MP Michelle Rowland To Join Media Leaders For Inaugural Diversity Event

Minister for Communications, the Hon Michelle Rowland, to join Australia’s media leaders at inaugural industry diversity event in Sydney on Friday, July 14.

Media Diversity Australia (MDA) is hosting an industry-first round table, bringing the CEOs, managing directors and senior representatives of Australia’s leading media organisations together for a discussion about improving diversity, inclusion and equity as a sector.

Attendees at the forum will involve executives from all eleven MDA members which include public and commercial broadcasters.

Among them are SBS’s managing director James Taylor, Nine’s CEO Mike Sneesby, Ten’s executive vice president, chief content officer & head of Paramount, Beverley McGarvey, Seven’s chief people and culture officer Lucinda Gemmell, ABC’s chief content officer, Chris Oliver-Taylor, News Corp Australia’s chief financial officer, Michael Murphy, AAP’s editor Andrew Drummond, The Guardian Australia’s editor Lenore Taylor, Private Media Group’s CEO Will Hayward, The Conversation Group’s CEO Lisa Watts and The Daily Aus Co Founders Zara Seidler and Sam Koslowski.

They will be joined by the minister for communications, the Hon Michelle Rowland MP, and key industry figures including MDA Founder and Chair, Isabel Lo, and executives from Screen Diversity and Inclusion Network, Diversity Arts Australia and Free TV to commit to a path forward to deliver change needed as an industry.

The closed industry round table, to be held at SBS’s headquarters in Artarmon, Sydney, will provide a platform for robust discussion about where improvements are most needed in diversity, around barriers to equity and inclusion, the importance of workplaces providing culturally and psychologically safe environments for talent, how to better cater to underserved audiences, opportunities for industry collaboration, and action to drive progress for a more inclusive media that better reflects and serves contemporary Australia.

The group will also discuss uniform measurement and tracking of progress across all parts of the industry, building on current measurement being implemented through MDA as well as organisations like Screen Diversity Inclusion Network (SDIN) for the production sector, to ensure greater accountability as an industry.

Mariam Veiszadeh, CEO of Media Diversity Australia said the forum provided a launchpad for shifting the dial on industry-wide change.

“For the first time, these leaders are coming together for an authentic and frank conversation about the issues and ways to tackle the challenges. As individual media organisations and MDA members, each member has the power to have a meaningful impact, but as a collective making a shared commitment to have honest and important discussions and take action, we have the potential to move on from discussions and truly shift the dial on diversity, inclusion and equity in Australian media.

“But it is critical that this is more than a discussion – all MDA members recognise the need for and value of greater diversity, but the pace of industry-wide change is slow and inconsistent. We are coming together to make the strongest commitment yet as an industry. This is a collective call to action for Australia’s media industry and I look forward to sharing the commitments made as we begin this next stage of the journey.”

MDA will share high level outcomes and commitments made following the round table event.

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