Age Discrimination Commissioner urges media industry to review practices

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Age Discrimination Commissioner is calling on media organisations to review their editorial practices -- after a new report found the industry is failing to accurately represent older Australians and the issues they face.

Transcript

00:00Firstly, a lot of them had no sort of understanding of the issues.

00:05They hadn't been exposed to it and they actually couldn't find spokespeople to talk to and

00:09put onto the air or in relation to the radio.

00:12So that was the first thing.

00:13The second thing, however, is the media is extremely skewed to younger people at all

00:17levels.

00:18And so they weren't even having conversations with older media professionals.

00:22They weren't having the exposure to how you actually address this issue or the wisdom

00:26of those older players.

00:27The third thing is the pressure of producing news, particularly through the internet, but

00:32also right throughout all the media, has actually meant that they're taking a lot of the narratives

00:37that are out there, such as the division between older people and younger people, or the notion

00:41that ageing is a burden, and they're running with that rather than just saying, could we

00:46reflect it in a different way?

00:48So the media itself recognises there are drivers within their own industry, as well as what

00:53society is saying.

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