Media Diversity

Isabel Lo, Founder of Media Diversity Australia.

Her talk was based on the lack of media diversity representation from the multi-ethnic backgrounds in Australia. Some diversity is represented in the SBS and the ABC networks but not so much in the commercial media networks. And she commented on the challenges she and her colleagues as an ethnic background journalist face in her career.

The challenges,  the main-stream media lacks to address the issue of why the multi-ethnic journalists leave the mainstream media. There has to be supporting mechanisms to protect and support multi-ethnic journalists who are in the industry can find a place in the mainstream media.

She highlighted also that, the main media is compromised by the commercial interests but that shouldn’t exempt them not to engage the multi-diversity cultural backgrounds in the media. As Australia and as a multi-cultural nation in the world we should reflect that fact in the main-stream media which is not the case at the moment. Isabel Lo as the founder of Media Diversity Australia, the discourse is happening at the moment to engage the diverse representation in the mainstream media.

She also challenged the youth to come forward to pursue a career in the media and journalism. With all jobs, journalism can be very rewarding in itself. Media journalism can take you to places and at the forefront of a story unfolding in front of your eyes she said is a privilege and rare.   To quote Peter Grester “Journalism is a cool way to indulge your curiosity”