The push for more diverse faces on our screens has gained some momentum in recent years, aided in part by discourse in the United States. When the Oscars failed to include non-white nominees in its acting categories two years in a row, it generated heated discussion around merit, power and cultural barriers.
In particular, the composition of Academy membership exposed the same insider dynamics that keep minorities from penetrating other spheres like politics and business.
The Board responded by altering voting rights, opening up executive and recruitment processes to favour representation, and committing to double the number of diverse members by 2020. (It is worth noting that these decisions were facilitated by Cheryl Boone Isaacs, who is the first person of colour to become the Academy's president in 89 years, and only the third woman).
Such adjustments shed light on what it would take to begin correcting similar imbalances in Australian media and entertainment industries, including news production.
Change may be made possible through humble introspection. But it can only be made real through political will, structural modification (to ease recruitment and retention), and some pain — especially for those who have benefited from a shallow competitive pool.
Michelle Guthrie, the new managing director at the ABC, seems to be signalling that shift. Since taking the reins from Mark Scott last May, she has advocated closer attention to a 21st century audience. 'Australia has fundamentally changed in terms of cultural diversity,' she points out. 'If you really think about making sure we are relevant to all Australians, then that requires us to be reflective of all Australians.'
This is a great thing to hear from the chief of the most trusted institution in the country, but also well overdue in practice. As far back as 1992, a report for the now-defunct Office of Multicultural Affairs found that Australian media 'assumed that the point of view of the audience was that of Anglo-Australians to the exclusion of any other people'. It also noted that 'ethnicity was presented continually as problematic, rarely as a positive quality of a multicultural society'. Have things changed in the 24 years since?
Progress remains difficult to define, though the ethics of representation is regularly argued (here, here, here, here, and here). Even in instances where non-white presenters like Lee Lin Chin and Waleed Aly break through, their achievement is brought into doubt, such as when Karl Stefanovic suggested to his Today co-host Lisa