Feature: Australia's media landscape set to become "more multicultural": expert

Australia's media landscape is set to become more culturally diverse, spearheaded by notable Australian journalist Waleed Aly, according to an Australian expert.

Aly who is a Muslim, recently won Australian television's top prize, the TV Week Gold Logie Award for Best Personality on Australian Television.

He told guests at the ceremony"do not adjust your sets...there's nothing wrong with the picture."

Aly dedicated his win to people"with an unpronounceable name like ... Waleed."

Workplace diversity specialist Conrad Liveris told Xinhua on Thursday that while Australia is a multicultural and inclusive society, it is not reflected in the media.

"People still change their names to fit in, there is a poor showing of Asian and Middle Eastern people (in the media) even though they have been part of our society for decades," Liveris explained.

Liveris said the best way forward for Australia's media industry was for greater inclusion.

"Bring Asian people into the newsroom and have them as reporters," Liveris said.

Liveris hit out at the lack of diversity in Australia's media industry.

"Unequivocally, Australia's media landscape is a whitewash,"Liveris said.

"Media outlets need to source talent that does actually reflect our communities and the talent seen in our universities, which are very multicultural."

He noted that an incredibly niche reflection of Australian society is on show in the media.

Andrew Jakubowicz, professor of sociology at the University of Technology Sydney, believes that the major problem with Australia's media landscape is content, not targeting audiences.

"We need programming that foregrounds inter-cultural communication, not programming directed only to single unitary communities,"Jakubowicz explained.

Channel 7 floated an idea in 2015 to launch foreign-language television channels.

A spokesperson confirmed to Xinhua this week that Channel 7 is"continuing to explore and investigate new opportunities to deliver our content to our audiences."

Jakubowicz however disagreed with Channel 7's proposed plans.

"The Australian television market is fed from free-to-air (FTA) local channels including Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), satellite including CCTV, and online,"Jakubowicz said.

"A locally established multi-lingual FTA channel would probably not be viable, though additional cable channels would be feasible depending on costings."

He noted that radio is highly viable and there are many sources.

Jakubowicz identified generational change as the hot topic of the media following the success of diverse programs and personalities, such as Dami Im and Waleed Aly, which he labelled"the most interesting Australians to come from diverse backgrounds."

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) announced its diversity targets earlier this year where it pledged that by 2020 half of its staff will be women and that 15 percent will come from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Jakubowicz believes Australia should follow suit.

"The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) would do well from targets (not quotas) so that as a national broadcaster it can legitimately claim to reflect the nation,"Jakubowicz said.

"Other commercial stations will make economic decisions but the success of Waleed Aly suggests the future will be more multicultural."

Marcus Reubenstein, founder of consultancy firm Red Door Asia, told Xinhua one of the problems Australia faces is that it is almost too multicultural.

"How do you produce content for one ethnic group without offending the others?"Reubenstein asked.

"And who decides that Italian-Australians should have more air time than Chinese-Australians or Lebanese-Australians?"

He said that the answer to these questions had to come from within ethnic groups themselves.

"Various multicultural groups need to engage much better with western media,"he noted. Endit