by itself grammatically incorrect, an odd this point have uncovered some evidence subediting oversight) and it does not refer of child abuse, including sexual abuse: to anything prior in the report as would Prime Minister John Howard said the be expected of its use. In critical discourse cases of some children examined analysis this is referred to as a trace: it is a trace of a previous report in this

discourse chain. It refers to a previous This research also aims to promote in claim that such abuse had been or would news reporting the fair and equal be uncovered. This previous claim is not representation of Aboriginal Australians referred to in the news report. and the forensic analysis of the issues and policies affecting them. Crisis reporting and journalism practice References Bringing this back to routine journalism practice in general, and fact-checking (by Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social both reporters and subeditors) in change. Cambridge: Polity Press. particular, as Sally White, in a widely used Finkelstein, R. (2012). Report of the journalism textbook Reporting In Independent Inquiry into the Media and Australia, under the subhead, ‘Verifying Media Regulation. Melbourne: Minister for Facts’, wrote, Broadband, Communications and the Information which seems doubtful Digital Economy. can be checked against other sources, either human or documentary. Immunisation Exemption Conscientious (White, 1996, p. 44.) Objection Form. Retrieved from http://www.humanservices.gov.au/spw/ This is basic, routine journalism practice. customer/forms/resources/immu12- This raises the question: Regarding the 0807en.pdf examples given above, on what count had practice fallen down? Was the McCallum, Kerry. (2011). ‘Journalism and information not ‘doubtful’ because it came indigenous health policy’. Australian from government ministers? Or was it not Aboriginal Studies, 2/2011: 21-31 doubtful because of the crisis in our Meadows, M. (2001). Voices in the newsrooms, where the dwindling ranks of wilderness: images of Aboriginal people in reporters and subeditors were having to the Australian media. Westport: do more work than before? Or was the Greenwood Press. information not doubtful because, as the research literature shows (e.g. McCallum, Media Alliance Code of Ethics. Retrieved 2011; Waller, 2010; Meadows, 2001), from http://www.alliance.org.au/code-of- when it comes to policy (and other) issues ethics.html affecting Aboriginal Australia, the media MEAA (2012). Fairfax journalists vote to consistently underperforms? strike’, 30 May. Retrieved from This essay concludes that it was a http://www.alliance.org.au/information- combination of these factors. centre/2012-press-releases/view- Furthermore, this combination is working category against routine journalism practice being MEAA (2012a). Media Alliance takes followed and is proving fatal to the print Fairfax to Fair Work Australia, 24 October. media’s Fourth Estate role — as watchdog Retrieved from and as public forum. http://www.alliance.org.au/media- An aim of this research is to add to alliance-takes-fairfax-to-fair-work- journalists’ and journalism educators’ australia understanding of how journalism Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance practices and the Fourth Estate role of the (2011). Submission to the Department of media may be affected by the Broadband, Communications and the transitioning political economy of the Digital Economy (The Finkelstein Inquiry). newsroom, with journalists expected to Retrieved from do more work in less time (Finkelstein, http://www.dbcde.gov.au/__data/assets/ 2012, p. 324) as newspapers’ circulations pdf_file/0007/142990/Media,_Entertain are in freefall without a viable online ment_and_Arts_Alliance.pdf business model yet established.

M. Brough (2007). National emergency ‘Welfare penalty for bad parents’, The response to protect Aboriginal children in Australian, 6 July 2007, p. 1. the NT. 21 June. Retrieved from ‘Welfare threat over health test refusal’, http://www.formerministers.fahcsia.gov. The Australian, 6 July 2007, p. 4. au/3581/emergency_21june07/ White, S. (1996). Reporting in Australia ‘News Limited outsources local subbing to (2nd ed.). Melbourne: Macmillan. Pagemasters’, The Australian, 4 September 2012. Retrieved from Wilson, N. & Cubby B. (2012). ‘A grim http://www.theaustralian.com.au winter, an optimistic spring?’ The Walkley Magazine. Retrieved from Schudson, M. (2003). The sociology of http://www.walkleys.com/features/8131 news. New York: W.W. Norton. /neil-wilson-ben-cubby-issue73 Waller, L. (2010). ‘Indigenous research ethics: new modes of information gathering and storytelling in journalism’, Australian Journalism Review, 32(2): 19- 31.

Journalists, ‘remote’ Indigenous sources and cultural competence

Lisa Waller

Journalists working in Northern Australia while they may offer more detailed who participated in the Media and guidance than the Australian Journalists’ Indigenous Policy Project have identified Code of Ethics (Media Entertainment Arts cultural competence as one of the key Alliance, 1999) they do not go so far as attributes of Indigenous reporting disrupting the underlying news values and specialists. They say it enables these assumptions that have been identified as reporters to find their own Indigenous problematic, nor do they require journalists stories, cultivate and maintain strong to focus on the positive self-representation contacts in the Indigenous public sphere of Indigenous communities (Burns & and negotiate the obstacles in the field to McKee, 1999). For example, both the ABC’s get the story. ABC Darwin journalist Katrina protocol (2009) and the Australian Press Bolton said: Council’s guidelines (2001) are mostly concerned with avoiding offence to If you don’t know how to be culturally aware with traditional people Indigenous people by using certain terms or especially, then it doesn’t matter how interrupting cultural practices such as much you try to make eye contact ‘sorry business’. This appears to be more a you’re not going any further. form of cultural politeness designed to minimise obstacles to the journalist getting Cultural competence is a concept developed the story, rather than encouraging genuine in social medicine (Betancourt et al., 2003, attempts to understand, respect and reflect p. 44). It refers to an ability to interact cultural differences. effectively with people of different cultures. This involves being able to understand, Some participants commented that appreciate, and interact with people from Indigenous reporting guidelines had cultures and/or belief systems other than improved news organisations’ approach one’s own. Cultural competence has four and their reporting, as McCallum and dimensions: awareness of one’s own Holland (2010) have observed elsewhere. cultural worldview; positive attitude Chips Macinolty, who has been a Northern towards cultural differences; knowledge of correspondent for newspapers and different cultural practices and worldviews, magazines including The Sydney Morning and cross-cultural skills (Betancourt et al., Herald, said: 2003). Developing cultural competence Back in the ’80s there was pretty much results in an ability to understand, to outright refusal by Murdoch papers to communicate and interact with people even countenance the sort of across cultures. restrictions on the naming of dead people and so on, and now it’s part of Major news organisations and institutions, the practice of the local Murdoch including the Australian Broadcasting papers that they will enquire as to Corporation (ABC) and the Australian Press whether or not a person’s name can be Council, have developed in-house protocols used. The ABC’s been pretty good at it and reporting codes for coverage of for a lot longer, so that's been a big Indigenous people and affairs (Australian shift. Broadcasting Corporation, 2009; Australian Press Council, 2001). These are regarded as Journalists spoke of a number of barriers important because ‘on some fronts, that made it difficult to get Indigenous journalists take these guidelines very voices into their reports, from lack of seriously, and ... they can be seen to shape cultural competence on their part, to the the way at least some stories are told’ attitudes in their newsrooms. The ABC’s McCallum & Holland, 2010, p. 44). However, Katrina Bolton said:

The most difficult thing with Indigenous Another barrier was the clash between reporting is actually getting their voices. newsgathering rituals and Indigenous You want their voices but it’s so hard to practices. Bolton said: get Indigenous voices — getting people to talk with you and share with you … the two are really quite directly stories, particularly if it’s not a hip, hip- opposed often, like your time frames hooray story because you run into all and your budget and the time frames sort of barriers, the shyness barrier, the that pushes on you, are really like direct is my English good enough barrier, the opposite to what is considered polite in cultural barriers. Indigenous culture. But sometimes it’s also knowing how to ask. Macinolty, Fairfax Northern correspondent Lindsay Murdoch and the ABC’s veteran ‘Knowing how to ask’ involves spending Darwin-based indigenous reporter Murray time with Indigenous people, which can be McLaughlin all identified language as a difficult for journalists for a range of significant barrier to reporting well on reasons. The Australian’s Tony Koch remote communities. McLaughlin said not emphasises this as a most important aspect being able to speak with people in of quality Indigenous reporting (see indigenous languages was: accompanying story: Tony Koch: the importance of listening and returning). ... a huge impediment to cutting Murdoch commented: through and being able to talk to people ... you rely on someone who has got a You can’t just rush in bang, bang and rough understanding of English … or on get your interview. You’ve got to sit the rare occasion you actually hire a down, how you’re going, what’s going professional interpreter, or you rely on on, and then finally they might tell you white people who have worked there what you want to know. long enough that they can speak the Koch and McLaughlin said patience was an language. So all of that means stuff is important quality for reporters covering necessarily filtered so … you can never remote communities. McLaughlin said: really be confident that you're getting it right all the time. When you go there under your own steam you’ve just got to have patience Macinolty also commented on the lack of because people run their own education of journalists on Indigenous timetable. It’s no use saying I’ll see you culture, society and politics: at two o’clock next Wednesday. It’s a I don’t know any journalist since I’ve matter of rolling up on Wednesday and been here … who has made an attempt just sitting around and waiting and to learn an Aboriginal language, or who sometimes it never happens, and I’ve has made any serious attempt to go long learnt not to feel any frustration through some kind of orientation about that. course or learnt anything much about Newsroom racism was an issue some kinship systems and political systems reporters identified as an obstacle in and so on in Aboriginal communities coverage of Indigenous affairs. It took and it really comes out. I remember several forms. The first was a lack of when Gorbachev came into power in interest in Indigenous stories from news the Soviet Union, within days every editors. Couldry (2006) contends that what journalist knew how to pronounce his name, but you still get journalists who is omitted from news agendas can tell us as can’t even get their heads around how much about the beliefs and values of media to pronounce Aboriginal names, organisations as what is published. personal names or community names or Meadows (2001) has shown that language or whatever, and it’s just sort Indigenous people are routinely silenced by of almost never ending that kind of being talked about rather than heard in thing. broadcast news on Indigenous affairs, which he describes as a form of racist discourse. Dreher (2010) argues that

entrenched news values and existing story Aboriginal person in the supermarket agendas shape media discussion of you must be on welfare.’ It was just marginalised groups — focusing on awful. addressing the stereotypes and concerns of perceived ‘mainstream’ audiences, rather Indigenous cultural practices than providing an open forum where Participants identified a range of marginalised peoples’ perspectives can be Indigenous cultural practices journalists aired. McLaughlin said: need to negotiate to get their story. … there is … a limited appetite for McLaughlin said sorry business was ‘the blackfella stories. I can remember I’d biggest disrupter of story ventures’: been up here not that long really, The number of times I’ve turned up to a maybe a year, and I can remember my place and just can’t do anything EP [executive producer] said to me, she because of the... can’t move around said, now Murray we like your stories, even because of this sorry business but do you reckon you could get a few going on, or fortunate enough to learn more white faces in there? That's the about it before I go and have to cancel prevailing attitude. the trip. Sorry business prevails, that’s Crikey’s Northern correspondent Bob the reality. Gosford has lived and worked in Central Other cultural practices are not so familiar Australia over many years. He spent two to many journalists, such as who has the years of the study period based in right to speak about certain land, certain Yuendumu and speaks some Walpiri. He business. Bolton said: said journalists from the Murdoch press who were in Central Australia to cover the So that whole thing, that whole cultural Intervention sought out routine and thing of not speaking out of turn, not predictable images and stories about speaking when it’s not your land, not Indigenous dysfunction (McCallum, 2007): speaking when you’re not senior enough, is really, really, really limiting. The Australian had a bunch of journalists going around here who were She said many elders did not trust basically out writing black … they journalists and she would approach wanted pictures of kids, snotty nosed younger community members for kids with dirty nappies or naked, playing information: in the dirt with beer cans around, or old There’s no affection towards the media crones standing around drunk. And they among some of the older people. When got it because there’s lots of that here. you blast in there and shove a camera in Bolton recalled being deeply uncomfortable their face and want them to talk quickly when she was sent to an Alice Springs or in brief answers, it’s just so culturally shopping centre to get Indigenous peoples’ clashing. So you get that problem where reactions on welfare quarantining for a the sort of young articulate person … news story being produced out of the ABC’s gives you a great background briefing Canberra studios: and says all the things you need to hear and then says ‘Oh, but I can’t say it’. It was awful. And in the end someone did talk because I kind of sweet Understanding the social dynamics of an talked/charmed/batted my eyelids into Indigenous society can assist journalists in it and [they] also knew our camera man their quest for comment but this is not who actually happened to be always apparent to reporters. Bolton Indigenous … But, it was just so described her approach on a court story at contrived because of the speed and the Borroloola: urgency and the expectation that we I just went and said, ‘do you mind if I sit could just snap our fingers and get down with your mob’ and everyone Indigenous reaction ... I think it was kind of just stayed fairly silent and I sat worse because there were all these down. I didn’t start talking straight away implicit assumptions: ‘Hi, you're an

and slowly I did a little and not just to If you’re not Marcia Langton, if you’re one person, but a few people, and not Warren Mundine or Noel Pearson suggested the idea that maybe they then you know, you’re not a legitimate might talk with me and why. But also black voice. said things like if you want to sit This study shows it is too simplistic to together and pick one person to talk ... that’s OK … Those kind of things are sort attribute this to news organisations’ of barriers to people, but no-one ever ideological agendas alone. Macinolty said it really explains to you as a journalist that was also due to journalists failing to perhaps it might make — the camera cultivate a wide circle of Indigenous men don’t like it — it might make all the contacts, and the inconsistency and high difference if people could feel that turnover of journalists covering the round: they’re sitting together as a group and When I was working for ministers and they pick who they want to talk out of so on you’d have journalists who’d ring that group, but they’re physically there up and say ‘Oh, X has happened, who together. So that’s important, might should I talk to?’ Every media mean the difference between getting a organisation has its own black book sort piece from them or not. of thing, but it’s usually pretty poor Communication technology could also be a when it comes to Aboriginal affairs. barrier. Bolton commented on the fact that Bolton identified two other aspects to the often people in remote communities do not problems with getting a wide range of have a telephone journalists can call. Indigenous voices in media reports. The Gosford said often people had no credit on first was a form of media burnout because their mobile phones and relied on text individuals were being approached by messages more heavily than other mobile journalists all the time. She said there was phone users. He also said it was a also a ‘lot of thuggery’ on communities and widespread practice in remote settlements that people who spoke to the news media to give phones away and swap phones with often got ‘a hard time’ because of it: family members: … sometimes you’ve got people who do You have to talk to people through their kind of speak up, but then the media institutions. A lot of people don’t have demand is so great on so many issues home phones and if they do people are that they're getting approached all the highly mobile so often it’s the time on different topics and they feel institutions that people work through or why me, it’s too hard, and they get shit are represented by, so you pass from people. You know, awful pressure messages through. That’s changed a fair and nasty comments and that kind of bit with mobiles in that — but again, stuff and that makes them reluctant to because what might have been speak again. someone’s good contact a month ago is now their daughter’s contact. ‘Ah, yeah, Some journalists also commented that mummy’ and people are still highly unlike other sources, who approached them mobile. ‘Mummy’s in Alice blah, blah, with story ideas regularly, their ‘remote’ blah’. Indigenous contacts did not seek them out. McLaughlin said: The range of indigenous voices … if they ever come to town it’s very Study participants including Indigenous rare that they look you up, which is a policy advocates, journalists, academics and pity. It’s just not their way, they just policymakers commented on the lack of don’t do it … it's not their style to sort diversity of Indigenous voices heard of come knocking on the door because I through the news media. Many said the think they just naturally feel a bit intimidated. news media relied on just a handful of conservative Indigenous commentators. McLaughlin commented:

Gaining cultural competence and specialisation in the remote Indigenous affairs reporting subfield. Several A few journalists said they had gained commented on the need for cultural cultural competence through their work for competence education for journalists who Indigenous organisations. Some learned in report on ‘remote’ indigenous communities. the field and from other professionals with Macinolty identified a strong need for deep experience working with Indigenous reporters to undertake training in peoples. Macinolty attributed his excellent Indigenous languages, kinship and Indigenous contacts and well-developed governance systems. Such courses are sense for Indigenous stories to his available, including Flinders University’s experience working with Indigenous Pitjantjatjara summer school, which runs organisations for many years before writing for two weeks every January. for publications including The Sydney Morning Herald. He said he did not find it Another suggestion from indigenous difficult to find agenda-setting issues: reporting specialists was for large news organisations to invest in reporters’ I remember when I was working for the relationships with Indigenous contacts. One Herald I was getting pages 1, 3 and 5 said major news outlets should: really regularly because the stories I was getting were really fantastic. … say OK, take three weeks, go on a road trip, make connections, don’t go A few specialists described how they out, like don’t just fly in, film and developed their cultural competence from [leave]. Just go out, talk to people, meet other non-indigenous people with good the people, find out what’s going on, knowledge of Indigenous cultures and get phone numbers. And then it would people. Bolton said: be such a great investment in future I’ve talked a lot with people who work stories and future relationships, [with Indigenous people] — friends of because you need to be able to ring up mine and my sister who works as a … and go ‘What's going on, I've been lawyer down in Central Australia who told this’, and if you just constantly do has to talk to Aboriginals about usually the blast in blast out, you lose all that. really sensitive issues like assaults. I talk One suggestion was that the ABC’s Darwin to her about how she does it. I’ve talked newsroom could be used by the corporation to a lot of white people in communities as a specialist training site for Indigenous over the years about what faux pas I affairs reporting and suggested those who might be making without realising it. were interested in developing these skills would need to be based there for a Improving coverage: Cultural minimum of two years. competence training Developing practices of reciprocity was Participants offered suggestions for identified as a way of improving relations improving the level of professionalisation between reporters and their Indigenous

KEY POINTS

It is too simplistic to attribute the narrow range of Indigenous voices heard in the news to media organisations’ ideological agendas. Journalists identified a number of barriers to getting ‘remote’ Indigenous voices into their reports. These include large costs associated with travel; a clash of newsgathering rituals and Indigenous cultural practices; journalists lacking cultural competence and newsroom racism. Participants identified a need for reporters to undertake training in Indigenous languages, kinship and governance systems. They also identified a need for media organisations to invest in relationship building with Indigenous contacts.

sources by several journalists, including Betancourt, J. R. et al. (2003). ‘Defining Tony Koch (see accompanying story: Tony cultural competence: a practical framework Koch: the importance of listening and for addressing racial/ethnic disparities in returning). Bolton said: health and healthcare’. Public Health Reports, 118: 293-302. … something happens at say, Borroloola. I’ve got a few people I can Burns, L. S., & McKee, A. (1999). ‘Reporting call because they’ve met me, I’ve dealt on indigenous issues: Some practical with them respectfully, I’ve done the suggestions for journalists’. Australian follow-up which also wasn’t supported Journalism Review, 21(2): 103-116. at an institutional level, by like sending them a DVD copy of the stories that Couldry, N. (2006). Listening beyond the we’ve done and that kind for stuff. Like echoes : media, ethics, and agency in an those sorts of things, even getting a CD I uncertain world. Boulder, CO: Paradigm have to go and knock on someone’s Publishers. door and ask for one CD and one case Dreher, T. (2010). ‘Speaking up or being and then I get grumbled at. When you do that then the next time you need to heard? Community media interventions and find out, or even get a barometer on the politics of listening’. Media, Culture & almost anything that’s going on, you’ve Society, 32(1): 85-103. at least got one person, an Indigenous McCallum, K. (2007). ‘Indigenous violence person you can call and say, ‘hi, as a “mediated public crisis”’. someone you know. Hey, do you know Communications, Civics, Industry: Refereed anything about this’. But without, yeah, Proceedings of the Australian and New there’s just no time put in to developing Zealand Communication Association these relationships or facilitating them Conference 2007. so that they’re there when you need them. McCallum, K. & Holland, K. (2010). Mediating the ‘uneasy conversation’: References Reporting and engaging with Indigenous and multicultural issues in Australia. Retrieved Australian Broadcasting Corporation 27 July 2010, from (2009). ABC editorial policies. Retrieved 16 http://www.reportingdiversity.org.au/proj August 2010, from ects_printnews.html http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/edpols. htm Meadows, M. (2001). Voices in the wilderness: iImages of Aboriginal people in Australian Press Council. (2001). Reporting the Australian media. Westport: Greenwood. guidelines: Reporting of ‘race’. Retrieved 16 August 2010, from Media Entertainment Arts Alliance. (1999). http://www.presscouncil.org.au/pcsite/act Journalist code of ethics. Retrieved August ivities/guides/gpr248.html 17, 2010, from http://www.alliance.org.au

Tony Koch: the importance of listening and returning In her book, The Tall Man, which tells the story of the Palm Island death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee, Chloe Hooper discusses the news media coverage of the case. She makes the observation that, of the ‘fifteen or so journalists at the inquest’, only The Australian’s Tony Koch did not stay with the police but rather ‘with a local family and went out on the street reporting’ (Hooper, 2008, p. 92). Mason (2012) says staying with an Indigenous family made his source relationship with the police ‘less routine and certain’ (2012, p. 173). Our research explores Koch’s expertise in negotiating Indigenous public spheres and draws on his approach to suggest the directions in which Indigenous affairs reporting needs to move. Koch has been visiting indigenous communities in the Gulf Country, Cape York and the Torres Strait for 25 years. Hooper’s observation of the way he operated on Palm Island is an example of how these communities are not just a part of his reporting round, but the homes of longstanding professional sources and friends. He chooses one as his holiday destination every year. Koch says his passion for Barramundi fishing helps his reporting: I take my holidays up there ... every year I go to one of them. I’ve got a brother who’s a mango farmer up in Bowen and he’s a good boatie, so we just hook up and we go to one of the communities, stay there and we’re always with the locals. Go camping with them and getting turtle eggs and everything else. Just living with them on the beach, having a great time. Meeting all their kids. The time Koch spends on holidays relaxing and fishing with his brother and the locals helps him to maintain trust with the communities he writes about, which he says takes time and a lot of work because ‘people are sick of journalists coming in and writing horrible things about them’. He says many of the reports he has written over the years on topics including violence and alcohol could be classed as quite negative, however, unlike many other journalists he is responsible to the people he writes about because he has connections with them that go well beyond the conventional reporter-source relationship. He is always returning to the communities he writes about and sits down with people face-to-face to discuss his work. He says he has had to justify himself to individuals and communities on many occasions, explaining his reasons for what he has written and why he believes an issue or event needs to be part of the national conversation. In academic research, this discussion and negotiation can be understood as a process of gaining and maintaining peoples’ consent for their continuing involvement in his journalistic research. Smith discusses the importance in indigenous research of the Māori concept of kanohi kitea or ‘the seen face’, which means ‘…being seen by the people – showing your face, turning up at important cultural events … it is part of how one’s credibility is continually developed and maintained’ (Smith, 2004, p. 15). In Australia, Indigenous researchers point to the different layers of entry that must be negotiated when they seek information, while others describe their research as involving long-term relationships which are established and extend beyond a research relationship to one involving families, communities, organisations and networks (Rigney, 1999). Koch describes his journalism research in these terms. (Continued on next page.)

According to Koch, geographical distance is a major challenge to the Australian media’s ability to report well on remote indigenous communities in northern Australia, as the major news outlets are in the south of the country and policy is made in Canberra, but implemented far away. Meadows (2005) emphasises the importance of journalists learning how to navigate indigenous public spheres and Koch provides some examples of how he does this. He says an important part of his round is ensuring that he knows when people from remote communities are attending conferences and other major meetings in Brisbane or regional centres. Koch says these events are crucial for him to find out about current issues and maintain contact with communities. Despite the significant distances and expense, Koch also underlines the importance of reporters spending time and building relationships with remote communities to do their jobs well: With visiting Aboriginal communities, the first couple of years you don’t hear much or see because they don’t trust you. They don’t know you. In Queensland there’s this term, they call us ‘seagulls’- politicians and journalists. Because they say that we fly in, shit on them and leave. So you have to get over being a seagull, and the only way to do that is they have to see you coming back all the time... unless those reporters get off their butts and go out, and not just go out with the minister flying in the government jet and you know, be a seagull, drop in for a couple of hours and be given the candy coated version …You’ve got to go to the communities and spend some time there, spend some days there ... to listen to the people talk … to the old ladies … and find out what’s really going on.

Hooper, C. (2008). The tall man: death and life on Palm Island. Ringwood: Penguin. Meadows, M. (2005). ‘Journalism and indigenous public spheres’, Pacific Journalism Review, 11(1): 36-41. Mason, B (2012). ‘The girl in cell 4: securing social inclusion through a journalist-source collaboration’, Media International Australia, 142: 167-176. Rigney, L.-I. (1999). ‘Internationalisation of an Indigenous anticolonial cultural critique of research methodologies: a guide to Indigenist research methodology and its principles’, Wicazo Sa Review, 14(2): 109-121. Smith, L. T. (2004). Decolonising methodologies: research and Indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books.

From little things, big things grow: campaigning journalism and Indigenous policy

Holly Reid

Five years ago, on 16 June 2007, The of the Little children are sacred report and Weekend Australian hit newsstands with articles relating to the issue of child the heated headline, ‘Nation’s child abuse sexual abuse in The Australian national shame: grog-fuelled sex attacks in black newspaper in the fortnight following the communities’, running neatly across the release of the report. It reveals that not front page. The article, a response to the only did the newspaper reappropriate the release of an Inquiry into allegations of findings of the Little children are sacred child sexual abuse in remote Indigenous report to align with its editorial position, communities, read that the ‘sexual abuse but that it did so to press for one of the of Aboriginal children is widespread most radical interventions in Australian across the Northern Territory (NT), Indigenous policy history (Reid & fuelled by “rivers of grog” … a world McCallum, 2012). where degrading pornography circulates The NT Board of Inquiry into the freely and alcohol and marijuana are Protection of Aboriginal Children from chronically abused’ (Rothwell, 2007). Sexual Abuse was launched in 2006 in Authored by one of The Australian’s most response to allegations on ABC’s Lateline seasoned journalists in Indigenous affairs, current affairs program that pedophile Nicholas Rothwell, ‘Nation’s child abuse rings were operating in remote NT shame’ was the first in a series of articles communities (ABC, 2006; Graham, 2012; that, in the fortnight following the release Allen and Clarke Regulatory Specialists, of the Ampe akelyernemane meke mekarle: 2011). Rather than simply documenting Little children are sacred report, would the occurrence of sexual abuse in the wage a concerted campaign in favour of Northern Territory, the Little children are interventionist policies in the Northern sacred report was commissioned by the Territory (Reid & McCallum, 2012). NT government to ‘examine the extent, Announced in the dying days of the nature and factors contributing to the Howard conservative government, the sexual abuse of Aboriginal children ... Northern Territory Emergency Response [and] consider how the Government can (NTER) followed intense publicity on the help support communities to effectively shocking — but by no means new — tackle child sexual abuse’ (Anderson & documentation of child sexual abuse in Wild, 2007). As such, the Inquirers the Northern Territory. Enacted on 16 determined that: August 2007, the NTER Act 2007 placed Child sex abuse is serious, widespread racially exclusive regulations in 73 and often unreported. Most ‘prescribed’ Indigenous communities Aboriginal people are willing and (Cox, 2008), many of which remain today. committed to solving this problem The release of the Little children are and helping their children. Aboriginal sacred report— and the subsequent people are not the only perpetrators announcement of the NTER — was a key and victims of sexual abuse ... [and] moment in shaping contemporary much of the violence and sexual abuse is a reflection on the past, Indigenous affairs. As such, it can be used current and continuing problems to understand the intensity of the which have developed over many relationship between news media decades. (Anderson & Wild, 2007) reporting and Indigenous policymaking in Australia. This article presents the The report examined many factors at play findings of content and framing analyses in the prevalence of abuse in NT

communities, which were condensed into Indigenous violence and alcohol abuse twelve key areas, with 97 than any other Australian newspaper recommendations to the Government. (McCallum, 2007). They can be categorised under the It is unsurprising then, that The broader themes of ‘Individual Australian’s coverage of Little children are Responsibility’, ‘Failed Social Policy’ and sacred was extensive, publishing 92

Individual Responsibility Failed Social Policy Mutual Obligations Alcoholism Education Responses to Government Agencies Substance Abuse Housing Law and Justice Gambling Health Rehabilitation Pornography Poverty Unemployment

Figure 1: Categorisaton of ‘Areas of Causation’ in the Little children are sacred report

‘Mutual Obligations’ (Reid, 2010). articles on the issue in the fortnight following the report’s release. Less Despite the sensitive nature of the report, predictable, perhaps, was the Little children are sacred did not shy away newspaper’s dismissal that child abuse from the impact of alcoholism, gambling was the result of multiple social, cultural and pornography — or ‘Individual and historical causes — effectively the Responsibility’ factors — on child neglect. core message of the Little children are Whilst documenting in graphic details sacred report and the rationale behind its acts of abuse and the effect of these on recommendations. Not only this, but children, the report highlighted role of quantitative content and qualitative news ‘Failed Social Policy’, such as the inability framing analysis between 16 and 30 June of successive governments to provide 2007 reveals that The Australian basic infrastructure and adequate employed a range of journalistic devices healthcare, in familial breakdown. The to align the issue with its editorial inquirers argued it was ‘Mutual position and actively campaign for Obligations’ of both governments and interventionist policies in the Northern Indigenous communities alike to respond Territory (Reid & McCallum, 2012). to the issue, concluding ‘it will be impossible to set communities on a strong Little children are sacred was first path to recovery without dealing with introduced in the 16–17 June 2007 basic services and social evils’ (Anderson edition of The Weekend Australian. The & Wild, 2007). newspaper featured extensive coverage of the report, spanning hard news, comment, The release of the Little children are opinion and feature pieces. ‘Report not for sacred report was a major news story for the faint hearted’, an editorial by one of The Australian, which over the past two The Australian’s most senior Indigenous decades has assumed a ‘vital role in affairs reporters Nicholas Rothwell, was alerting the general public to the quick to clarify the newspapers’ position: breakdown of conditions of life not only that personal responsibility in the issue of in the Northern Territory but across the child sexual abuse cannot be overlooked country’ (Manne, 2011, p. 7). A 2007 and the publication of the Little children study on the depiction of Indigenous are sacred report should lead to violence in Australian media, for example, immediate and consequential action. found that The Australian was the only newspaper to give sustained focus to The agenda of personal responsibility issues of ‘crisis’ in Indigenous Australia, sketched out by Noel Pearson of Cape producing more than three times the York, and editorially supported by this volume of reporting on topics such as newspaper, makes scant appearance

in this document, which tends to view Pearson’s response to Little children are Aboriginal people as victims of a sacred: wide, all-encompassing social trap. (Rothwell, 2007) The Australian supports Mr Pearson’s view that the rights of the child are Echoing this sentiment, an opinion piece paramount. Thankfully, Aboriginal ‘Children are sacred’ alleged that the leaders such as Mr Pearson truly care report failed to hold individual men about the fate of Aboriginal people accountable for their behaviour and that: and want to see them prosper. (‘Paternalism is not an act of The report is an urgent call for action. derision’, p. 13, editorial) There must be no attempt to silence the critics. (Australian, 16-17 June As a well-known and influential 2007, p. 13) Indigenous person, Pearson’s presence in the debate is not unusual. However, Also appearing in The Weekend Australian quantitative content analysis shows that on 16–17 June was a comment piece by Pearson was afforded an audience Indigenous lawyer Noel Pearson, through The Australian above any other examining the relationship between Indigenous person (Reid, 2010). Further, Indigenous communities and all levels of alternate Indigenous sources quoted by government. This signified the beginning The Australian were largely limited to a of a trend in which Pearson’s voice was select few who, like Pearson, were not only the most prevalent compared supportive of interventionist action. with other Indigenous comments on the issue, but one that clearly supported The Indigenous leader Warren Mundine Australian’s editorial standpoint. For says he is ‘disgusted’ that people are example, a news article appearing on 20 describing the Federal Government’s June (‘Pearson at odds with abuse report’) intervention in the Northern Territory stated: as an invasion. (Australian, 24 June 2007) Mr Pearson, who yesterday launched his own radical approach to Compared with The Australian, other reforming Indigenous welfare, said forms of media were less favourable of the Northern Territory report focused the NTER. The newspapers’ glorification too much on improving education of Pearson’s views — and those who standards instead of attacking supported them — failed to reflect behaviour. (Karvelas, 2007) resistance to the NTER that was integral Somewhat less delicately, an editorial to the public debate (Waller, 2010). On published 21 June, ‘Paternalism is not a 16 June, for example, the National term of derision’, condemned critics of Indigenous Times published an email from

KEY POINTS

The release of the Little children are sacred report (Anderson & Wild, 2007) and the subsequent announcement of the NTER was a key moment in shaping contemporary Indigenous affairs. Frame analysis found that the Little children are sacred report identified child sexual abuse as the result of multiple social, cultural and historical causes. The Australian newspaper reported extensively on the Little children are sacred report and the NTER, but dismissed the report’s key findings and recommendations. Its journalists predominantly framed child sexual abuse as an issue of Individual Responsibility, with alcohol abuse the most common causal factor cited. The Australian actively campaigned for federal policy Intervention into NT Indigenous communities.

a key member of the inquiry: the newspaper sought to establish its role as a trustworthy source. My concern is that … politicians already seem to be focusing on the As political responses to the report began sensational aspects of the report and to deepen, focus shifted from the Little seem, once again, to be using these children are sacred report to those in things to push their own agendas. positions of power and influence. Politicians are again focusing on Published on the front page of The ‘mainstream’ punitive responses — Australian on 22 June, ‘Crusade to save jail, police, jail, police! (National Aboriginal kids: Howard declares Indigenous Times, 16 June 2007, ‘national emergency’ to end abuse’ letter) outlined Prime Minister Howard’s Another editorial technique employed by intentions for Federal Government the newspaper was to deride or dismiss intervention in the Northern Territory, opposition viewpoints (Manne, 2011). including linking family welfare payments This was achieved through a series of to school attendance, banning alcohol in opinion pieces, editorials and news certain regions, taking control of NT land, stories with headlines such as: ‘Slurs on mandating child health checks and PM’s motives were predictable’ deploying extra police. (Shannahan, 2007) and ‘A shameful John Howard will seize control of protest’ (Australian, 28 June 2007, p. 13). Aboriginal land in the Northern On 22 June, The Australian launched the Territory, banning alcohol and ‘Howard’s Blueprint’ section of the pornography and using the military to newspaper, in which reactions from the attack the ‘national emergency’ of government, non-government alcohol-fuelled sexual abuse of organisations and invited columnists children. (Kavelas, 2007) were bundled into a dedicated segment. While Little children are sacred remained The two-page spread, which appeared integral to the debate, the report became intermittently until 30 June, sought to a stepping-stone, or 'justification', for confirm The Australian’s position as a discourse surrounding the NTER. This leading source of news on Indigenous trend saw references to the Little children current affairs and enhance the credibility are sacred report condensed into a one- of its reporters (Waller, 2010). This was or two-paragraph synopsis, referred to as made apparent on the first day of its one factor in range of wider social or publication, in which the left-hand column political implications. examined how ‘Indigenous violence and abuse has been consistently documented The unprecedented power grab comes a week after the release of a by [journalists of] The Australian’. report that revealed rampant and (Australian, 23 June 2007) often-unreported child sexual abuse Rosemary Neill: Won a Walkley for in NT indigenous communities, with her coverage of Indigenous affairs in children as young as three exposed to 1994 for a feature on domestic hard-core pornography. It described violence at a time when a ‘code of frequent attacks on children by family silence’ surrounded the issue. She members and their friends after wrote a book in 2002, Whiteout, parties featuring drug use and binge- which was shortlisted in the NSW and drinking. (Kavelas, 2007b) QLD Premier’s awards. (Australian, 23 This technique reinforced the idea that June 2007) alcoholism, pornography and substance Although the collective reporting of these abuse were at the heart of child sexual journalists was far outweighed by other, abuse in Indigenous communities. less prominent journalists over the Canberra said the Northern Territory sampling period (Reid, 2010), it is clear Government would be expected to develop a comprehensive strategy to

tackle the ‘rivers of grog’ and a Little children are sacred presented a rampant pornography trade (Kavelas, range of frames through which journalists 2007b). could have reported the issue of child Indeed, over the sample period, sexual abuse. The holistic nature of the references to the causation of child sexual report was not only at the crux of its abuse in The Australian fell recommendations, but recognition of the overwhelmingly into the areas of alcohol potential for the issue to become abuse, drug abuse and pornography sensationalised and misconstrued by the (Reid, 2010). The newspaper almost media. Indeed, the inquirers noted: exclusively framed child sexual abuse as A constant theme from both an issue of ‘Individual Responsibility’ Aboriginal men and women during compared with ‘Mutual Obligation’ and consultations was that they felt ‘Failed Social Policy’, contradicting the deeply offended by the way the conclusions of the very document The media and commentators had spoken Australian reported on so heavily (see about them and their culture. This Figure 2). had … potentially created a further barrier to addressing the issue of A comparative frame analysis of Little child sex abuse. (Anderson & Wild, children are Sacred and its representation 2007) in The Australian reveals alarming trends in the reporting of Indigenous affairs. It is Effectively, the cumulative roles of clear from The Australian’s extensive ‘Individual Responsibility’, ‘Failed Social coverage of the issue, especially in the Policy’ and ‘Mutual Obligations’ factors in launch of ‘Howard’s Blueprint’, that the child sexual abuse was not a subtle newspaper not only perceived, but took undertone of the Little children are sacred distinct pride in, its role in Indigenous report, but a clear and deliberate message affairs reporting and the expertise of its to the media and Indigenous journalists. Despite, or perhaps because policymakers. of, a philosophical commitment to From the outset, however, The Australian covering Aboriginal affairs (Manne, rejected the findings of the Little children 2011), The Australian can be seen to have are sacred report that child abuse was the reappropriated the findings of the Little result of multiple social, cultural and children are sacred report to advocate for historical causes, framing the story of federal government intervention in NT child sexual abuse almost exclusively as Indigenous communities. an ‘Individual Responsibility’. In this understanding, aberrant behaviours such

Alcohol Drug Abuse Unemployment

Gambling Pornography Housing Education Health

Areas of Causation of Areas Poverty Law and Justice Responses to Government Agencies Rehabilitation

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 Reference by Journalists

Figure 2: References to causal factors in The Australian

as alcoholism, drug abuse and the current circumstances (Blood et al., 2008; consumption of pornography were McCallum, 2007). depicted as the overwhelmingly dominant In addition to the use of a singular news factors leading to child sexual abuse in the frame to report Little children are sacred, Northern Territory. Coupled with voices The Australian employed a range of calling for immediate, consequential journalistic devices to drive home its action and endorsing Howard’s response strong editorial endorsement of the NTER to the issue, it is clear The Australian was as the appropriate response to the Little pushing its own political agenda (Reid & children are sacred report findings. A McCallum, 2012). Had this perspective disproportionate emphasis on Pearson’s been confined to editorial or opinion viewpoint, and Indigenous sources who pieces, the reporting of Little children are ratified it, created a false impression of sacred in The Australian would raise acquiescence within the Indigenous fewer ethical concerns. It is the failure of community for interventionist policies. the newspaper to separate its corporate Neither was this technique confined to standpoint from the presentation of hard Indigenous reaction. For example, wider news that has more worrying research on the newspaper’s implications. representation of the Intervention found, Of the articles analysed for the reporting whilst there was widespread public period, 66 per cent mentioned factors of discussion on the government’s ‘Individual Responsibility’ as a cause of announcement to mandate sexual health child sexual abuse, compared with 24 and checks in Indigenous children, The 10 per cent for ‘Failed Social Policy’ and Australian did not frame the proposal or ‘Mutual Obligations’ respectively. Given its amendments as a major news story that hard news articles accounted for 70 (Walker, 2007). per cent of the data sample, it is evident It is clear from the evidence presented in this framing extended beyond editorial this paper that while social policy is of and opinion pieces to become a deep and genuine concern to the editors prominent feature of reporting overall of The Australian, the newspaper used the (Reid, 2010). Framing analysis also Little children are sacred report to suggests that the omission of alternative influence, as well as report on, the understandings of the Little children are Indigenous policy process. Placing sacred report in The Australian worked disproportionate emphasis on the role of strategically to frame the story (Reese, ‘Individual Responsibility’ factors in child 2001). A correspondent for the online sexual abuse, The Australian appropriated publication Crikey, Bob Gosford, in an the inquiry’s subject but largely interview for this project, surmised the disregarded its findings, painting a situation as such: particular picture of the issue and how it The Australian had a bunch of should be addressed. Through its journalists going around here who coverage, The Australian spoke directly to were basically out writing black … Indigenous affairs policymakers in its they wanted pictures of kids, snotty campaign for government intervention, nosed kids with dirty nappies of justifying the use of ‘paternalistic’ or naked, playing in the dirt with beer coercive measures to force behavioural cans around, or old crones standing change on Indigenous communities (Reid around drunk. (Waller, 2010) & McCallum, 2012). Seeking out routine and predictable Five years after the release of Little images and stories about Indigenous children are sacred, its effects are yet to dysfunction, The Australian actively fade in Indigenous communities in the perpetuated the tradition of news media Northern Territory. Most recently, the representation of Indigenous Australians Gillard Government consolidated a as personally responsible for their fifteen-year policy program aimed at

reducing the life expectancy gap between Cox, C. (2008). Responses to the Little Indigenous and non-Indigenous children are sacred report. retrieved 10 Australians. The Stronger Futures in the May 2010, from Northern Territory Act 2012 extends one http://www.actnow.com.au/Issues/Little of the most radical interventions in _Children_are_Sacred.aspx Australian Indigenous policy history Graham, C. (2012). ‘Media interventions: despite contested evidence of the NTER’s on Lateline’s’ construction of the impact on the lives of children (Allen and ‘Aboriginal problem’, Arena Magazine, Clarke Regulatory Specialists, 2011; Shaw 118, pp. 5-8. & d’Abbs, 2011; Altman, 2011). Negating the voices of those most closely involved Karvelas, P. (2007). ‘Crusade to save in the issues, The Australian played a role Aboriginal kids’. The Australian, 22 June. in hampering the “development of Lateline, television program, ABC, 21 June systems, structures and methods that 2006. Retrieved 1 June 2007, from have a genuine chance of reducing http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/ violence and child sexual abuse” 2006/s1668773.htm (Anderson & Wild, 2007), just as the inquirer’s had feared, and tried so hard to Manne, R. (2011). ‘Bad news’. Quarterly prevent. Essay, 43 (https://quarterly-essay-43- 47e775.booki.sh/) References McCallum. K. (2007). ‘Public opinion Allen and Clarke Regulatory Specialists about Indigenous issues: local talk and (2011). Evaluation of the Child Health journalistic practice’. Australian Check Initiative and the Expanding Health Journalism Monographs, 8: 1-14. Service Delivery Initiative: Final report. Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into Canberra: Department of Health and the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Ageing. Sexual Abuse (2007). Report (Little http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main children are sacred). /publishing.nsf/Content/oatsih_chci- ehsdi_report Reid, H., & McCallum, K., (2012) ‘Weighing in: The Australian’s reporting of child Altman, J. (2011). ‘The intervention is sexual abuse in Northern Territory dead, long live the intervention’, Crikey, Indigenous communities’. In Proceedings 1 November. of the ANZCA conference, 4-6 July 2012, http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/11/01/ University of Adelaide. the-intervention-is-dead-long-live-the- intervention/ Reid, H. (2010). ‘A failure in the symbiosis of media democracy: the framing of the Australian Government (2012). Detailed Little Children are Sacred report in The information on Stronger Futures Australian newspaper’. Honours Legislation. Retrieved 1 September 2012 dissertation, University of Canberra. from http://www.indigenous.gov.au/stronger- Reese, P., 2001, ‘Prologue – framing public futures-legislation/ life: A bridging model for media research’. In S. Reese, O. Gandy & A. Grant (Eds.), Blood, W. et al. (2008). ‘Enduring and Framing public life: perspectives on media competing news frames: Australian and our understanding of the social world, newspaper coverage of the deaths by pp. 7-31. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum suicides of two Melbourne girls’. Associates. Proceedings of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association Rothwell, N. (2007). ‘Report not for the conference, Wellington, New Zealand. faint-hearted’, The Weekend Australian, http://anzca08.massey.ac.nz 16-17 June.

Shannahan, D. (2007). ‘Slurs on PM’s motives were predictable’. The Australian, 28 June, p. 4. Shaw, G. & d’Abbs, P. (2011). Community safety and wellbeing research study consolidated report. Bowchung Consulting. Retrieved 12 March 2012 from http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/indigenou s/pubs/nter_reports/Documents/CSWRS _Bowchung.PDF Waller, L. (2010). Indigenous research ethics new modes of information gathering and storytelling in journalism, Australian Journalism Review, 32(2): 19-31.

Walker, J. (2007). ‘Physical checks played down’, The Australian, 28 June, p. 4

Indigenous Policy Actor Perspectives

Intractable or indomitable? How Indigenous policy actors keep issues alive and contested

Kerry McCallum, Lisa Waller and Michael Meadows

Indigenous policy advocates have played a 1989 National Aboriginal Health Strategy pivotal yet largely unrecognised role in that advocated a strongly self-determinist keeping alive public debate about issues model of primary health care (Murray et al., such as the importance of bilingual 2003). Despite policies of mainstreaming education programs and community during the 2000s that attacked its involvement in the delivery of primary underlying principles, the AMS network of health care. This is a key finding from the more than 140 services has survived to play Media and Indigenous Policy project. It has an important role in the federal prompted us to argue here and elsewhere1 government’s ‘Closing the Gap’ policy to that the intractability of some Indigenous improve the life expectancy of Indigenous policy issues can be usefully rethought as Australians. the effectiveness of Indigenous peoples in Policies of self-determination from the maintaining and promoting their firmly 1970s empowered Indigenous peoples to held cultural and political perspectives on affect their own representation through the issues such as health and education in funding of Indigenous-controlled public and media discussion. organisations and the emergence of For the purposes of this essay we begin by Indigenous-owned and operated media. providing a brief overview of the bilingual These developments prompted Mickler education and Indigenous primary health (1998) to argue that, in spite of care policy fields. Bilingual education in the stereotypical mainstream media coverage, Northern Territory has been the subject of negative public opinion and an controversial policy shifts since its unsupportive political environment, inception in the 1970s. In the late 1990s the Indigenous peoples have become key media Northern Territory government tried to players. We build on this research through abolish the programs in remote Indigenous our interviews, which provide empirical communities (Hoogenraad, 2001, p. 131), a evidence to show how Indigenous policy move that was fiercely contested by advocates use a range of mechanisms that Indigenous and education communities. As enable them to penetrate public policy a result, the bilingual programs survived debates, define problems for policymaking until 2008, when the territory government and public discussion through the news effectively abolished them with the decision media, and thereby exert particular forms that the first four hours of teaching each day of influence in the policy process. We are would be in English. The Country Liberal interested particularly in the intersection of Party government elected in mid-2012 has ‘Indigenous public spheres’ and mainstream promised to reinstate the programs after journalism, and the pressure that such four years of sustained campaigning by relationships can exert on policymakers and affected communities. Likewise, the policy outcomes at key policy moments. delivery of primary health care via community controlled Aboriginal Medical Indigenous public spheres are central Services (AMS) has had a chequered policy A number of study participants offered history since the release and adoption of the precise insights into how Indigenous public spheres function, and provided evidence of 1 This essay is a digest version of research published the ways in which these processes impact previously as McCallum, K., Waller, L. & Meadows, M. (2012). ‘Raising the volume: Indigenous voices in news on the mainstream public sphere. media and policy’, Media International Australia, 142: Participants emphasised the central role of 101-111. Indigenous media outlets as forums for

people to deliberate together and advance Working with mainstream media their own policy discourses. Former ABC journalist and Indigenous media consultant Engaging with the mainstream media is a Ursula Raymond was engaged by the Yolgnu key strategy for penetrating public policy people in North-East Arnhem Land to assist debates. Participants identified a range of in their campaign to retain bilingual mechanisms for engagement, from education programs. She said: ‘They’re sophisticated ‘media machines’ within doing that stuff through their own local Indigenous organisations to people on the media networks, Indigenous radio, the ground using media logic to promote their national Indigenous radio service and their messages. Raymond attributed the own Koori radio, radio Larrakia, CAAMA, effectiveness of the bilingual education those sorts of places.’ campaign in 1998–99 to her Yolgnu clients being ‘media savvy’: News is constructed through cooperation They understood the media, they between journalists and their sources, who understood the messages that they maintain close contact and shared values. wanted to get out so they knew how to Participants in our study described the work that ... They were very open to relationship between Indigenous media talking to the media. They had their key organisations and their sources from the spokespeople identified and prepped Aboriginal community in terms of and ready to go and they were unified confidence and familiarity. One said: ‘The on the issue and very clear. people out there, they utilise Indigenous media a lot of the time off their own bat She reflects the earlier comments of the anyway. They knew them and they just Koori Mail’s Todd Condie: work them.’ Increasingly, Indigenous people are becoming ‘media savvy’, which means Communities and independent Indigenous mainstream media will always be organisations embody media logic by looked at to further a particular drawing on media expertise from within message or viewpoint ... To be fully their own spheres to teach people to use effective, media-savvy Aborigines know digital technologies to create and operate to use both the mainstream and their own media. As well as investing in the Indigenous networks to state their case. services of Indigenous media consultants to (Cited in Hartley, 2003, p. 53) coordinate specific campaigns and strategies, large Indigenous organisations Trying to ensure their perspectives are provide spokespeople with formal media heard loud and clear in the mainstream training and operate in-house media media is crucial for Indigenous people who services. Former Apunipinna Cape York want to counter their political opponents. Health Council executive director Kerry One participant expressed the importance Arabena discussed the importance and of using the same media tactics as other value of media expertise within her policy actors. She said her organisation organisation and for its stakeholders: always aimed to advance its policy positions ‘in the same kinds of formats and in the Up in Cape York I invested in my own same kind of arenas where they chose to communications unit. So we actually take us on’. Arabena said: ‘I think what they had, through the Cape York Health expected was that we wouldn’t have a voice Council, our own communications unit, to give back, but in fact a lot of us were including digital media, print media. We influential in The Age, in The Weekend made a lot of media statements. We Australian and in our own media, and I went out to communities to help them think, we were very successful.’ generate media about their own successes. Chris Graham, from the National Indigenous Times, explained that in order to influence policy, Indigenous organisations ultimately needed to engage with mainstream media,

and Indigenous publications were an positive stories, and I know I’m not the first important connection between the two: person to say that.’ One of the things we did well and the reason we survived and thrived is, we Indigenous leaders and media power would use the media to break a story, Established Indigenous leaders exert knowing full well if we broke a great considerable influence in public and policy story it would make a heap of discussions through their use of the difference. Because if the mainstream mainstream news media as a platform to media didn’t pick it up, the government advance their agendas and take on their wouldn’t ... because politicians are so opponents. Participants identified effective easily influenced by what the media say. leaders as those with well-developed media Participants made direct links between skills. Raymond said: ‘There are some like effective media strategies and success in Galarrwuy Yunupingu who’s incredibly influencing the policy process. Arabena said sharp and knows how to work the media.’ that through the work of the Cape York These leaders have two roles in the Health Council’s communications unit: ‘We mainstream media. They are busy actors on were able to influence policy-makers, the political stage, and therefore frequently community leaders. We were able to send quoted news sources and providers of out newsletters that had the eye of the ‘news subsidies’ (Gandy, 1989; Bakir, 2006). ministers and as a result of our media Some have also developed strong profiles campaigns we were able to change policy.’ and influential voices through the opinion However, participants were not universally pages of the national press. Some are positive about their chances of being regular contributors — such as Noel listened to by mainstream media. Some Pearson, who writes for The Australian — commented that in certain climates the while others, such as Marcia Langton, media were more disposed to picking up Warren Mundine and Galarrwuy Indigenous perspectives or responding than Yunupingu, appear as guest columnists and at other times. For instance, during the opinion writers. Arabena observed: Howard years when there was a push to Noel [Pearson] used media with a mainstream Indigenous health services, the stunning success and really did engage community-controlled sector found it very the eye of mainstream Australia, really. difficult to gain a voice. Former CEO of the He was able to communicate very National Aboriginal Community Controlled effectively through media networks that Health Organisation (NACCHO), Steve we had within all of the Cape York Larkin, said: ‘I came to understand how institutions. fickle the media could be ... I found there However, many participants were critical of wasn’t much interest ... in any sort of the lack of diversity of Indigenous leaders’

KEY POINTS

Our study reconsiders the ‘intractability’ of some Indigenous policy issues as the effectiveness of Indigenous peoples in maintaining and promoting their firmly held cultural and political perspectives on issues such as health and education in public discussion. Participants made direct links between effective media strategies and success in influencing the policy process. Our study has generated some precise insights into how Indigenous public spheres function, and provides evidence of the ways in which these processes impact on the mainstream public sphere. Established Indigenous leaders exert considerable influence in public and policy discussions through their use of the mainstream news media as a platform to advance their agendas and take on their opponents.

voices heard in the mainstream media, and others said early reporting experiences had said some conservative leaders’ views had shaped their attitudes. Veteran Press become too dominant in both public and Gallery journalist Peter Reese recalled his policy discussions. A lack of strong earliest experiences in the 1970s: Indigenous leadership can make it difficult So to ... have these events unfolding to attract media attention. Former Yirrkala before my eyes and ... witness police principal Leon White said in 1998 that the brutality — dragging people like Bobby Yolgnu had leaders with national media Sykes ... off on their backs along the profiles, including Yothu Yindi lead singer ground and throwing them in the paddy Mandawuy Yunupingu. In 2008, when the wagon — it really opened my eyes and Yolgnu experienced difficulty attracting made me very aware of the disparity in media attention for their campaign to save society that Aboriginals have. bilingual education, these leaders were no Former National Indigenous Times writer longer in the community due to death or ill- Graham Ring said the social justice health. Reflecting on the success of the 1998 orientation in his journalism came from his campaign, White lamented: ‘We also had Catholic school education and studying people like [internationally renowned politics at university: Yolgnu educator] Dr Marika who’s now passed away and Mandawuy’s wife and I was always pondering how ... you give others who took leadership of this. They’re people a feeling for the kind of no longer with us.’ discrimination, mistreatment, dispossession all that kind of stuff, it How some mainstream journalists make clearly wasn’t cutting through the [journalism] that was around. a difference Murray McLaughlin of the ABC said some Journalists play a crucial role in mediating may criticise him for ignoring ‘the hard and Indigenous voices in the mainstream public more negative stuff’: sphere. They can amplify Indigenous policy perspectives or downplay them. Different [B]ut it’s been my preference to look for journalism practices and journalists’ stories and actively pursue stories that personal orientations produce different have positive contexts ... It’s not all ... levels of engagement, which results in an doom and gloom ... I don’t know how uneven landscape in the reporting of that developed, but it’s just the way it’s Indigenous issues. Most participants worked out. commented that lack of empathy for Participants identified cultural competence Indigenous issues and people contributed to as the key attribute of accomplished poor journalism practice and negative Indigenous affairs reporters. They said it portrayals. enabled them to find their own stories, Participants identified particular journalists cultivate and maintain strong contacts in with the cultural competence to negotiate the Indigenous public sphere and negotiate Indigenous public spheres. These are the the obstacles in the field to get the story reporters who are most likely to actively (see Journalists, ‘remote’ Indigenous sources seek out and represent Indigenous policy and cultural competence). agendas and perspectives, forming valuable A number of journalists said they gained intersections between the Indigenous their cultural competence while working in public sphere and the mainstream. different roles for Indigenous bodies. Others Journalists’ personal histories and learned in the field from other professionals experiences influence their approaches. A with deep experience living and working number declared that they were committed with Indigenous peoples. Senior writer with to presenting positive accounts about The Australian, Tony Koch, has developed a Indigenous people and highlighting strategy for enabling Indigenous people injustice. Some described themselves as from remote communities to gain access to having a social justice orientation, while him and generate news stories:

What I do in Queensland — and it’s a bit that ‘no one wanted to talk about anything of a sneaky one, but it works — with else’: News Ltd, we’ve got a 1300 number so you can ring free from any phone So we took that on as it was a anywhere in Australia. And I just put responsibility to try to find some kind of that number all around, all the middle path ... so we came up with ... communities, anywhere, on cards, two-way stuff ... it was really just trying anyone that wants to talk to me can just to navigate through government’s pick up the yellow phone. ordained decision and what was clearly needed on the ground ... So that’s what happened, it [the inquiry] was Policymakers’ media practices gazumped, the issue gazumped us. Interviews conducted with federal and state public servants and former ministerial Conclusions advisers provide evidence of how news Our study has mapped some of the ways in media coverage and debate influence their which Indigenous people and communities policy practices. These participants are make incursions into public policy debates reflexive about their role in a media- and ultimately affect policy outcomes. This saturated policy environment. They story is told through the words of those acknowledge that they use the media who have fought on behalf of particular strategically to promote their policies to the policy outcomes in Indigenous health and public, that their practices feed the education, those involved in reporting on journalists’ routines and react to minister’s Indigenous policy in Australia, and those political agendas. The political sensitivity of who develop and implement that policy. Indigenous health policy means that any Indigenous community activists take a sharp focus by news outlets, particularly strong position in policy debates that affect The Australian and talkback radio, is likely them, based in their culture and in their to have some policy impact. One senior land. We contend that in a mediatized health bureaucrat said: policymaking environment, these You have to be aware of the political communities have used Indigenous public implications of what’s going to happen spheres effectively to engage with if something you do goes public. Is it a mainstream media to keep their policy good news story or a bad ... if it’s not agendas alive. saleable to the general public ... then if you’ve got a strong enough case they’ll The Yolgnu people’s campaign to retain do it covertly ... or it won’t happen, or it bilingual education in the late 1990s will be defused rather than put in place culminated in the biggest ever petition to something that ... the talkbacks or the the Northern Territory parliament, and tabloids might get a hold of ... resulted in the retention of these programs for another decade. Their most recent battle Participant Tess Lea was one of the authors to preserve their education system also of Learning lessons (Collins, 1999), the appears to have been successful, with the report of the Collins review of Indigenous new Northern Territory Government’s education in 1999 that led to the Northern promise to reinstate the programs. We Territory’s bilingual education policy being argue that, if the Yolgnu had not employed reinstated as ‘two-way learning’. She offers news media strategies and tactics to engage precise insights into how Indigenous public with the policy debate, bilingual education sphere activity defused the government’s in the Northern Territory would have been policy resolve. She said the Northern scrapped in the late 1990s. Similarly, we Territory government’s terms of reference have demonstrated that, despite for the inquiry did not include bilingual marginalisation over many years in national education. However, the ‘Don’t Cut Off Our health policy debates, the media activities Tongues’ campaign was so successful in and commitment of policy advocates to the focusing public and news media attention self-determinist principles of Aboriginal community-controlled health contributed to

the survival of the AMS network in the we have interviewed would understand it, delivery of primary health care to but they maintain a commitment to Indigenous Australians. reporting Indigenous perspectives. Media-savvy Indigenous leaders understand In a mediatized policymaking environment, journalism’s role in defining policy it is imperative that Indigenous voices are problems and providing a platform for a heard (Dreher, 2010). There is a diversity of range of voices to be heard in policy debates peoples and opinions in Indigenous (Mickler, 1988). Advocates interviewed for Australia; however, not all voices are heard this study believe the media play an at the same volume. Some are diminished in important role in policymaking, and have parliaments and newsrooms where often employed a range of mechanisms to engage there are few listening. But there is a with and influence national policy debates. determination to convey Indigenous This finding supports Koch-Baumgarten agendas to those in power and engage in and Voltmer’s (2010) argument that the policy-making process. As Maddison marginalised groups rely on mass media to (2009, p. xxvi) says: ‘Aboriginal people are amplify their demands in public discussion. tasked with negotiating a complex political They understand the importance of culture that is poorly understood by non- engaging empathetic journalists in the Aboriginal people, but in doing so they are mainstream media in order to get their ‘resourceful, creative and persistent’. policy positions heard. Whether it is through communications units developed in References Indigenous-controlled health organisations Bakir, V. (2006). ‘Policy agenda setting and or the promotion of news stories broken in risk communication’, Press/Politics, 11(3): Indigenous media, there is an awareness 67–88. that Indigenous public spheres must interact with mainstream public spheres in Collins, B. (1999). Learning lessons: an order to influence policy outcomes. In this independent review of Indigenous education way, Indigenous organisations employ in the Northern Territory. Darwin: Northern media logic in their campaigns to effect Territory Department of Education. policy change. Dreher, T. (2010). ‘Speaking up or being We acknowledge the marginalisation of heard? Community media interventions and Indigenous viewpoints in mainstream the politics of listening’, Media Culture and media reporting; however, we have Society, 32(1): 85–103. identified a small group of journalists who Gandy, O.H. (1982). Beyond agenda setting: have the skills and commitment to amplify information subsidies and public policy. Indigenous perspectives in public Norwood, NJ: Ablex. discussion. These are journalists who have the cultural competence and professional Hartley, J. (2003). ‘Their own media in their practices to negotiate Indigenous public own language’, in C. Lumby & E. Probyn spheres effectively, enabling them to (eds), Remote control: new media, new broaden public and policy debates. They ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University typically have a social justice orientation Press. and a genuine desire to engage with Hoogenraad, R. (2001), ‘Critical reflections Indigenous public spheres. They do not, on the history of bilingual education in however, see themselves as mouthpieces Central Australia’, in J. Simpson et al. (eds), for Indigenous causes or their role as Forty years on. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. influencing policy; rather, they articulate a desire to make a difference to the lived Koch-Baumgarten, S. & Voltmer, K. (eds) experience of Indigenous people. These (2010), Public policy and mass media, agenda-setting journalists often break the London: Routledge. big stories that initiate major policy change. Their reporting does not always promote ‘good’ policy as the Indigenous advocates

Maddison, S. (2009). Black politics: inside the complexity of Aboriginal political culture. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Mickler, S. (1998). The myth of privilege: Aboriginal status, media visions, public ideas. Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press. Murray, R. et al. (2003). ‘Aboriginal health and the policy process’, in S. Couzos & R. Murray (eds), Aboriginal primary health care: an evidence-based approach, pp. 1–37. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Academic Perspectives

Academics, think tanks and journalists: The trouble with expert opinion, empirical evidence and bilingual education

Lisa Waller

Public servants and journalists have some in our study underlined this. The things in common: for both fields a strong Australian’s Tony Koch, commenting on ‘evidence base’ is a mantra for good coverage of bilingual education in the professional practice. Both groups look to Northern Territory, said: independent ‘experts’ including … [you’ve] got to include them, the academics to provide or verify the evidenced-based and outcomes evidence they rely on; however, this based. I mean — you can't waste evidence-based approach can present money and people’s time and challenges. Our project focuses on news people’s lives on bullshit stuff that's media and the policy process, and this has not evidence-based. involved investigating the relationships between journalists and their sources, Language activists said there is a wealth including academics. That relationship is of international and Australian research the focus of this essay, but I want to begin that provides evidence of the benefits of by underlining that is not the only uneasy bilingual education for Indigenous relationship we have encountered along children who start school only speaking the way. The same kinds of uneasiness their mother tongues, and this is reflected that are evident at times between in the literature (Grimes, 2009). However, journalists and academics can be seen in academic commentators (Devlin, 2010; the relationship between policymakers Hoogenraad, 2001; Nicholls, 1994; and academics, and between Simpson, Caffery & McConvell, 2009) and policymakers and journalists, as well. some study participants say this substantial body of evidence was largely In his discussion of the problems of overlooked by politicians and the news evidence-based policy, former media in 1998–99 and again in 2008–09, Productivity Commission head Gary when they announced the Northern Banks (2009) described cultural Territory’s bilingual education programs differences between public servants and would be set aside, without research or academics. He said there was a perception consultation with affected communities. among senior public servants that Furthermore, participants said that in academics can be very hard ‘to do 2008 the news media did not probe the business with’ or that they are too slow, evidence for the policy change cited by or lack an appreciation of the ‘real world’. the government, or seek comment from He said, while there may be some validity relevant academic experts. Journalists in these perceptions, they may also reflect explained that the government withheld an unrealistic view by public servants of the relevant data. Some participants said how much time is needed to do good editors were not interested in publishing research; and perhaps a lack of planning. academic experts’ submissions to the Perhaps also a desire for greater opinion pages of leading newspapers. One ‘predictability’ in upholding a certain academic said: viewpoint than many academics would be willing to countenance. … a number of people tried writing opinion pieces and tried getting them The literature on journalists and their published and they were just knocked sources has long emphasised the back one after the other. OK, some of importance of ‘experts’ and empirical them may have been badly written, evidence in the construction of credible there are all sorts of reasons for news (Lippmann, 1921). Some journalists rejecting. One of them, I remember I

got one rejected by The Age, saying while respecting and preserving something like, ‘well, we’ve had our Indigenous languages is crucial, it should fill of Aboriginal stories for a while, not be the remit of schools to teach them. we just can’t take another opinion Instead, Indigenous children should be piece on it’. taught their languages in the home. Both Our participants offered their experiences Hughes and Pearson’s writings received a and observations of policymakers and the considerable amount of public attention news media’s unwillingness, or inability, and discussion. The literature on the to grapple with what they admit is power of think tanks, which is discussed complex data and concepts. They said later, says tracing or measuring the they felt academics were seen as distant impact of think tanks on government from educational and political ‘realities’ policy or news media outputs is difficult and that their potential contribution to but ‘traces’ of their ideas can often be the debate was easily dismissed. This discerned. Bacchi’s (2009) concepts for group of participants’ media-related understanding policymaking can assist in practices can be understood to lend explaining how these ideas became part weight to Negrine’s (1996) contention of the policy conversation. She challenges that the news media are ultimately the idea that governments react to pre- unable, unwilling, and often unprepared existing problems and instead argues that ‘to confront and make sense of the they are reactive in creating or producing complexity of causes and effects which those ‘problems’. In making this claim, surround events and happenings in the Bacchi is not arguing that the issues or contemporary world’ (1996, p. 16). experiences to which a policy refers are not real, but rather that calling those This essay argues that in 2008 the kinds conditions ‘problems’ or ‘social problems’ of ‘politically palatable’ views espoused fixes them in ways that need to be by think-tank experts, who oppose the use interrogated. Arguably, the views of Indigenous languages in schools, were espoused by Hughes and Pearson fixed preferred by policymakers and the news bilingual education as a ‘problem’ that media to those of linguists and Indigenous needed to be fixed and their proposed education experts. Fairfax’s Northern policy ‘solution’ was politically appetising correspondent Lindsay Murdoch said: at the time. And politically it’s an easy thing to sell in the policy ... this is Australia and Competing views of the ‘problems’ of they will learn English for six (sic) remote Indigenous education hours of the day. That’s politically ... they get political points for that — Participants commented that these think- being tough on ... ‘we’re not going to tank experts, who oppose bilingual have these people not being able to learning with a simple message that speak English’. Indigenous children must learn in English, were preferred by the news media to Some study participants believed Helen other credible sources on Indigenous Hughes, of the Centre of Independent education in the Northern Territory, Studies, and Noel Pearson of the Cape including a detailed report by the York Institute, exerted a strong influence Australian Education Union (AEU) on public perception of the issue and in (Kronemann, 2007). This review followed the minds of both territory and federal up on concerns that the Ampe policymakers. Hughes wrote several akelyernemane meke mekarle (Little reports on Indigenous education (Hughes, children are sacred) report into child 2008; Hughes & Hughes, 2009) and sexual abuse in the Northern Territory Pearson wrote an article in the Quarterly (Wild & Anderson, 2007) had raised Essay (Pearson, 2009) preceded by a about the importance of bilingual comment piece in The Australian education and the need for improved (Pearson, 2007), in which he argued that English teaching in remote Indigenous

schools. It estimated that $1.7 billion … parents ... are clamouring for their would be needed over five years to put children to be taught the mainstream the teaching and infrastructure resources curriculum in English from in place to provide a proper education for kindergarten onward. They are all the Indigenous children in the confident that they can teach their Northern Territory (Kronemann, 2007, children their language and culture at p. 36). home and in the community. (2007, p. 9) Despite its significant findings and Even though Hughes is not a specialist in recommendations, the AEU report education or languages, her position attracted little media attention. Far more attracted media attention and support influential was the monograph written by (Barker, 2008), especially in The Hughes for the Centre for Independent Australian. Studies (Hughes, 2008). She highlighted the poor results of Indigenous students, ANU Professor of Linguistics, Jane and underlined some real problems with Simpson, said the news media preferred Northern Territory education delivery in to ‘recycle as news’ the opinions of remote communities. She also claimed Hughes and Pearson, rather than those of teaching in Indigenous languages is a academics who could provide empirical major cause of educational disadvantage, evidence to support their claims: but produced no evidence to support her … they were certainly not coming statements. Ignoring the fact that only looking for us, and it was quite nine out of 119 schools had bilingual understandable that they didn’t come education programs, and that those looking for someone like me because programs start teaching English early, she I didn’t have a profile, but they didn’t wrote that, ‘In the Northern Territory, go looking for people like Christine children are still initially taught in a Nicholls, who did have a profile, or vernacular language, despite the research Brian Devlin who has been a major that shows that the ability to learn bilingual education figure in the languages recedes with age’ (Hughes, Northern Territory. 2008, p. 8). Simpson et al. (2009) point In declining an invitation to participate in out this was also misleading, because the this study, Hughes (pers. Comm., 4 April homeland school which prompted her 2011) said ‘I regret that the subject you complaint, Yilpara, like other homeland propose is not an area of my expertise’ schools, does not have a bilingual This is despite having written two education program. extensive reports on the subject (Hughes, Hughes also claimed, again without 2008; Hughes & Hughes, 2009) and providing evidence, that: participated in news media interviews in which she was highly critical of bilingual

KEY POINTS

Tracing or measuring the impact of think tanks on government policy or news media outputs is difficult but ‘traces’ of their ideas have been discerned in this study. Our research suggests the views of think-tank experts, who oppose the use of Indigenous languages in schools, were preferred by policymakers and the news media to academic sources. This observation accords with international studies that show the growing importance of think tanks in the policy process. Academics said they felt they were seen as distant from educational and political ‘realities’ and that their potential contribution to the debate was easily dismissed. They pointed to a general lack of understanding in their relationship with journalists and the media relations units within universities.

education, accusing the programs of Despite having had a university for 20 producing students who were ‘non- years there’s no local commentators lingual’ and advocating strongly for you can go to for stuff on politics or English as the language of instruction in history or whatever. I mean, at the all remote Indigenous schools (see for moment there’s one former Labor example Barker, 2008; Ferrari, 2008) politician who gets asked about things, he’s no intellectual giant and is Journalists and problems with access to a failed politician. evidence A senior Northern Territory health bureaucrat also commented that Several other issues related to the Northern Territory news outlets tended question of expert opinion and empirical to seek expert opinion from ‘outside’ evidence emerged from the interviews. institutions from ‘down south’: Journalists who covered the 2008 decision to dismantle bilingual education … the other contributing factor for programs in the territory revealed the the NT is the difficulties it seems to problems they encountered getting access have in constructing a local point of to the relevant government data on school view or perspective. performance. They explained how this Inclusion in the news media as a source of tended to skew the coverage. Katrina information lends prestige and an air of Bolton, who covered the issue for the ABC credibility (Soley, 1992), so who and what in Darwin, said: the news media present as expert sources And it’s such a shit fight always to get and knowledge on remote Indigenous even the statistics from the Education education informs public understandings Department. There’s so much lack of of who are credible education researchers clarity in terms of being able to see and what is reliable education research the data. Like, the length of time (Haas, 2007). Taken together, the news between when they were saying that media influence who the public pay bilingual schools weren’t performing attention to as scientific sources of and the length of time between when education research, as well as the we then got any kind of quantifiable problems those sources contend are data was ridiculous. Like months. And worthy of attention and the solutions they so it was repressive lines being fed by advocate (Koch-Baumgarten & Voltmer, politicians, and then other opponents 2010). This often translates into which sort of, it was that sort of warfare educational approaches and programs are kind of thing. identified and put forward as deserving of public resources. In this case the Northern Intellectual voices not heard Territory’s own Charles Darwin Several academic participants, including University experts on bilingual education Dr Frances Morphy of the Australian such as Brian Devlin and Michael Christie National University and Dr Christine were not heard, but Sydney-based Nicholls of Flinders University, economist Helen Hughes and North commented on the lack of media attention Queensland lawyer Noel Pearson were. for intellectuals in Australia generally, as opposed to other western nations, such as Lack of understanding between fields Great Britain and France, where they said Academics who were interviewed pointed some scholars enjoyed a celebrity status. to a general lack of understanding in their In the Northern Territory context, relationship with journalists and the participants observed that in general media relations units within universities. there was a lack of local intellectuals and While the field of academia may be close who were available for public comment. to the journalistic field in terms of the Former journalist Chips Macinolty said: education and social class of their members, there are distinct differences.

This can be understood to relate to that would be given coverage or how the differences in professional practices issue was represented (Cottle, 2003; (Bourdieu, 1990). For example, both Dreher, 2010). journalists and academics commented on Journalists were criticised by some journalists requiring quick information participants as lacking adequate and easy access to academics. Academics knowledge about education generally, not said they wanted time to consider the having the time or skill to comprehend questions being asked and to carefully academic research and of poor numeracy craft their responses, as their expert skills that are necessary to interpret reputations depended upon providing quantitative data on school performance. accurate and up-to-date information that Poor numeracy among journalists has was carefully interpreted. They also said been documented as a widespread their working day meant they were busy problem internationally, and a barrier to teaching, or they may be engaged in good reporting (Maier, 2002). research activities in the field, which meant they were not easily contactable. Academics also expressed disappointment The disconnection between journalists that governments, which fund their and academics was also revealed to research, often ignore their expert advice manifest in different ways. This included and their study findings. This emergent practices such as journalists using ‘find an theme requires further research, which is expert’ directories on university websites. beyond the scope of this project. It is Linguists who specialise in Indigenous important because, as participants languages said they were contacted commented, their research is federally regularly by journalists looking for a funded and in their opinion the nation comment on a subject such as the prime should benefit from academic research minister’s accent, which they were not that informs public policy. qualified to comment on. They said the journalist had simply sought a linguist, The rise of think tanks without considering their expertise may Think tanks are defined generally as not be in the area of linguistics in which organisations that have significant they wanted an expert opinion. autonomy from governmental interests A number of academics also said they had and that disseminate, synthesise or create never been approached by the information, research, ideas, or advice to university’s media relations team to the public, policymakers, other discuss the kinds of expert opinion they organisations (both private and could provide. Nor had they been offered governmental), and the news media any kind of media training. They said this (Haas, 2007). Openly political meant universities, governments and the conservative think tanks, such as the public were not benefiting from their Centre for Independent Studies, expertise. outnumber and outspend both liberal advocacy-focused think tanks and Journalists who were interviewed nonpartisan research-focused think tanks described the bilingual education debate (Reese, 2002). as ‘good academic argy-bargy’ and said this made it a topic that was difficult to As a group, think tanks are a challenge to present well as a broadcast news story long-standing practices of scientific because it was too abstract and difficult to knowledge production. They are not narrate visually. Print journalists said bound by either tradition or professional space limitations made it difficult to affiliation to adhere to university or other explain the context and complexity of the guidelines of professional conduct for academic arguments about which education research (Weaver & McGann, educational approaches work best. In 2002). The extent to which they conform other words, the production requirements to these standards and procedures—such of news affected whether it was an issue as national ethical research standards and

blind, peer review—is voluntary. Think policymakers and the public via the news tanks can present themselves as media. researchers and research institutions that Tess Lea of Charles Darwin University produce and disseminate research studies spoke of the challenges of making regardless of how they actually conduct academic research accessible to a lay their activities (Howe, 2002). audience and not offending funding Simpson said think tank experts were bodies: popular with policymakers and the news If you’re going into the public domain media because: you are very conscious of translating They write accessibly, they write to the stuff so that it sounds relatively the point, they write in a place interesting … you’re trying to actually [policymakers] can get access to be definitive when what you’ve easily. [They] don’t have to fish actually done usually, is made the around and they understand definitions problematic. So there’s confidentiality. that translation stuff that kicks in, but that’s just a real side thing. The She contrasted this relationship with serious disincentive is how these days traditional academics: all academics are having to scrub for … it’s a feeling that academics are money, and if we alienate … you get distant, that we have vested in trouble very quickly. interests. We’re too theoretical or However, with regard to influence on whatever. It seems to me absurd government policy, tracing or measuring given the taxpayer is paying us a lot the impact of think tanks on government to think about these issues ... and the policy or news media outputs is difficult, media and the policymakers aren’t as others have pointed out (Ahmad, actually interested in hearing what they’re paying us to do. 2008). Stone (2000) has argued that ‘the agenda-setting capacity of a think tank (if The observation think-tank experts’ any) is intangible’ and ‘think tanks do not opinions were of more interest to, and have extensive paradigmatic influence had more influence on, policymakers and over official thinking’ (Stone, 2000, p. the news media in relation to bilingual 219). Ball and Exley (2010) argue that education accords with international what occurs is perhaps a process of studies that show the growing importance ‘attrition and infiltration’, with ‘versions of think tanks in the policy process or traces of think tank ideas being written (Ahmad, 2008; Haas, 2007). In their study into state documents’(Ball & Exley, 2010, of the power of think tanks in British p. 158). politics, Ball and Exley (2010) say: Our research suggests this offers the best There is a sense that academics way of interpreting the influence of think- remain unhelpfully out of touch with tank experts Hughes and Pearson on the real and practical policy problems; policy solution put forward by the that they are detached, cynical and territory government in 2008, which more concerned with peer review, echoed their position that all teaching the Research Assessment Exercise must be in English. and spending time thinking than with getting on and doing (author’s italics). The proximity between think-tank (Ball & Exley, 2010) experts and the news media can be traced, They argue that there has been an overall with the news media giving their position shift in the types of knowledge that are credibility through its coverage of regarded as valuable in relation to policy, Hughes’s and Pearson’s reports and away from academic expertise and essays, and the think-tank experts towards simple messages that can easily referencing sympathetic news media, as be understood by politicians, Hughes and Hughes do in their 2009 report:

Nobody disputes the right of engagement in the online policy Indigenous children to speak their environment. For example, some own languages at home. But as The policymakers commented that they go Australian editorialised, ‘Mr Calma directly to academic sources for and others need to recognise that discussion of policy problems and lack of basic skills, including English potential solutions now that they are language proficiency, is holding his online, rather than relying on mediated people back from better lives and job policy information. This could give opportunities.’(Hughes & Hughes, academics more of a policy agenda-setting 2009, p.10) role, rather than being consulted once the problem has been defined in other Future directions forums. For example, one senior public This essay began with a brief general servant with FaHCSIA said: discussion of the often uneasy The availability of information over relationships between public servants, the internet has been the big change. academics and journalists, then focused Now we can get a more diverse range on news media, academics and think-tank of information, rather than just commentators in the context of bilingual relying on the mainstream education policy in 2007–08. It has newspapers to learn about public argued that differences in professional discussion of Indigenous issues. For cultures and practices in this specific example, I read the publications put policy constellation helped to shape the out by CAEPR [Centre for Aboriginal public discussion and the policy process Economic Policy Research] that are as well. This occurred through available online. downplaying some forms of expert However, the general public is less likely knowledge and think tanks representing to seek out these sources and will the policy ‘problem’ in a particular light therefore continue to rely on mainstream and proposing a monolingual ‘solution’ media to provide the perspective. Many (Bacchi, 2009). I return now to the participants said the issues are complex broader issue the essay began with, and emphasised the need for them to be because it is worth considering that as the presented in ways that will raise public digital age evolves new technologies will awareness, or bring people to an perhaps transform relationships between understanding to share the solutions. One public servants, experts and journalists. senior Northern Territory policymaker There are also recent challenges to the said discussion of Indigenous issues study of policy that have the potential to tended to be polarised between relatively reshape our understanding of policy inaccessible academic channels and processes. For example, Bacchi (2009) is sensationalist media coverage. She critical of the current orthodoxies of identified the importance of academic evidence-based policy. She sees this contributions to well-moderated public paradigm as reliant on positivist, discussion that contributes to policies rationalist assumptions, and argues that that improve the lived experience of because it purports to treat policy as a Indigenous Australians, thereby enriching neutral, technical process it is the entire nation. However, she was depoliticising and potentially regressive. cynical that such an outcome was She seeks to shift the focus from problem- achievable: solving to problem questioning — to ask, ‘what is the problem represented to be?’, We need to get everybody on board which has the potential to transform the to participate in the debates, and not role of academics and journalists in the just have it thrashed out in university process. institutes, or … in an international journal. And then, on the other hand, Some of our research participants raised some trite front page or page 5 story questions about future academic in the NT News ... We’ve been

laughing about it for some years, but Haas, E. (2007). ‘False equivalency: think it will be hard for an alternative to tank references on education in the news emerge. media’. PJE. Peabody Journal of Education, 82(1): 63-102. References Hoogenraad, R. (2001). ‘Critical Ahmad, M. (2008). ‘US think tanks and the reflections on the history of bilingual politics of expertise: role, value and education in Central Australia’. In J. impact’, The Political Quarterly, 79(4): Simpson et al. (Eds.), Forty years on, pp. 529-555. 123-150. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Bacchi, C. (2009). Analysing policy: What's Howe, K. (2002). ‘Free market free-for- the problem represented to be? French's all’, Education Week, 21(30): 32-35. Forest, NSW: Pearson. Hughes, H. (2008). ‘Indigenous education Ball, S. J. & Exley, S. (2010). ‘Making policy in the Northern Territory’, CIS Policy with “good ideas”: policy networks and Monographs, 83: 19. Sydney: The Centre the “intellectuals” of New Labour’, Journal for Independent Studies. of Education Policy, 25(2): 151-169. Hughes, H. & Hughes, M. (2009). Banks, G. (2009). Evidence-based policy- ‘Revisiting Indigenous education’, Policy making: What is it? How do we get it? mongraphs, 94: 20. Sydney: The Centre for Canberra: Australian Productivity Independent Studies. Commission. Koch-Baumgarten, S., & Voltmer, K. Barker, A. (2008). ‘NT education failing (2010). Public policy and mass media. Indigenous students, says report’, The London: Routledge. World Today, 7 April 2008. Retrieved Kronemann, M. (2007). Education is the from key: An educational future for Indigenous http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/cont communities in the Northern Territory. ent/2008/s2209768.htm Canberra: Australian Education Union. Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice Lippmann, W. (1921). ‘The world outside (R. Nice, Trans.). Stanford: Stanford and the pictures in our heads’. In W. University Press. Schramm & D. Roberts (Eds.), The Cottle, S. (2003). Media organization and processes and effects of mass production. London: Sage. communication, pp. 3-39 (1971 ed.). Devlin, B. (2010). Evidence, policy and the Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ‘Step’ model of bilingual education in the Maier, S. R. (2002). ‘Numbers in the news: NT: a brief outline. Retrieved 12 July 2011, a mathematics audit of a daily from newspaper’, Journalism Studies, 3(4): 507- http://www.rnld.org/sites/default/files/ 519. doi: 9-Sep-10 Devlin MySchools evidence.pdf 10.1080/1461670022000019191 Dreher, T. (2010). ‘Speaking up or being Negrine, R. (1996). The communication of heard? Community media interventions politics. London: Sage. and the politics of listening’, Media, Nicholls, C. (1994). ‘Vernacular language Culture & Society, 32(1): 85-103. programs and bilingual education Ferrari, J. (2008,). ‘ “Education apartheid” programs in Aboriginal Australia: iIssues failing Aboriginal kids’, The Australian, 5 and ideologies’. In D. Hartman & J. April, p. 1. Henderson (Eds.), Aboriginal languages in Grimes, E. C. (2009). Indigenous languages education, pp. 214-234. Alice Springs: IAD in education: what the research actually Press. shows. Darwin: Australian Society for Pearson, N. (2007). ‘Native tongues Indigenous Languages. imperilled’, The Australian, 10 March, p. 28.

Pearson, N. (2009). ‘Radical hope: education and equality in Australia’, Quarterly Essay, 35: 1-105. Reese, E. W. (2002). ‘The political activity of think tanks: the case for mandatory contributor disclosure’, Harvard Law Review, 115: 1502–1524. Simpson, J., Caffery, J. & McConvell, P. (2009). Gaps in Australia’s Indigenous language policy: dismantling bilingual education in the Northern Territory, AIATSIS Research Discussion Paper No. 24. Retrieved 3 March 2010, from http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/research_prog ram/publications/discussion_papers Soley, L. (1992). The news shapers: the sources who explain the news. New York: Praeger. Stone, D. (2000). ‘Private authority, scholarly legitimacy and political credibility: think tanks and informal diplomacy’. In R. Higgott, G. Underhill & A. Bieler (Eds.), Non state actors and authority in the global system, pp. 211- 225. London: Routledge. Weaver, R. K. & McGann, J. (2002). ‘Think tanks and civil societies in a time of change’. In J. M. R. K. Weaver (Ed.), Think tanks and civil societies: catalysts for ideas and actions, pp. 1-35. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Wild, R. & Anderson, P. (2007). Report of the Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the protection of Aboriginal children from sexual abuse. Ampe akelyernemane meke mekarle [Little children are sacred]. Darwin.

Reciprocity and Indigenous knowledge in research

Lisa Waller

Ganma is a metaphor. We are talking Smith, which emphasises that the quality about natural processes but meaning of the interaction between the researcher at another level. Ganma is social and participants is more important than theory. It is our traditional profound ticking boxes or answering closed and detailed model of how what questions (Smith, 2004, p. 136). Europeans call ‘society’ works. (Yunipingu, 1994) Smith (2004) observes that some methodologies regard the specific I try to follow the threads of local research setting, characterised by the arguments wherever they lead. That practices of Indigenous communities as is to say, I take them seriously as theory — as texts to learn from, not ‘barriers’ to research, or as exotic customs just about. (Connell, 2007, on the that researchers need to be familiar with project of theorising in the global in order to carry out their work without periphery) causing offence. Indigenous methodologies, on the other hand, Indigenous peoples think and interpret approach these practices in a respectful the world and its everyday realities in and ethical way as an integral part of the particular ways that are different from methodology: non-indigenous peoples because of their relationships to land, their cultures, They are factors to be built into histories and values (Rigney, 1999). research explicitly, to be thought However, indigenist researchers have about reflexively, to be declared demonstrated that one of the legacies of openly as part of the research design, to be discussed as part of the final scientific racialisation and its ideology has results of a study and to be been the construction of knowledge about disseminated back to the people in Indigenous peoples through the ‘common culturally appropriate ways and in a sense’ colonial view. In doing so, they language that can be understood. have revealed the ways in which Northern (Smith, 2004, p. 15) epistemologies reproduce and reaffirm the cultural assumptions of ‘the world’ Yolngu knowledge systems involve and the ‘real’ by the dominant group thinking from, and with, the sea and the (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008; Jones, Lee & land. As Connell (2007) observes more Poynton, 1998; Smith, 2004). generally of Indigenous cultures, ‘land and sea are not just geographical co-ordinates, The perspectives of Yolngu people are an but a concrete presence in social reality’ important part of this study and (Connell, 2012, p. 212). Being welcomed throughout the project I have remained on to Yolngu country — learning about it aware of and taken steps to avoid the in conversation and by walking upon it dangers of a Northern-centric approach to with senior women; the many background my research. The study design, fieldwork, discussions, interactions and social analysis of Yolngu practices and the experiences I had with Yolngu — was a research outputs are informed by crucial part of the research process Indigenous methodologies, especially because it established a rapport between Yolngu epistemologies and the work of us. Spending time getting to know people, 1 Kaupapa Māori researcher Linda Tuhiwai driving into town together, having some lunch, going for a walk, meeting family — 1 Maori researchers in New Zealand call ‘methodology’ ‘Kaupapa Māori research’ or Māori - indigenous values, attitudes and practices rather than centred research. Smith explains that ‘this form of disguising them within Western labels such as naming is about bringing to the centre and privileging ‘collaborative research’ (Smith, 2006, p. 125).

was how I discovered what is important from Indigenous epistemologies that from a Yolngu perspective — and why. emphasise the centrality of trust, listening, reciprocity and maintaining Ganma consent (Waller, 2010a). Yolngu use the Ganma metaphor to Decolonising research explain how knowledge is produced and it is therefore one of the foundation This work of journalism is a form of philosophies for their bilingual/bicultural ‘decolonising research’, which is schools, which are central to my research enmeshed in activism. From the outset questions. It has also emerged through Yolngu participants were more interested the research process as the theoretical in what I could offer their community as a base of my doctoral project, which brings journalist in return for their input and together Northern and Southern theory in guidance, than what I could offer as a PhD a particular ecology. This places Ganma at student writing a thesis and conference the philosophical front and centre of this papers. We agreed from the beginning research journey. It is also part of the land that I would produce a work of journalism on which the research is based. Some for the mainstream media that advocated would describe this as a ‘grounded theory’ for their policy position on bilingual approach but I prefer Connell’s education. Denzin and Lincoln (2008) suggestion. She gives a new meaning for describe this approach as ‘decentring and the term ‘grounded theory’, which redefining the field of research so the involves ‘linking theory to the ground on Western academy is not the locus of which the theorist’s boots are planted’ authorising power that defines the (Connell, 2007, p. 206). This study is an research agenda’ (2008, p. 38). My project attempt to do just this. Connell calls this had ethics clearance from the University approach ‘dirty theory’, and defines it as of Canberra, which included writing theorising which is ‘mixed up with works of journalism. The article was specific situations’: ‘The goal of dirty constructed upon the Indigenous ethical theory is not to subsume, but to clarify; framework I describe here and elsewhere not to classify from outside, but to (Waller, 2010; 2012). illuminate a situation in its concreteness’ Denzin and Lincoln (2008) stress that (Connell, 2007, p. 207): decolonising research emphasises To think in this way is to reject the performativity: deeply entrenched habit of mind … by which theory in the social It is not only concerned with building sciences is admired exactly in the a theoretical foundation but degree to which it escapes specific researchers are engaged settings and speaks in abstract performatively in decolonising acts universals. Connell, 2007, p. 206 framed as activism, advocacy or critical reclamation. ((Denzin & The thinking and action the Ganma Lincoln, 2008, p. 38) metaphor has inspired can be understood as a response to Yolngu participants’ self- This essay traces the development of the determinist aims for the research, which journalism methodology and its included writing works of journalism operationalisation in the article ‘Learning about bilingual education for mainstream in both worlds’ (Waller, 2011), which news media audiences that present their presents the Yolngu perspective on perspective. This critical studies approach bilingual education. (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008) has resulted in a model of academic journalism based in Journalism Indigenous research methodologies It is important to note that, from an (Waller, 2010a). Its aim is to contribute to Indigenous perspective, no difference improving news media representation of exists between journalism and other Indigenous people and issues. It draws

forms of non-Indigenous research. For researcher and what is studied, and the Indigenous people, research is one of the situational constraints that shape inquiry’ key means that colonisers and (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000, p. 8). They call imperialists have used to ‘take’ their for research projects that are designed to knowledge, objectify them as ‘Other’ and reflect Indigenous peoples’ values, respect rob them of their sovereignty (Rigney, cultures, histories, communities and 1999). Kaupapa Māori researcher Linda individuals; serve their purposes and Tuwai Smith says: ‘the word itself, needs first and foremost, and are “research”, is probably one of the dirtiest designed to advance their self-defined words in the Indigenous world’s struggles for self- determination vocabulary’ (Smith, 2004, p. 1). (McCallum, Waller & Meadows, 2012). Mainstream Western journalism still The broad principles that have been operates mainly with the positivist– developed through these methodologies objectivist epistemology that reproduces form the basis for Australia’s ethical and reaffirms the cultural assumptions of standards for academic research ‘the world’ and the ‘real’ by the dominant involving Indigenous participants group (Rigney, 1999; Meadows, 2001). (NHMRC, 2003; 2007). Therefore, new epistemologies are needed if journalism is to reflect Indigenous people and the news media Indigenous understandings of ‘the world’ The model for Indigenous reporting and ‘the real’. developed through my research draws on Indigenous researchers have drawn upon the National Health and Medical Research the critical studies paradigm that Council’s (NHMRC) Guidelines for Ethical advocates for those most oppressed in Conduct in Aboriginal and Torres Strait society and incorporated feminist theory Islander Health (2003; 2007), Indigenous in their development of qualitative research methodologies, recent methodologies for decolonising2 research scholarship on listening and Tony Koch’s about Indigenous peoples (Rigney, 1999). newsgathering practices. I contend that These methodologies demand greater journalism academics, their students and self-reflection in research and emphasise working journalists can be more effective ‘the socially constructed nature of reality, agents of change if they look beyond the intimate relationship between the professional ethics codes or reporting protocols, to Indigenous research methodologies. The ethical framework 2 Indigenous researchers are involved in the project of advocated here requires self-reflexivity, ‘decolonising’ research (see for example, Smith 2004). meaningful engagement with Decolonising research involves activism and is based communities and individuals and on postcolonial theory and postcolonial studies. Denzin & Lincoln (2008) explain: ‘… decolonising structuring projects so they privilege research recognises and works within the belief that Indigenous voices and perspectives, non-Western knowledge forms are excluded from or thereby expanding, diversifying and marginalised in normative research paradigms, and challenging stereotypical media therefore non-Western/Indigenous voices are representations. silenced and subjects lack agency within such representations. Furthermore, decolonising research This kind of approach has been advanced recognises the role of colonisation in the scripting and by Michael Meadows (2005), who encrypting of a silent, inarticulate and suggests journalists need to learn how to inconsequential indigenous subject and how such navigate Indigenous public spheres in the encryptions legitimise oppression. Finally, individually and collectively, decolonising research as a same way they learn to move within and performative act functions to highlight and advocate between other information networks as for the ending of both discursive and material part of their daily practice. He says oppression that is produced at the site of the enabling Indigenous speaking positions encryption of the non-Western subject as a requires journalists not only understand “governable body” (Foucault, 1977)’. (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008, pp.35-36). the impact of negative or stereotypical representation, but also the effects of

silencing Indigenous people and making the part of both news media producers them invisible: and their assumed audiences (Dreher, 2010, p. 98). This essay suggests the Sensitivity to such issues might invoke reporting strategies such as using an university ethics process for working with indirect approach in news interviews, Indigenous people provides journalism consultation and negotiation over academics with a framework for meaning, acknowledgment of the developing a new approach to reporting existence of indigenous English and based on an obligation to listen. local languages, and making use of The literature on race and media translators or subtitles where representation discussed in this report appropriate — in other words, shows that Indigenous people often have negotiating Indigenous identity little power over the ways in which they through dialogue with Indigenous public spheres. (Meadows, 2005, are depicted and that the routines and p. 36) values of mainstream journalism present barriers to them telling their stories. Listening Indigenous research ethics can offer a framework for ensuring Indigenous Some senior Yolngu who participated in people have greater control over the ways the project said the big problem with the they are represented and are empowered news media is that journalists don’t to tell their stories. Adopting this ethical present their perspective often or well paradigm involves a commitment to enough, so the public and politicians do respecting difference, listening to not listen to them or take an interest in Indigenous people and ensuring that their issues they regard as important. In an needs and priorities are emphasised in interview for this project, the highly the news reports that are created. regarded Indigenous affairs reporter Tony Koch, of The Australian newspaper3, Dreher (2010) suggests that entrenched said the best advice he could offer about news values and existing story agendas reporting on remote Indigenous often work to shape listening and communities was ‘… you don’t go there to speaking by focusing on addressing the speak to them, you go there to listen, and stereotypes and concerns of ‘mainstream’ that’s just a wonderful experience if audiences, rather than providing ways you’ve got the patience for it’. Yolngu through which marginalised voices can be people’s frustration with not being heard heard. She says our thinking needs to and Koch’s advice for other journalists change to include hearing and listening as provide evidence from the field on the well as speaking. fundamental importance of listening in Dreher is one of a group of media scholars responsible reporting of Indigenous who are concerned with the politics and affairs. importance of listening. Charles Husband Yolgnu people’s experience of the news advocates for a universal right to be media is also reflected in the growing understood (1996), and John Downing body of research concerned with the (2007) builds on Husband’s work with his politics and value of listening, which this concept of ‘active listening’. He argues essay draws upon. Scholars observe that that positive cultural change depends on the difficulty of producing positive developing ‘a sense of obligation to listen’ changes in marginalised groups’ access to to people who have been historically media and their representation is not an excluded from public conversation. Susan inability to speak up on their part. Rather, Bickford (1996) says change can occur it is an inability or a refusal to listen on when we understand that how we listen determines the ways in which others can

3 speak and be heard. In her recent work on Interview conducted by Lisa Waller at Deakin listening, Dreher (2010) suggests that the University Management Centre, 23 May 2010.

nature of media power can be usefully understood in their own languages, rethought: facilitates speaking and listening. Media power might entail the The university ethics process is designed privilege of choosing to listen or not, to ensure research outcomes that satisfy the power to enter into dialogue or the needs and aspirations of Indigenous not, to seek to comprehend the other people, which could be works of or not, the privilege of demanding journalism that tell the stories Indigenous answers and explanations and people want the world to hear. justifications. The challenge for media change then might be how to undo Writing: ‘Learning in both worlds’ the privilege of not listening at multiple levels — including the news Learning in both worlds (Waller, 2011) conventions which structure can be described as a piece of journalists’ hearing stories, and the ‘experimental‘ journalism as it presumed interest of the assumed contributes to operationalising the ethical audience in listening to others. framework developed through my (Dreher, 2010, p. 101) research. It could also be used to ‘test’ Fair representation and access to news some of the research findings, especially media for Indigenous people are more the local understanding of participants likely to be achieved by working outside that Australia’s southern mainstream or re-imagining news conventions, news media has little interest in the topic challenging routine source strategies and of bilingual education. It could also be using different modes of information used to ‘test’ whether a substantial piece gathering and storytelling (Dreher 2010). of journalism that advocates an Journalism academics are well placed to Indigenous perspective could influence take up the challenges of media change the bilingual education policy debate suggested here by working through the (Koch-Baumgarten & Voltmer, 2010). university ethics process, which facilitates The article was published by the online dialogue with Indigenous public spheres. news and opinion outlet Inside Story New subjects as well as ways of almost one year after I had completed my storytelling can be developed from fieldwork in north-east Arnhem Land. Indigenous peoples’ definitions of issues There were two reasons I did not write it and priorities for research. Different sooner. The first was that I had further modes of information gathering would interviews to complete with members of include working together to negotiate the policy field who I believed might not what will be investigated and how that be prepared to participate if they did not inquiry will be carried out. Establishing like what I wrote. The second goes to my meaningful relationships that extend journalistic habitus, especially my news beyond information collection can sense (Benson & Neveu, 2005). The aims displace routine source strategies. of the feature article were to present the Respecting Indigenous cultures and Yolngu policy perspective, reach as wide knowledge, including people’s right to be an audience as possible and ideally to

KEY POINTS

The main outcomes of the project stem from Yolngu participants’ self-determinist aims for the research. A major aim was writing a work of journalism that advocated the Yolngu policy position on bilingual education. The article that resulted can be viewed at www.inside.org.au/learning_in_both_worlds/ Working with Indigenous research ethics resulted in the development of a model of academic journalism based in Indigenous research methodologies.

have an impact on the policy process. The has sympathetically reported the wind did not blow the right way, events and people’s feelings and according to my journalism ‘nose’, until I reactions. A real change, easy to read could spot a suitable opening in the and the truth. national news agenda. The House of Lisa Waller has got it right, crafting a Representatives inquiry into Indigenous respectful and accurate account of languages (Aboriginal and Torres Strait the continual battles (war) Yolngu Islander Affairs Committee, 2011), have fought for many years to have announced in July 2011, provided an their land, ceremonies, culture and opportunity to link the bilingual languages acknowledged, and their education debate to a broader discussion rights to continue utilising their land, about Indigenous languages at a national ceremonies, culture and languages in level. contemporary Australia. Lisa has also shown us the long and significant There are strong similarities between history of Yolngu public contributions ethnographic and journalistic methods to wider Australian society … (Waller, 2010b). My brief immersion in Importantly, Multhara’s voice can be Yolngu society while conducting heard, sharing with Lisa on her fieldwork provided much of the country at Garrthalala, the depth of observation used in the work of Yolngu feelings, about land, culture, journalism. I quote some material from family and two-way education. my research interviews, from interviews Lucky Lisa — reciprocity — well done. that were conducted specifically for the news article, and draw upon the scholarly This article should be read by literature and news coverage of bilingual everyone and serves an excellent model for us language activists. It’s a education. The journalism I produced is clear and grounded summary of the therefore a hybrid of my academic issues that never devolves into research and journalism research, righteousness and slogans. Of course, undertaken to meet a stated goal of the I think we have every right to be mad research. as hell but emotive language gives readers a license to switch off. Worse, Journalism as a research instrument it offers ‘proof’ to the Writing and placing the article provided a Abbott’s/Brough’s/Scrymgour’s of this world that we are somehow research instrument I could utilise in my motivated by ideology over evidence scholarly work in several ways. Firstly, (just as they are). the process of researching and writing the article contributed to operationalising the The main aims of the ethical framework ethical framework developed through the are to ensure reciprocity with indigenous university ethics process (Waller, 2010a). participants and privilege their Reader feedback to Inside Story and perspectives (National Health and Medical discussion of the article in the Friends of Research Council, 2003), which the Bilingual Learning Google group provide a comments suggest the article has measure for evaluating whether the succeeded in achieving. ethical framework supported the desired Secondly, the process allowed me to index outcome. The comments suggest these my experience against research readers are not disinterested members of participants’ accounts of having difficulty the public, but rather active members of getting stories about bilingual education the bilingual education lobby with an through gatekeepers in southern understanding of the Yolngu perspective. newsrooms. Academics recounted having Comments include: opinion pieces rejected and journalists It is a tremendously well written and reported having difficulty interesting correct version of things at Yirrkala. editors in Indigenous stories that did not Lisa has got so many things right, and fit the routine frames of violence,

dysfunction and failure (McCallum, 2010). to work with them towards these ends. My experience of having the article This approach demands reflexivity on the rejected by several major metropolitan part of the researcher through dailies aligns with participants’ acknowledgment they are an active experiences, providing further evidence participant in their field of research. It to support the argument that most editors also rests on the assumption that research find little interest in the subject and do participants are in the best position to not think it will appeal to their assumed speak on their own behalf. This underpins audiences. my research and is materialised through the Yolngu voices and perspectives in the Thirdly, publication of the article has work of journalism. The approach offers a allowed me to ‘test’ whether news media number of benefits, including reciprocity coverage can amplify marginalised with research participants; providing a people’s perspectives in the policy research instrument for testing theories process, as the literature says (Koch- and findings; making research topics Baumgarten & Voltmer, 2010). The accessible for mainstream audiences and ‘experiment’ suggests it does. The article developing journalism academics as was a ‘top read’ in the influential public intellectuals. Australian Policy Online, ensuring it was brought to the attention of opinion and References policy makers. In the week of publication I received an email from a highly placed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander public servant who participated in the Affairs Committee. (2011). Standing study. He wrote: ‘I talked with [NT Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Opposition Leader] Terry Mills, and he’d Strait Islander Affairs Inquiry into like to see it if you have the link.’ It is language learning in Indigenous possible to pinpoint the impact of the communities. Retrieved 15 February article through reader comments, any 2012, from reference to it in Hansard, press releases, http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committe follow-up media interest and participants’ e/atsia/languages/info.htm comments. Benson, R. & Neveu, E. (Eds.) (2005). Bourdieu and the journalistic field. Can the ‘experiment’ be replicated? London: Polity. This form of ‘experimental’ journalism Connell, R. (2007). Southern theory: the can be replicated by academics and global dynamics of knowledge in social participants working together within a science. Cambridge: Polity. critical studies paradigm, guided by liberation epistemologies. As Dreher Connell, R. (2012). ‘A fringe of leaves: (2010) argues, fair representation and Australian modernity and Southern access to news media are more likely to perspectives’, Continuum: Journal of media be achieved by using different modes of & cultural studies, 26(2): 207-214. information gathering and storytelling, as Denzin, N. K. & Lincoln, Y. S. (2008). this ‘experiment’ does. This approach ‘Introduction: critical methodologies and requires journalism academics to be Indigenous inquiry’. In N. K. Denzin, Y. S. committed to their research and its design Lincoln & L. T. Smith (Eds.), Handbook of supporting the self-determination critical and indigenous methodologies, struggle of their participants, as defined pp. 1-20. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. and controlled by their communities (Rigney, 1999, p. 109) The ‘experiment’ Dreher, T. (2010). ‘Speaking up or being strengthens the wider project’s finding heard? Community media interventions that news media can amplify the and the politics of listening’. Media, perspectives of marginalised groups Culture & Society, 32(1): 85-103. (McCallum, Waller & Meadows, 2012) and that journalism academics are well placed

Jones, G., Lee, A. & Poynton, C. (1998). policy’, Australian journal of ‘Discourse analysis and policy activism: communication, 37(2): 1-14. readings and rewritings of Australian Waller, L. (2011). ‘Learning in both university research policy’. In A. Yeatman worlds’, Inside Story. Retrieved (Ed.), Activism and the policy process, pp. 15 February 2011, from 146-170. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & http://www.insidestory.org.au Unwin. Yunipingu, M. (1994). Voices from the Koch-Baumgarten, S. & Voltmer, K. land. Sydney: ABC Books. (2010). Public policy and mass media. London: Routledge. McCallum, K. (2010). ‘News and local talk: conversations about the crisis of “Indigenous Violence” in Australia’. In S. E. Bird (Ed.), The anthrology of news and journalism: global perspectives, pp. 151- 167. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. McCallum, K., Waller, L. & Meadows, M. (2012). ‘Raising the volume: Indigenous voices in news media and policy’, Media International Australia, 142: 101-111. Meadows, M. (2005). ‘Journalism and indigenous public spheres’, Pacific Journalism Review, 11(1): 36-41. National Health and Medical Research Council. (2003). Values and ethics: guidelines for ethical conduct in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research. Retrieved on 31 August 2010, from http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/publications/s ynopses/e52syn.htm Rigney, L.-I. (1999). ‘Internationalisation of an Indigenous anticolonial cultural critique of research methodologies: A guide to Indigenist research methodology and its principles’, Wicazo Sa Review, 14(2): 109-121. Smith, L. T. (2004). Decolonising methodologies: research and Indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books Ltd. Waller, L. (2010a). ‘Indigenous research ethics: new modes of information gathering and storytelling in journalism’, Australian Journalism Review, 32(2): 19- 31. Waller, L. (2010b). ‘Singular influence: mapping the ascent of Daisy M. Bates in popular understanding and Indigenous

Appendices

Appendix 1

The Media and Indigenous Policy database

Content analysis of newspaper reporting of Indigenous health The research team, overseen by the research manager, Monica Andrew, collected all news reports on Indigenous in four two-year time periods in three newspapers and recorded them in the Media and Indigenous Policy database. Quantitative findings mapped the nature of Indigenous health news, including volume of news reports, topics of health news and spokespeople. The database provided a synopsis of each article. This information has been documented graphically and is publicly available on the Media and Indigenous Policy website. In addition, annotated bibliographies of articles have been compiled and have been made publicly available. This quantitative information has provided a rich source of data to trace the changing and recurring themes in mainstream journalists’ reporting Indigenous health. It graphically demonstrates the intermittent attention given to Indigenous affairs news, the uneven volume of reporting between news outlets, and the narrow range of topics and voices heard in news reporting of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health. Data collection – Newspaper reporting of Indigenous health The research manager, in conjunction with the Chief Investigator, developed an Access database to store coded information from newspaper articles. The database included fields for article title, reporter,1 date, page number and length (where available)2, newspaper and type of article (e.g. news, letter to the editor, editorial). Additional fields included specific topics (e.g. Indigenous health standards, health funding, disease), spokespeople (e.g. Aboriginal leader, Aboriginal lay person, politician) and a synopsis of the article. These later fields were either free text (e.g. article synopsis) or allowed multiple selections (e.g. specific topics). The research manager and a small team of research assistants retrieved and coded relevant articles from the Sydney Morning Herald, Australian and Courier-Mail for the periods 1988- 89, 1995-96, 2002-03 and 2007-08. Where possible, articles were retrieved through the Factiva online database. However, Factiva only includes the Australian from 8 July 1996 and Courier-Mail from 20 January 1998. Articles from the Australian and Courier-Mail for the earlier periods were gathered from newspaper clipping files held at the AIATSIS Library. As a result, there is a need for caution when comparing data from the Sydney Morning Herald and the other two papers and between the earlier and later periods for the Australian and Courier-Mail. Search terms The Factiva searches used the term: health and (Aborig* or Indigenous). This retrieved some irrelevant articles, such as articles on indigenous plant species, but these were easily identified and discarded. Articles were included in the database only if they dealt substantially with Aboriginal health issues or mentioned Aboriginal health in a broader health article.

1 A maximum of three reporters could be listed for each article. This was more than adequate for the majority of articles, which listed either one or no reporter. However, a small number of articles listed more than three authors. 2 Factiva records generally included this information but it was not readily available for articles retrieved from the AIATSIS Library.

Intercoder reliability The research manager developed the protocols for collecting and coding articles and trained the three research assistants who worked on the project. The assistants referred any queries to the research manager. In addition, the research manager has randomly checked records to improve intercoder reliability.

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Appendix 2

Outputs from the Media and Indigenous Policy project

Waller, L. (2012). ‘Learning in both worlds: academic journalism as research outcome’, Research Journalism, 2(1), www.ro.ecu.edu.au/research_journalism/vol2/iss1/1/ McCallum, K., Waller, L. & Meadows, M. (2012) ‘Raising the volume: Indigenous voices in news media and policy’, Media International Australia, 142: 101-115. Waller, L. (2012). ‘Bilingual education and the language of news’, Australian Journal of Linguistics, 31. Reid, H. & McCallum, K. (2012, in press). ‘Weighing in’: the Australian’s reporting of child sexual abuse in Northern Territory Indigenous communities. Proceedings of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association conference, Adelaide, 4-6 July 2012. Dunne Breen, M. (2012, in press). Exclusion zones: Aboriginal Australians in Maralinga’s atomic tests and Melbourne’s Argus newspaper. Proceedings of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association conference, Adelaide, 4-6 July 2012. Foxwell, K., Forde, S. & Meadows, M. (2012, in press). ‘Australian Indigenous and Ethnic Community Radio: public spaces, familiar places’, in K. Seneviratne (ed), Community radio in Asia and the Pacific. Singapore: Hampton Press. McCallum, K. & Waller, L. (2012). ‘Failed state of health: media realities and policy rhetorics’, Arena Magazine, 118: 33-34. McCallum, K. & Waller, L. (2012). Managing the optics of the Intervention. Inside Story, 22 June. Accessed 28 May 2012 at http://inside.org.au/managing-the-optics-of-the- intervention/. McCallum, K. (2011). ‘Journalism and Indigenous health policy’, Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2: 21-31. Meadows, M. (2011). ‘Indigenous nedia in Australia’, in J. Downing (ed), Encyclopedia of social movement media. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Waller, L, (2011). ‘Learning in two worlds’, Inside Story, 7 December, p. 12-13. Waller, L. (2011). Listen here: Indigenous voices in Australian media and policymaking. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) conference, Australian National University, October 11-13, 2011. [webcast] McCallum. K. & Holland, K. (2010). Indigenous discourses in Australian news media reporting, Australian Journalism Review, 32 (2): 5-18. Waller, L. (2010). ‘Indigenous research ethics: new modes of information gathering and storytelling in journalism’, Australian Journalism Review, (32)2: 19-32. Waller, L. (2010). ‘Singular influence: the ascent of Daisy M. Bates in popular understanding and Indigenous policy’, Australian Journal of Communication, 37(2): 1-14. Reid, H. (2010). A failure in the symbiosis of democracy. Honours dissertation, University of Canberra. Waller, L (2010). Singular influence: The ascent of Daisy Bates in popular understanding and Indigenous policymaking. ANZCA conference, Canberra, July 2010. (This paper won the Grant Noble Prize for the best postgraduate paper.)

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Additional references – Media and Policy

APSC (Australian Public Service Commission) 2007. Tackling wicked problems: a public policy perspective. Canberra: APSC. Bacchi, C. (2009). Analysing policy: what’s the problem represented to be? French’s Forest, NSW: Pearson. Bakir, V. (2006), ‘Policy agenda setting and risk communication’, Press/Politics, 11(3): 67– 88. Banks, G. (2009). Evidence-based policy-making: What is it? How do we get it? Canberra: Australian Productivity Commission. Briggs, C. & Hallin, D. C. (2010). ‘Health reporting as political reporting: biocommunicability and the public sphere’, Journalism, 11(2): 149-165. Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice (R. Nice, Trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press. Connell, R. (2007). Southern theory: the global dynamics of knowledge in social science. Cambridge: Polity. Couldry, N. (2004). ‘Theorising media as practice’, Social Semiotics, 14(2): 115-132. Couldry, N. (2006). Listening beyond the echoes : media, ethics, and agency in an uncertain world. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Davis, A. (2007). The mediation of power: a critical introduction. London: Routledge. Dreher, T. (2010). ‘Speaking up or being heard? Community media interventions and the politics of listening’, Media, Culture & Society, 32(1): 85-103. Gamson, W. (1992). Talking politics. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Gamson, W. & Modigliani, A. (1989). ‘Media discourse and public opinion on nuclear power: a constructionist approach’, American Journal of Sociology, 95: 1–37. Gandy, O.H. (1982). Beyond agenda setting: information subsidies and public policy. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Graham, C. (2012). ‘Media interventions: on Lateline’s construction of the ‘Aboriginal Problem’, Arena Magazine, 118: 5-8. Koch-Baumgarten, S. & Voltmer, K. (eds) (2010). Public policy and mass media. London: Routledge,. Meadows, M. (2001). Voices in the wilderness: images of Aboriginal people in the Australian media. Westport: Greenwood. Media Entertainment Arts Alliance. (1999). Journalist code of ethics. Retrieved 17 August, from http://www.alliance.org.au Lundby, K. (2009). ‘Introduction: Mediatization as key’, in L. Knut, (Ed.). Mediatization: concept, changes, consequences (pp. 1-20). New York: Peter Lang. Maddison, S. (2009). Black politics: inside the complexity of Aboriginal political culture. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Mickler, S. (1998). The myth of privilege: Aboriginal status, media visions, public ideas. Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press. Reese, S. (2007). ‘The framing project: a bridging model for media research revisited’, Journal of Communication, 57: 148–54.

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Rowalle, S. (2010). ‘Understanding the mediatisation of educational policy as practice’, Critical studies in education, 51(1): 21-39. Schön, D. & Rein, M. (1994). Frame reflection: toward the resolution of intractable policy controversies. New York: Basic Books. Smith, L. T. (2004). Decolonising methodologies: research and Indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books. Tanner, L. (2011). Sideshow: dumbing down democracy. Scribe. van Gorp, B. (2007). ‘The constructionist approach to framing: bringing culture back in’, Journal of Communication, 57: 60–78.

Additional references – Indigenous Policy

Allen and Clarke Regulatory Specialists (2011). Evaluation of the Child Health Check Initiative and the Expanding Health Service Delivery Initiative: Final report. Canberra: Department of Health and Ageing. http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/oatsih_chci-ehsdi_report Anderson, I. (1997). ‘The national Aboriginal health strategy’ in H. Gardiner (ed.), Health policy in Australia (pp.119–35). Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Altman, J. & Hinkson, M. (2007). Coercive reconciliation: stabilise, normalise and exit Aboriginal Australia. Melbourne: Arena. Anderson, I., Baum, F. & Bentley, M. (eds) (2007). Beyond Bandaids: exploring the underlying social determinants of Aboriginal health. Papers from the Social Determinants of Aboriginal Health Workshop, Adelaide, July 2004. Darwin: CRC for Aboriginal Health Anderson, P. & Wild P. (2007). Ampe akelyernemane meke mekarle [Little children are sacred] Report of the Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the protection of Aboriginal children from sexual abuse. Darwin. Australian Government (2012). Detailed information on Stronger Futures Legislation. Accessed 1 September 2012 from http://www.indigenous.gov.au/stronger-futures- legislation/ Collins, B. (1999). Learning lessons: an independent review of Indigenous education in the Northern Territory. Darwin: Northern Territory Department of Education. NAHSWP (National Aboriginal Health Strategy Working Party) (1989). A national Aboriginal health strategy. Canberra. Simpson, J., Caffery, J. & McConvell, P. (2009). Gaps in Australia’s Indigenous language policy: dismantling bilingual education in the Northern Territory. AIATSIS Research Discussion Paper No. 24. Retrieved 3 March, 2010, from http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/research/discussion.html

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