News Corp Australia has launched its fifth Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP).
It said this will further its commitment to employ storytelling to celebrate the achievements and break down the barriers affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
News Corp Australasia’s executive chairman Michael Miller said the company’s ability to engage more than 18 million Australians monthly brought a “unique responsibility and profound opportunity to lead the national conversation”.
“Storytelling is our core business – and we are committed to using fearless journalism and powerful campaigns to amplify diverse voices and shape a better, more equitable nation,” Mr Miller said.
Marking the company’s fifth RAP since its first in 2011, Miller and News Corp Australia’s community ambassador Penny Fowler said reconciliation remains “a work in progress”.
Fowler added that the RAP outlined “specific, measurable commitments” that reflected the company’s aim to help create a better and stronger Australia for everyone.
“We remain deeply committed to continuing to celebrate Indigenous Australia’s many achievements through all of our mastheads – from The Australian and news.com.au to Vogue Australia and Taste – while also shining a light on many long standing challenges,” Fowler said.
“Corporately we have engaged with Indigenous businesses such as the 11 suppliers from Supply Nation with whom we spent $2.38 million in procurement in the past financial year.”
Fowler said key Indigenous mastheads The Indigenous Business Review (inserted quarterly into The Australian) and National Indigenous Times (inserted in News Australia’s state and community mastheads) also received discounted print services to the value of $674,000 annually.
Since its last RAP the company has also worked with Indigenous organisations the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation and Bandu while The Advertiser Foundation funded the Shaping Deadly Minds literacy program in South Australia
Indigenous artist Jess Tedim was commissioned to create the RAP cover art, Truth and Trust, which she says “presents storytelling as a continuous and flowing process and speaks to truth-telling and accountability”.
Reconciliation Australia’s CEO Karen Mundine commended the company on its fourth Innovate and fifth overall RAP.
“News Corp Australia continues to be part of a strong network of more than 3,000 corporate, government, and not- for-profit organisations that have taken goodwill and transformed it into action.”
