If Gamilaroi broadcaster Tony Armstrong had a magic wand to wave he would get rid of racism.
But, of course, he doesn’t, so in the wake of yesterday’s report into racism at the ABC and being the target of vicious online abuse, Armstrong told ABC Melbourne host Sammy J, he’d like to see more diverse boards and leadership teams.
“You look immediately to how diverse your structures of leadership are,” Armstrong, a former AFL player and NITV sports broadcaster, said.
“You look at how many Indigenous people are there, how many women are there, all of the traditionally underrepresented parts of society and then maybe you can look at this as an opportunity to say, ‘Well, maybe that can be a catalyst for us to see more diverse boards and leadership’.”
On Wednesday the national broadcaster and culturally and linguistically diverse employees about prejudices they had experienced from both outside and inside the organisation.
The ‘Listen Loudly, Act Strongly’ review reported that, among the 120 current and former ABC employees who provided submissions, only one said they had not personally witnessed racism while working there.
On Monday night the ABC’s own Media Watch ran a segment targeting Armstrong for doing a commercial voiceover against the broadcaster’s policy, which unleashed a torrent of online abuse directed his way.
ABC news director Justin Stevens said in a statement he was dismayed that within 24 hours of the Listen Loudly, Act Strongly report being released he was publicly calling out more racist abuse directed at one of the ABC’s highly valued staff members.
“Tony Armstrong is one of the ABC’s best and most talented presenters,” Stevens said.
“This week he has again been targeted on social media and in public comments on news websites in a despicable way.”
Stevens said the ABC stood beside Armstrong and had lodged a complaint about the abusive social media comments.
“This sort of behaviour in the community is often fed by the inflammatory nature of mainstream media coverage,” he said.
“The prominence of stories, tone of headlines and copy, photos run and selection of story angles can foster division and outright hate.
“The ABC belongs to the public and is rightly subject to appropriate scrutiny and feedback.
“However, at times, the nature of the scrutiny on particular ABC employees is unsettling and the incessant coverage targeting them has real impacts.”
In May Media Diversity Australia released research into online safety of journalists, which found 85 per cent of First Nations, culturally and linguist diverse, LGBTQIA+ and media workers with a disability had experienced either personal or professional abuse online.
Media Diversity Australia chief executive Mariam Veiszadeh was asked about the ABC review at a hearing in the parliamentary inquiry into Social Media and Australian Society in Canberra this week.
“We certainly recognise that when it comes to racism or other cultural issues … we wish that this was a review conducted in other organisations because the ABC don’t hold a monopoly on this issue,” she said.
“One of the things that we’re seeing is that how the ABC but also SBS, the public broadcasters, conduct themselves and how they respond to allegations around racism, sexism, cultural issues, does lay the framework for how other media organisations will respond.
“And so there is a higher bar for the public broadcasters, absolutely, and what we would love to see is how this is implemented because … journalists that we speak to, media workers that we speak to, there are some leaving the industry entirely because they do not feel culturally safe and that is an absolute shame.”
