Getting the facts right

Claudia Doman

Media play crucial role in Aboriginal policy making. Photo: Markus Stepin

16 February 2012: A misrepresentation of Aboriginal Australians on the media can lead not only to an unfair portrayal of this group but could also impact the Indigenous policy-making process, according to University of Canberra PhD student Lisa Waller.

Ms Waller’s research focuses on examining the relationship between the news media and indigenous policy making.

“Politicians make policy changes according to public perception,” the former journalist said. “The government presents and packages policies to the media, making them their audience.”

Her research - part of the University of Canberra’s Australian Research Council Discovery Project: Australian News Media and Indigenous Policymaking 1998-2008 – is looking at how these relationships work and how can they be improved.

This project, the first of its kind in bringing together the reporting of Indigenous policy issues and the development of public policy on such a large scale, hopes to resonate in other areas of policy, Ms Waller said.

She offers an example of the crucial role that the media play in the Aboriginal policy-making process.

Three years ago, after intense news media coverage on the poor National Territory’s NAPLAN results, the government announced a controversial policy change.

In 2008, the Northern Territory’s education minister, Marion Scrymgour, announced that the Northern Territory schools “would have a greater focus on teaching English”.

The announcement didn’t mention the Territory’s bilingual education programs and none of the Aboriginal communities where the education department ran two-way programs were consulted or informed of the decision.

“News of the demise of the bilingual programs inspired a rush of protest letters to both politicians and the media,” Ms Waller wrote recently.

She explained that the communities “already worn down by the impacts of the government’s Intervention, were angered by the complete lack of consultation on the decision and expressed their distress at the devaluing of their languages.”

“This decision was triggered by the media, on the one hand,” Ms Waller said, “but on the other hand, once the decision was announced, the media had trouble getting their hands on information regarding the policy change.”

In her view, the media has to acknowledge the central role it plays in the development of policy.