Lack of ethnic diversity in TV News & Current Affairs

Australian TV News & Current Affairs lacks diverse ethnic representation according to a report today.

Who Gets to Tell Australian Stories was gathered by academics at four Australian universities, initiated by not-for-profit group Media Diversity Australia.

It found more than 75% of TV news and current affairs presenters, commentators and reporters have an Anglo-Celtic background, while only 6 percent have an Indigenous or non-European background.

Dr Dimitria Groutsis, Associate Professor of Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School who co-authored the report said, “Survey results showed that more than 70 percent of participants rated the representation of culturally diverse men and women in the media industry either poorly or very poorly.

“Australian news and current affairs fail to mirror the population in the stories they tell. Culturally diverse voices remain silent, faces remain hidden, names are from a limited roll call, accents are neglected. We need new markers of inclusion in media to represent the multicultural landscape of Australia’s population and Australia’s stories.”

Tim Soutphommasane, Professor of Practice (Sociology and Political Theory) and Director, Culture Strategy at the University of Sydney who also co-authored the report added, “It has been nearly five decades since an official multiculturalism was adopted in Australia. Yet that has had limited visible impact on our media.

“If there’s a glass ceiling that many women in work hit, then those from minority backgrounds hit a cultural one. According to a survey we conducted as part of our research, more than 85 percent of non-European background journalists believe having a culturally diverse background represents a barrier to career progression.

“Representation, though, matters. It particularly matters for our television media: the medium shows us who we are as a people and as a culture.”

Methodology:

• Survey conducted over a two week period June 1 – June 14 2019
• News and Current Affairs (including Breakfast Television) assessed across 81 programs.
• ABC, Seven, Nine, 10 and SBS (NITV not included). WIN Canberra, Seven Tasmania, Southern Cross ACT, Channel 9 Darwin, Prime7 ACT and WIN Hobart
• Cultural (ethnic / heritage) diversity of 270 presenters, commentators and reporters.
• Survey distributed to 1600 potential participants, completed by 314 people.
• Publicly available biographical information about the individual, other relevant public statements that may include information about the individual’s cultural background, an individuals’ full name and its origins, an individual’s place of birth, and visual observation.

What was not included:

• Gender, LGBTQI+, Faith, Disability & Accessibility, Age, Geographic and Socio-economic diversity criteria
• Other genres: Drama, Comedy, Light Entertainment, Reality, Sport, Documentary etc.
• NITV, Foxtel, Streaming platforms, Community TV
• Other News & Current Affairs / presenters who appear at a different time of the year

Findings:

Ethnicity of presenters, commentators and reporters on Australian television
by number of appearances

We found that more than 75% of presenters, commentators and reporters (in terms of numbers) have an Anglo-Celtic background. This is, in proportionate terms, an over-representation, when an estimated 58% of Australians have that background. There is an under-representation of European, non-European and Indigenous backgrounds. In proportionate terms, the representation of nonEuropean backgrounds was most marked (9% compared to 21% of the general population).

Ethnicity of presenters, commentators and reporters by network

NB: “Other” refers to regional broadcasters.

There was an extraordinarily low representation of Indigenous presenters, commentators and reporters on all networks. Channel 10 has the highest representation with 5.4%. However, Channel 7 and 9 had no Indigenous presenters, commentators or reporters identified in the two-week slice, and SBS only 0.2%. Channel 9 had, by some distance, the highest level of Anglo-Celtic representation with its journalists on air (87.8%). None of the commercial networks (Channels 7, 9 and 10) had more than 5% of presenters, commentators and reporters, who were identified as having a non-European background.

Ethnicity of presenters, commentators and reporters on breakfast TV news,
by number of appearances

There is an extremely low representation on many breakfast television shows of people who have a non-European or Indigenous background. This is significant given that such shows are often the progenitors of wider social debates about issues concerning those groups. It is arguable that cultural diversity is rendered more or less invisible in this aspect of the daily news agenda.

Ethnicity of presenters, commentators and reporters by state and territory

The data showed that diversity is particularly lacking in regional news media. In the two-week slice of programming on Win Canberra, Seven Tasmania, Southern Cross ACT, Channel 9 Darwin, Prime7 ACT and Win Hobart, there were zero Indigenous presenters, commentators or reporters, and only one nonEuropean represented in the sample. This data tells us that there is virtually no cultural diversity in regional television networks. This dearth of diversity is concerning on two levels. One is the lack of diversity in the regional workforce. The other is that regional newsrooms could be considered as a potential pipeline to train and feed young journalists into more senior roles. Immersing newcomers to the media industry in an environment that is so unrepresentative of Australia is counterproductive, especially during their formative years where they require mentoring and role models to aspire to.

Summary:

Our analysis of this two-week slice of free-to-air news and current affairs television confirms that presenters, commentators and reporters who have an Anglo-Celtic background are over-represented at 75%, compared to the broader Australian population where people who have Anglo-Celtic backgrounds make up 58% of the population.

It is also clear from our data that people who have non-European backgrounds are significantly under-represented compared to the broader Australian population, in which they comprise 21%. With the exception of SBS, where 76.6% of presenters, commentators and reporters have a non-European background, at all other networks they comprise less than 10% of presenters, commentators and reporters; in the case of the commercial networks, they count for less than 5%.

One of the most concerning findings is that on all regional news networks, there were no Indigenous presenters, commentators or reporters identified in our two-week slice. There were also none identified on Channel 7, and only one on Channel 9 and 10. Even at SBS, Indigenous presenters, commentators or reporters comprised only 0.2% of our sample.

Our analysis also showed that television news and current affairs programs were not presented by anyone from non-European or Indigenous backgrounds in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Tasmania.

NB: Other findings will be published separately.

Research was led by Macquarie University, with support from the University of Sydney, Deakin University and Western Sydney University.