In a country as multicultural as Australia, the expectation on media outlets to accurately reflect its audience is growing. A pilot program in Perth is trying to help diversify the news by offering media training to experts in a range of fields, who are culturally and linguistically diverse, before connecting them with journalists.
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00:00It's a daunting job, speaking to the media.
00:05Hello, my name is Wadzi, I was born in Zimbabwe and I'm an expert in sustainability.
00:11Energy in the mining industry.
00:13Women's health and the humanitarian sector.
00:15Minerals and energy economics.
00:17But writer Sasongke Misamang is trying to change that by filling a gap she noticed in
00:23news coverage.
00:24You can see how important it is to know exactly what you're saying.
00:30The Reach Fellowship runs monthly sessions with 10 experts in a range of fields, practising
00:35writing, radio and TV interviews.
00:41The gap is not necessarily because there's an intention to keep certain voices out, it's
00:46that people often don't have those networks.
00:48And when you're doing a story very quickly and you've got a file by a particular deadline,
00:52you go with the name that you know.
00:54Once the group are media ready, they'll be connected with newsrooms so reporters can
00:58come to them for their perspective on issues within their field.
01:02It's a connection the program hopes will platform voices we don't typically hear from.
01:08When everybody thinks the same way, then you're not finding anything new or anything interesting
01:14to discuss, or if you have different opinions from different backgrounds, I think it becomes
01:18more rich.
01:19So I think it's a win-win.
01:20And it comes right down to it, the solutions that we're trying to find to a lot of the
01:24complex problems are going to take multidisciplinary and different perspectives of approach.
01:31If successful, the pilot program will be expanded to include more people keen to join the national
01:38conversation.