Media Representations & Indigenous Voices
Local media in Yorta Yorta country has often been criticised for misrepresenting and ignoring
Indigenous voices, and for perpetuating the dominance of white perspectives – see extent of media
control in region. The McPherson media was challenged by Yorta Yorta scholar, Peter Ferguson
who argued that in accordance with Australia Press Council standards, McPherson media was
not fulfilling its role in providing ‘accurate fair and balanced reporting’ of Indigenous issues.
Moreover, it was giving disproportionately higher representation to non-Indigenous voices on
Indigenous matters in the region.
These views are supported by Derryn Shoenborn's (2003:42)
study of the McPherson media during the Yorta Yorta native title claim (1994-2002), which found
that ‘the local media outlets were consciously, as well as unconsciously, used as a political tool for
fighting change and for fighting the claim’. Shoenbourn's thesis was also critical of the way that the
journalists reported on the Yorta Yorta Mediation process, 1994-5, a judicial process in which
confidential information was reported in the media by Geoff Grey a journalist of the Shepparton
News (Yorta Yorta Mediation, Shepparton, 1995).
This
paper evaluates the McPherson media and the way it represents Indigenous issues, by
examining; how McPherson media represented the campaign for National Parks and the Yorta
Yorta Cooperative management plan in the Shepparton News, Riverine Herald and the Country
News during the period of 2007-2010. It uses the framework of content analysis to examine
materials over this period and to assess whether or not the McPherson media have continued to
exclude the history and knowledge of the Yorta Yorta by privileging white colonial voices and
giving them disproportionate representation on Indigenous matters in the region.
The paper then
examines the journalistic style employed by particular writers who consistently use the media to
create negative images of the Indigenous community and to promote fear and discord within the
region.
The Yorta Yorta campaign for the achievement of National Parks and Joint management
agreements for the Barmah-Millewa Forest Wetlands, has been a long and gruelling struggle
steeped in a tradition of polico-legal actions that began before the turn of the 19th Century. For the
purpose of this study however, it will focus on the main articles written during the period of the
decisions to create National Parks for the Barmah-Millewa Forest wetlands. These range from
when the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council (VEAC) released the final report in July
2008 recommending the creation of the Barmah National Park; the 30th of December 2008 when
John Brumby announced that Barmah National Park would be established; 4th December 2009
when Premier Nathan Rees announces Millewa was to become a national park and; 2nd March
2010 when the Government announced that some of Millewa Forest would not be protected until
2015.
During this period some 66 articles on the National Parks were published in the Shepparton News,
Riverine Herald and Country News, the triad of newspapers that have the power to influence and
to shape the perceptions of non- Indigenous communities about Indigenous issues within the
heartland of the study region. While the paper does not include stories about Indigenous people
that were unrelated to the National Parks it explores in detail the degree of representation and
space given to Yorta Yorta voices and their long and continued cultural connections with the study
area during the creation of the Barmah and Millewa National Parks.
Contextual Analysis
The Yorta Yorta’s commitment
to protecting their land and heritage cannot be understood
without some knowledge of their ancestral connections with the study area which pre-date settler
colonial history by at least 60000 years BP (before present) (Atkinson, 2000:14-35). Yet very few of
the 66 articles surveyed contained any contextual information about the important and continued
struggle of the Yorta Yorta to reclaim their lands, and not one article recognised that the Yorta
Yorta have been connected to this land since time immemorial. Only one of the 66 articles on the
creation of National Parks mentioned the Native Title Claim (1994-2002) while one other referred
to a fight that had lasted for ‘generations’. This is consistent with Michael Meadow’s criticism
(2001: 56) that the ‘omission of important contextual material has become a common occurrence in
Australian newspaper coverage of Indigenous affairs’. The McPherson media however had no
qualms about repeatedly referring to the heritage of the white settlers, which was mentioned in
14% of articles. One article titled ‘Heritage lost for loggers’ quoted harvester Kevin Swan who
claimed his family had been connected to the forest for 6 generations over 150 years (Wood, 2008:
6). Another article quoted John Williams who said “the people who have logged the forest for over 4
generations… are proud of how they have managed their much-loved forests" (Riverine Herald,
2009b: 8). These articles serve to emphasise the connection of the settlers to land and forests
regarded as ‘theirs’ and in doing so they attempt to normalise the enormous timeline of the prior
occupation and care of the land by the traditional owners. This privileging of one history is not
confined to McPherson media, but reflects a wider government trend to allocate resources to
preserving and publicising the more recent colonial histories over and above Indigenous heritage
(Atkinson, 2010: 32). Highlighting the loggers’ and graziers’ connections to the forest supported
their arguments against the National Parks and ignored the justification for protecting land that
has belonged to the Yorta Yorta for thousands of generations.
The articles on the National Parks contained few references to land rights or the value of local
Indigenous knowledge in preserving the forests.
In total only 14% of the articles referred to
Indigenous connections to land but none of these articles used the phrase ‘land rights’, or 'land
justice'
instead sticking to safer phrases such as the traditional owners or traditional custodians
(Riverine Herald, 2010a: 2; Riverine Herald, 2009a: 3). The side lining of the rights debate has also
been documented in other disputes over land claims which quickly moved to discussions of
bureaucracy (Hartley & McKee, 2000: 289). This reluctance to refer to fundamental rights also
devalued the reciprocal obligations that the Yorta Yorta feel towards the protection of the forest
wetlands and their unique local knowledge of how to manage the forest for the future in a more
holistic way.
Only 6% of the articles made even a vague reference to Indigenous knowledge by
using brief phrases such as ‘holistic protection’ and ‘good environmental outcomes’ (Riverine
Herald, 2010b: 3; Riverine Herald, 2008b: 5).
The benefits of joint management were never
expanded on in the newspaper articles, even though Yorta Yorta voices
articulated in very
pragmatic way, the need for a shared management approach that would include Indigenous
knowledge and land care practises. For example, authorities now recognise that using traditional
fire methods are an effective tool in land management but this fact was unrecognised in all the
articles surveyed, with many articles suggesting that the creation of National Parks would cause
uncontrollable bush fires (Wood, 2009: 6). In summary, although there were some references to the
Yorta Yorta being the traditional owners of the land, articles on the National Parks never
mentioned land rights and very few recognised that local Indigenous knowledge would be valuable
in preserving the National Parks.
Newspapers often privilege non-Indigenous sources and this tendency was clear in the articles on
the creation of National Parks.
Many minorities in the community struggle to obtain media
coverage because the structures behind the collection of news work against them and their opinions
are less likely to be seen as credible or newsworthy (Van Dijk, 2007: 37). This may explain
Hartley’s observation (1992: 209) that Aboriginals are often not asked for their own opinion on a
news story. Schoenborn (2003:37) found Indigenous voices were prioritised in only 20% of articles
of the Yorta Yorta native title claim and Meadows (2001: 56) discovered a similar 4:1 ratio in favour
of non-Indigenous voices when studying the general media coverage of the 10 point plan for
amending native title.
Of the 66 articles on the creation of National Parks, only seven, or
approximately 11%, included any quote from an Indigenous source. This incredibly low figure
suggests that Yorta Yorta voices were even more excluded from discussions over National Parks
than they were over the Native Title Claim, perhaps because the creation of a co-managed national
park was not sees as predominantly an Indigenous issue, unlike the Native Title Claim.
The most outstanding finding that requires further scrutiny is that of the 14 articles in the Country
News, in which there was not a single quote from anyone identified as a Yorta Yorta or Indigenous
person. It is extraordinary that any paper, no matter who the intended audience, could completely
exclude any Indigenous perspectives on the creation of the National Parks. From this it is evident
that Yorta Yorta voices were under-represented in McPherson media articles on National Parks and
this is consistent with under-representation found in earlier research. One also needs to closer
examine the journalistic style and motives of the main reporter on the Yorta Yorta Native Title and
National Park Campaign whose approach on these issues was called into question during the Yorta
Yorta Mediation Process. Geoff Adams has since assumed the editorial control of the Country
News which is one of the key McPherson Media outlets in what is regarded as the more anti
Indigenous rights region of Numurkah and Nathalia. Further analysis of this matter will be
returned to shortly.
Instead of quoting Yorta Yorta sources, McPherson media newspapers relied on non-Indigenous
voices to provide opinions on the creation of the new National Parks.
Politicians and other
powerful ‘elites’ often receive more coverage because they control ‘source discourses’ such as press
conferences and press releases (Van Dijk, 2007:37).
The prominence of politicians on issues
relevant to Indigenous people was noted by Hartley and McKee (2000: 28) and documented by
Meadows (2001: 58) who found politicians or other conservative forces including farming and
mining dominated media coverage.
The graph below shows that this trend continued in
McPherson media as politicians were the most commonly quoted source in articles on National
Parks, closely followed by conservative forces including the timber industry, graziers and farmers.
While pro park voices on like that of Friends of the Earth and Victorian National Parks Association
were well represented in the Riverine Herald and Shepparton News they were least covered by the
Country News, who instead prioritised representatives of conservative logging grazing and farming
interests as well as the conservative Rivers and Red Gum Alliance who oppose the National Parks in
their current form. This data demonstrates that Yorta Yorta voices were marginalised in favour of
politicians, conservative forces, pro-environmental groups and the Alliance in the coverage of
National Parks, and this bias was most blatant in articles from the Country News edited by Geoff
Gray.
Apart from considering the context and the sources, the articles were also categorised according to
whether they were overtly positive, negative, or unclear on the creation of the local National Parks.
This approach was taken to follow up on Schoeborn’s discovery (2003: 35) that only one of the
articles he studied in McPherson media on the native title claim could be categorised as positive,
while most were ‘overwhelmingly negative towards Indigenous people’. For this study on National
Parks, articles were defined as negative if they only included sources opposed to the park, and vice
versa. To avoid the judgements becoming too subjective, any article that contained both and pro
and anti-park voices was categorised as unclear, regardless of whether one perspective dominated
the article.
The results above confirm Schoenborn’s finding that there are more negative than positive articles
in McPherson media in relation to native title claims or the National Parks and highlights the
continued exclusion and bias against Indigenous rights based issues by the Country News, a new
key player that has arisen since the Yorta Yorta Native Title Claim and one that continues to play a
key role in the shaping of mostly negative perceptions of Indigenous rights based issues in the
region.
The proportion of positive articles however, was far higher in articles on the creation of
National Parks than on the native title claim. Although this can partly be explained by the large
number of articles in the unclear column, the most plausible reason for why one third of all articles
were positive about the National Parks is the influence of those more powerful groups that were in
favour of the parks. Non-Indigenous pro-park sources including State Politicians, environmental
groups and the National Park Associations were well covered in the media and this explains why
articles on the creation of National Parks were more positive than those on native title. Despite this
change of a broader collective of groups in support of Yorta Yorta aspirations and the creation of
National Parks, McPherson media still ran more negative than positive articles on the creation of
the National Parks similar to that of the Native Title Claim a decade before.
Although many of the articles were clearly positive or negative about the National Parks, some of
the ‘unclear’ articles were constructed to privilege or discredit one view over another and again the
tendency to privilege one perspective over others was clearest in the Country News. In December
2009 the Country News devoted the first 15 paragraphs of an article to Krinstina Keneally
reassessing the decision to protect Millewa, the River Red Gum Alliance, and the Forest Products
Associations, while the last 3 paragraphs buried on the second page included brief quotes from the
Wilderness Society and the National Parks Associations (Oliver, 2009:1). An earlier article quoted a
cattleman, a timber harvester and the alliance before including a few brief paragraphs from a
National Parks Association (Adams, 2009: 3). These articles included sources from both sides so
they were put in the ‘unclear’ category; however a closer look at the order of voices and the space
given to each perspective indicates that the anti-park views were given priority over pro-park
voices. In addition to marginalising pro-park perspectives, some articles also sought to discredit
Yorta Yorta. This is consistent with Hartley and McKee’s (2000: 292) suggestion that the media
often focus on disagreement and dissent within Indigenous communities. This focus was apparent
in an article from the Riverine Herald summarising the Alliance report, which stated that “many
Indigenous people believed VEACs attempt to redress social disadvantage by granting public land
management control to traditional owners would ultimately be counter productive and should be
scrapped" (Chudley, 2008: 2). This attacks the credibility of pro-park Yorta Yorta spokespeople
who were denied the chance to respond to these claims within the article. These brief examples
show that various techniques were employed by particular journalists to discredit and marginalise
Yorta Yorta and pro-park voices and therefore the proportion of negative articles on the creation of
National Parks in McPherson media is higher than the quantitative analysis suggested.
Many of the articles in McPherson media failed to recognise that the Yorta Yorta is part of the
community. In his analysis of articles on the native title claim, Schoenborn (2003: 38) observed that
‘one would assume it was almost solely an issue for the non-Indigenous residents of the area’. This
focus on non-Indigenous views was most blatant in an article in the Country News which included
under a banner ‘what they said’ the perspectives of the Victorian Farmers Federation, the timber
industry, the shire councillor and the cattleman. This article implies that these four anti-park
perspectives are the only relevant community responses and this serves to further devalue the voices
of Indigenous members of the community. Van Dijk (2000:37) argues that the media creates a
distinction between ‘Us’, otherwise known as the white community, and ethnic ‘others’. This
distinction was clearly made by some of the non-Indigenous sources quoted in McPherson media,
who claimed to speak for a local community that implicitly excluded its Indigenous members. This
is demonstrated in examples such as this remark from the Barmah Preservation League ‘the local
people haven't been considered at all as far as Barmah is concerned' (Shepparton News, 2008: 5) as
well as this accusation from a timber industry spokesperson 'Mr Brumby has turned his back on
country communities, ignoring the advice of local people' (Riverine Herald, 2008a: 5). These and
other similar statements refer to a local people or country community which implicitly does not
include local Yorta Yorta people, whose advice to create the parks had perhaps been considered.
Meadows (2004:284) has observed that the local media ‘show little or no initiative in attempting to
discover and report what issues really concern Aboriginal Australia’.
This observation, in
combination with the exclusion of Yorta Yorta from definitions of the community, may explain why
the important fact that the parks would be co-managed by traditional owners was included in just
under a third (30%) of all the reports on the National Parks. In conclusion, and in support of Peter
Ferguson's claims of disproportionate media representations of Indigenous voices at the outset, it is
evident that the Yorta Yorta’s support for co-managed parks was largely unrecognised by
McPherson media, which privileged voices claiming to represent an implicitly non-Indigenous
community.
The creation of the co-managed Barmah and Millewa National Parks was an important step in the
Yorta Yorta’s struggle for land justice, yet the Yorta Yorta’s knowledge of and relationship to the
land was ignored by McPherson media. Instead, articles on the National Parks marginalised Yorta
Yorta voices and privileged non-Indigenous sources including politicians, and conservative forces.
Although there were more positive articles in McPherson media on the creation of National Parks
than the native title claim, the majority of articles were overtly negative or minimised and
discredited pro-park voices and particularly those of the Country News which seems to carry a
negative bias towards the Yorta Yorta from the Native Title Case and Mediation process (1994-95).
In the final analysis the study clearly points to the fact that the McPherson media excluded the
Yorta Yorta from their construction of the community and this may explain, but not justify, why the
articles on the creation of National Parks failed and continues not to provide adequate, positive and
fair coverage of the Yorta Yorta as a uniquely based cultural and regional community with valid
claims for what are no more than their inherent rights.
References
Adams, G. ‘Parks mark end of an era’, Country News, 5 Jan. 2009, p. 3.
Atkinson, W., ‘Cultural Tourism & the Yorta Yorta Experience: A case of Inclusion or Exclusion’?’
in W. Atkinson and Friends of the Earth, Research Papers: National Parks, Joint Management and
Cultural Tourism, 2010.
Atkinson, W., Holistic View of Land and Heritage, Working Paper Prepared for On Country
Learning: Indigenous Studies: 166-230, 2003.
Atkinson, W. R. ‘Yorta Yorta Occupation’, Not One Iota: The Yorta Yorta Struggle for Land Justice,
PhD Thesis, LaTrobe University, 2000, p. 14-35.
Chudley, C. ‘Alliance to release Alternative Plan’, Riverine Herald, 30 Jul. 2008, p. 2.
Ferguson, P., ‘Indigenous voice must by heard’, Shepparton News, 22 Mar. 2010, p. 8.
Goston, O. and Chong, A., ‘Living Wisdom: Aborigines and the Environment’ in C. Bourke, E.
Bourke and E. Edwards (eds), Aboriginal Australia, Queensland, University of Queensland Press,
1998.
Hartley, J., The Politics of Pictures: the Creation of the Public in the Age of Popular Media, London,
Routledge, 1992.
Hartley, J. and McKee, A., The Indigenous Public Sphere: The reporting and reception of Aboriginal
issues in the Australian media, New York, Oxford University Press, 2000.
Meadows, M., ‘Media Images of Indigenous Affairs in Australia’ in J. Leigh and E. Loo (eds), Outer
Limits: A Reader in Communication Across Cultures, Melbourne, Language Australia, 2004.
Meadows, M., 'A 10-point plan and a treaty: representing race relations in the press in Australia
and Canada’, Australian-Canadian Studies , vol. 19, no. 1, p. 23-45, 2001.
Oliver, J., ‘Parks not certain’, Country News, 7 Dec. 2009.
Riverine Herald, ‘Timber Industry’, 31 Dec. 2008a, p. 5.
Riverine Herald, ‘Environmental Groups’, 31 Dec. 2008b, p. 5.
Riverine Herald, ‘Decision Welcomed’, 7 Dec. 2009a, p.3.
Riverine Herald, ‘Wrong Decision’, 9 Dec. 2009b, p. 8.
Riverine Herald, ‘Protect red gum forests: delegate’, 1 Mar. 2010a, p. 2.
Riverine Herald, ‘Decision Slammed’, 5 Mar. 2010b, p. 3.
Schoenborn, D., Are they making this up or what? The role of the local newsprint media in
constructing non-Indigenous understandings of Indigeneity in the Goulburn Valley Sept. 1994-Dec.
2002. Honours thesis, The University of Melbourne, 2003.
Shepparton News, ‘League dreads impact on community’, 28 Jul. 2008, p. 5.
Van Dijk, T. A., ‘News(s), racism: a discourse analytical approach’, in S. Cottle (ed), Ethnic
Minorities and the Media: Changing Cultural Boundaries, Buckingham, Open University Press, 2000.
Wood, D., ‘We’re being used‘, Shepparton News, 2 Jan. 2009, p.6.
Wood, D., ‘Heritage lost for loggers’, Shepparton News, 31 Dec. 2008, p. 6.