Speaking at Cannes in Cairns in his first public appearance since stepping down from ABC’s Q&A, Stan Grant told a packed crowd that the mainstream media was feeding hatred into “the bloodstream of our society” with its reliance on seeding division and pitting people against each other. Grant received a standing ovation from the audience in Tropical North Queensland for his moving testimony.
Grant spoke to a packed room in the Cairns Convention Centre but following threats on his and his family’s lives, he was unable to travel to the show in person and spoke via video link.
With a 40-year career in journalism, Grant told the audience of the struggles he experienced during his time in newsrooms. Grant told the visibly moved audience how he had received praise for being “almost a white man” and had to endure racist jokes, mocking accents and abhorrent racist abuse from both consumers of news and fellow journalists, alike. He was also told many times that “Blacks don’t rate” and had stories about First Nations communities spiked as a result of nothing but prejudice.
However, Grant explained that those same prejudices remain in Australian society and that the media, rather than seeking truth as it should, prioritises causing division — “It does not have the language of love,” he said.
For Grant, this hatred came to a head with ABC’s coverage of the coronation of King Charles III.
“Last year when Queen Elizabeth II died, we were told that this was not the time to discuss colonisation. This was not the time to discuss the worst of our history. This was the time to mourn Queen Elizabeth and pay respects to her life. But where was the respect for my people’s lives?”
Despite the strength of Grant’s conviction to discuss the injustices his ancestors, family and other First Nations people suffered at the hands of the British Crown, he warned ABC producers of the “bitter backlash” that would come with any discussion of colonialism during the coronation.
“This time at the ABC, they said they would do it differently with the coronation of King Charles, we would have that conversation. And so we did.
“Before the coronation had even begun, we devoted 45 minutes to a conversation talking about these issues. I knew what was going to happen.
“Because to dare to even speak the truth about our country with its First Nations history risks hatred and racism. We know that.”
What’s more, Grant told the audience that he did not want to do the show with that content but was asked by another ABC journalist to support her on the program.
In fact, Grant told the audience that the ABC had a staffer monitoring the comments on Twitter about its coverage and that “before [he] uttered a single word — a single word — the viciousness and the racism had begun.”
That staffer, Grant said, went home that night “feeling sick because of what she had seen and read.”
With regards to his future role in Australian media, Grant said that he was “walking away” perhaps not forever, but for a long time. Pertinently, Grant told the predominantly white audience that he would be returning to country to reconnect with his Wiradjuri roots.
“In walking away from Q&A, I said I do not believe that the media has the language or the love to be able to speak to the gentle spirits of this land,” he said.
“I hear the whisper of love from cousins of mine who called me up and said ‘Come home brother. Come back. Let’s go out on country. Let’s go and sit down by the river.’
“And I will take the time to go home, to try and wash the stench of forty years in the media off my skin. To go out and breathe the air and block my ears to the hate that I hear far too often and wonder if I can ever come back.”
Of course, with the upcoming Voice to Parliament referendum, the treatment of, and attitudes towards, Indigenous and First Nation Australians, both historic and current will come into even sharper focus. Grant explained that this attention and focus will lead to a growing frenzy of hostility and racism-stoking content produced by the mainstream media.
“It is often through mainstream media that we fan the hatred and the vitriol that we see on social media. It is the way that we engage in debate. It is the way that we reduce public discourse… to an amusement park. Where we take people’s lives and trash them. When we do not have discussion or debate as much as we have an argument and the shrill voices are heard,” he said.
“When do we say stop? If we cannot have the hard conversations that we need to have in this country about the most fragile and sensitive issues, none more so than the treatment of my people, First Nations people. If can’t have those conversations without descending into hatred and putting up the walls between us, lying, fanning the flames of division and hatred, if we can’t do that, we’re better to walk away.”
However, Grant told the crowd that he is still absolutely assured of the potential that a “Yes” vote in the referendum has for Indigenous and First Nations Australians and the potential it has for creating a better Australia.
“Yes to the Voice. Yes to a treaty. Yes to a better Australia. Yes gives us a possibility and no just sounds like the end. Yes sounds like the love I have heard in the last two weeks and no sounds like the racists of social media. We have a responsibility in the media to treat ourselves better. We have a responsibility to reach something great,” he said.
“Never before have we been able to speak to so many people, in so many ways, in so many parts of the world. And yet our world is torn apart by us. We owe it to ourselves to turn off the television, radio and newspapers if they are not serving us.
“We owe it to ourselves to not watch programmes that turn news into an amusement park, programmes where they pretend people can meet each other as strangers and get married tomorrow and call that love. We have to stop debasing ourselves and reach for something more.”
Many of those attending Cannes in Cairns will be reflecting and ruminating on what they have heard and their role within Australia’s media industry for the days, weeks, months and maybe even years to come.
