Each of these stories tells us something important about the experiences of the LGBTI community in Australia. And yet, according to the Walkley Media Talk panel convened at the State Library of NSW on February 27, none of these stories has been given sufficient air time or column inches in Australia’s mainstream media.
The Walkley Foundation brought together a panel of award-winning journalists and commentators to discuss the reporting of issues of gender and sexuality in the alternative and mainstream media, just two days shy of the 36th annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras celebrations.
Moderated by SBS’s Patrick Abboud, who will this year host Mardi Gras, Monique Schafter (ABC 7.30/Hungry Beast), Senthorun Raj (Sydney Law School), Morgan Carpenter (President, OII Australia) and Elias Jahshan (Editor, Star Observer) discussed the challenges they have faced in trying to report the stories that matter to the LGBTI community.
That is not to say that members of the panel had not experienced some “wins”. For Monique Schafter, it was inspiring a viewer through her affirming story on Ji Wallace’s HIV diagnosis for ABC’s 7.30. For Elias Jahshan, it was the Star Observer’s cover story on the Facebook group “Black Rainbow”, which supports the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTI community.
What was particularly striking about the stories related by the panelists was the constant vigilance required to achieve these “wins” – a fight in every story meeting, a considered approach in a 24-hour news cycle.
A recurring theme in the talk was the role of language in reporting. In particular, the panelists identified the difficulties in balancing the need to convey meaning to a wider audience while still showing respect to the subject of a story.
However, it seems that the most contested ground is the language surrounding the names given to the LGBTI community itself. Some argued that the so-called “alphabet soup” serves only to exclude people from a group that prides itself on its diversity.
However, the defining message of the talk lay in the acknowledgment that there was no single LGBTI community – that each of us is defined not only by our sexual orientation, but also by a complex and evolving sense of identity.
At the beginning of the talk, we were urged to leave our mobile phones on. Perhaps this was an acknowledgement of the fact that it is often at the fringes – of a community or the media – that some of the most interesting conversations begin.
