Three prominent news anchors have resigned from their roles on Australian television this year. What might their departures mean for the industry’s diversity? (Image: Sarah Herrmann)
By Sarah Herrmann | @sarahherrmann_
This year, three long-standing newsreaders resigned from their positions on national, prime-time, current affairs programs.
Leigh Sales left ABC’s 7.30 in June after 12 years in the role. Tracy Grimshaw announced the end of her 17-year stint on Nine’s A Current Affair in September. A month later, The Project’s Carrie Bickmore told audiences that 2022, her 13th year on the show, would be her last with Network 10.
With the new personalities of the latter two of these roles yet to be announced, Australian television is on the cusp of change – but what might that change look like?
Sales said it was time for her to “pass the baton to the next runner in the race”, which turned out to be her replacement, Sarah Ferguson. But could these resignations mean more than that? Could they be a turning point? And should they be?
Grimshaw told ACA viewers, “I’m not being shoved out the door by the boys club because I’m too old. I’m not too old”, while both Sales and Bickmore said part of their leaving was to spend more time with their families.
This is reasoning we never hear from men in the public eye.
The gender and age biases of the television landscape has been a hot topic within the industry of late, particularly at the ABC. Its chair, 80-year-old Ita Buttrose, was criticised by Sydney Morning Herald journalists, Osman Faruqi and Thomas Mitchell, for supposedly failing to appeal to young Australians, calling it the broadcaster’s “biggest problem”. Faruqi and Mitchell used the example of new ABC chat show Frankly, saying it should’ve been hosted by new talent rather than veteran journalist Fran Kelly – a sentiment echoed by The Guardian’s Luke Buckmaster.
Buttrose and ABC Radio’s Patricia Karvelas flipped the ageism argument on its head, the latter expressing her disappointment that “old men are a mainstay of our TV screens but women over 50 become culturally invisible”. Karvelas also noted the respect Aboriginal cultures afford to their older population, and proposed all Australians follow suit.
A culture that allows women to “feel invisible, feel depressed that they are increasingly irrelevant”, as Karvelas has said, has the power to do damage to more minorities.
Television remains the most popular medium with which Australians access news, according to The University of Canberra’s 2022 Digital News Report. The report also revealed that presenters and commentators from European backgrounds are the most well-recognised.
But even ABC sports presenter and Aboriginal man, Tony Armstrong, who received the Graham Kennedy Award for Most Popular New Talent at the 2022 Logies, last week received racist cyber abuse for “doing [his] job”, as ABC’s director of news, Justins Stevens, said.
Media Diversity Australia’s (MDA) director of special projects, Simone Amelia Jordan, knows the cultural bias that excludes people of colour from the MSM – something that she has experienced since her beginnings in the journalism industry:
“I was made acutely aware there were very few spots for people like me: ethnic, female, young, poor – even fewer for those with blacker and browner and yellower skin, those with an accent, and those who wore religious garb,” Jordan says. “Fast forward a couple of decades later, and Australian mainstream media still has far to go.
“It’s no secret Australia plays it safe when it comes to hosting talent … But if we focus on the positive, the ABC, like other major networks, has a growing digital platform and channels where they test and train new talent. More than ever, this talent represents the beautiful tapestry of our country. I believe in the next five to 10 years, we’ll see the fruits of that labour on our screens.”
Jordan’s role at MDA includes coordinating its nationwide summer fellowships program, which offers 12 journalism students – of First Nations or multicultural backgrounds, or who are interested in furthering newsroom diversity – a paid four-week internship with a mainstream media outlet.
The recommendations from MDA’s report Who Gets To Tell Australian Stories? say, “Make the case for diversity, collect data on cultural diversity, establish targets to increase cultural diversity, recognise the economic benefits of a more culturally diverse workforce, [and] prioritise diversity in the organisation’s approach to recruitment and promotion”.
Now in their third cycle, Jordan is proud to say these fellowships have assisted culturally diverse journalists in attaining full-time work in the industry. Applications close on Friday, November 11.
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