Angela Davis, the inspirational black American activist once said “If they come for me tonight, they’ll come for you in the morning.”
Those words were ringing in my ears after the revelation that SBS Television is planning to axe the National Indigenous Television’s landmark nightly national news service.
Like all communities in Australia, news is not just important to Aboriginal people. For reasons that should be obvious, an Aboriginal person, by force of national interest, is also an activist. Our rights are not respected in this country, and so we must stay informed not just about the nation, but most crucially about our own mob.
That’s why NITV national news is so important. Put simply, there is no other service like it. It tells our stories in a language and perspective that we understand.
The proposal by SBS to replace the nightly news with a panel discussion show a couple of days a week – a “repackaging of news” as they call it – is an outrage. It will not service the needs of my community.
What SBS is doing is silencing our voices, a modern-day version of the banning of our languages on missions, when our people were forced to speak English under threat of punishment.
That’s always been one of the most commonly used tools of colonisation – to deny us a voice. Without one, we lack information, the main currency of today’s power. NITV national news plays a pivotal role in delivering that information and without it, our communities are poorer and less powerful.
I have great admiration for people like Stan Grant and Karla Grant, two stalwarts of Aboriginal news programming. I would hope that they don’t stand idly by and allow their employer to get away with this. Equally, I would hope that they don’t allow the spin from SBS to stifle debate on such an important issue.
Claims by SBS that they’re simply trying to repackage Aboriginal news to improve ratings, and respond to audience feedback, are demonstrably false.
SBS has no idea how its audience consumes NITV, because that research does not exist. Managing director Michael Ebeid conceded as much to media website Mumbrella in November last year, acknowledging that research was difficult to conduct on Aboriginal viewership – for example no ratings boxes exist in the Northern Territory, a crucial part of the NITV demographic.
Equally, where are the ratings boxes in Aboriginal homes in Brisbane, Redfern, Melbourne and country areas? I don’t know a single black family with one – does Ebeid? What he and his spinners are actually saying is that non-Aboriginal people – the only demographic they can monitor – appear not to be consuming Aboriginal news. So what?
New Matilda journalist Amy McQuire reported that, in February, Ebeid told staff:
Do I think we should be wedded to a half hour news bulletin that looks and smells and sounds like every other news bulletin. No. I don’t believe that’s necessarily important.
What’s interesting about this statement is the SBS’s news programming across every other community – from its mainstream news, to Chinese, Greek and Turkish news – looks and sound like every other news service.
There’s a simple reason for that – a nightly news format works, and draws in viewers. Why does Ebeid think that the consumption patterns of Aboriginal people are any different? Again, where is his evidence?
In November last year, he also told Mumbrella that NITV’s operations were “not about chasing numbers and ratings”. What has changed?
As a lifetime activist for black rights, I understand the importance of being informed, and staying connected with our mob. I also understand the importance of media, which is why, a few decades ago, I served on the SBS Indigenous advisory board, when Sir Nick Shehadie was chair of the organisation.
At the same time, I worked on Icam, an SBS Indigenous current affairs programme which grew to become Living Black, an important source of news and inspiration for our people.
I’m reminded that when I first got involved with the Indigenous Cultural Affairs Magazine programme on SBS, Icam, it was directly funded by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander commission. SBS weren’t motivated enough to service the needs of the Aboriginal community off their own bat, they needed a sweetener from government to provide Aboriginal specific programming.
SBS also receives a substantial amount of funding to host NITV – more than $12m a year from the Australian government. And people say the Aboriginal community is always waiting for a hand out!
Where is this money going? How is it than an experienced broadcaster of news can’t produce a nightly news service with access to this level of government assistance? SBS has been a part of the “Aboriginal industry” for a long, long time. It’s high time they started giving something back.
I hope that the decision by SBS to axe the nightly NITV national news programme is met with outrage by the Aboriginal community. It is an enormous betrayal of my people by an organisation that has long held a special relationship with my community, and a position of trust.
I urge the SBS board to reconsider. I also urge all Australians – in particular migrant communities who are well serviced by SBS - to let their views be known. You might not rely on NITV national news like my mob does, but if you sit idly by and watch SBS diminish the Aboriginal voice – the First Voice of this nation – then you shouldn’t be surprised if one day they diminish yours as well.