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When one of Australia’s most prominent journalists announced he was stepping down from his television hosting job due to racist abuse, it sent shock waves through the country’s media industry.
The journalist, Stan Grant, said in a piece of opinion for the website of the employer that he and his family have suffered “unceasingly” racial abuse after speaking, during the coverage of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation of the coronation of King Charles III, about the colonial-era persecution of the liberation of the Indigenous Australians.
Mr. Grant has been a journalist for more than 30 years and is familiar on the TV screen as the host of the national broadcaster’s popular current affairs talk show “Q + A.” On Monday, in his final appearance on the show, he said attacks from social media and other outlets had distorted his words and caused casualties.
“To those who have tortured me and my family, I will only say – if your intention was to hurt me, then yes, you have succeeded,” he said, adding that the time was only temporary. “I am down now, I. But I will rise again. And you can come to Me again, and I will meet you with the love of My people.
In his opinion, he accused his employer, ABC, of ”institutional failure.” No one at the company, not even those who invited him to participate in the coronation coverage, “has expressed public support,” he said.
“I am resting because we have shown once again that our history – the hard truth – is too big, too fragile, too precious for the media,” he wrote. “The media only sees the battle line, not the bridge. They only see politics.
In the coronation section, Mr. Grant spoke about how the “exterminating war” had been declared against the people, the Wiradjuri tribe, in the name of the crown. The coronation ceremony is not, he said, “far away, just a ceremony that does not burden. It has weight for First Nations people, because the crown has given it weight to us, and we’re still dealing with it.
ABC received several complaints from viewers who thought the segment was too critical. Two prominent radio hosts said the coverage had “misread the mood” and “bile,” while several news articles labeled Mr. Grant’s comments “tirades” and “chatter.” Another panelist was critical of the monarchy said they did not receive the same level of vitriol as Mr. Grant.
When Australia celebrates multiculturalism, it lags other Western countries in the diversity of government, boardrooms and media institutions, and is still reckoning with the bloody colonial past that has never fully receded. Part of that reckoning will happen later this year, when the country will hold a referendum on whether to include in the Constitution a body to advise the government on Indigenous issues.
Mr Grant’s leave announcement inspired Indigenous and other non-white journalists to speak out, detailing the racism they have experienced at work and the failure of workplaces to protect and support or understand the additional challenges they face.
Mr Grant’s experience highlights the heavy price indigenous journalists pay for challenging mainstream perspectives in an industry that has historically excluded their voices, said Narelda Jacobs, a television journalist and presenter with Network 10 who is from the Noongar Indigenous tribe.
“The media in Australia has been unbalanced throughout its history,” he said. “He was trying to be balanced, and then he was attacked.”
“When people try to highlight the problem of racism, they are attacked and dismissed by sections of the media, and they are silenced,” he said. “And it’s not enough of a culturally safe environment to talk about issues of national importance.”
Although much of the recent criticism has been directed at the ABC, journalists say workplace problems are across the industry. The company is one of the more diverse media organizations in Australia, being one of only two government-funded national broadcasters with public responsibilities that commercial media organizations do not.
On Friday, the ABC said that it will review how the organization responds to racism affecting its staff, and issued an apology to Mr. Grant. On Monday, staff at the broadcaster walked off the job in protest at Mr Grant’s treatment, carrying signs reading #IStandWithStan and #WeRejectRacism.
“This is a reckoning,” said Mariam Veiszadeh, chief executive of Media Diversity Australia. Mr. Grant’s absence was deeply felt because “there was nobody of his caliber, from his First Nations background, his experience, who could fill the void,” he said, and his departure was a blow to many young indigenous people. and non-white journalists who “pinned their hopes and aspirations and dreams on people like Stan Grant.”
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