Australian indigenous TV host Stan Grant's quits programme over racist abuse

After an illustrious career spanning more than three decades, trailblazing aboriginal journalist Stan Grant broadcast his farewell programme on Monday and announced his retirement from Australian television screens indefinitely.

"Racism is a crime. Racism is violence. And I have had enough," Grant wrote in a column last week explaining his decision, reported the BBC.

In 1992, the Wiradjuri man made history by becoming Australia's first Aboriginal presenter on prime-time commercial television. He went on to win several Australian media honours and worked as an overseas journalist for CNN and Al Jazeera before coming home to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

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He is one of Australia's most recognised and renowned journalists, according to the ABC

But he appeared defeatedon Monday night, visibly trembling as he signed out from his political panel show Q+A.

"To those who have abused me and my family, I would just say - if your aim was to hurt me, well, you've succeeded," he said.

Grant's decision to quit has rekindled heated debates in Australia regarding racism and media diversity.

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"If one of the few Indigenous presenters on television with a career that took him all over the world can't be protected from racism... what will that mean for anyone who walks down a similar path?" ABC journalist Ryma Tchier wrote on Twitter.

Newsrooms dominated by white people

Indigenous Australians have a history dating back over 60,000 years, and half of Australians were either born overseas or have a parent who was.

However, the media that represents such a diverse population remains overwhelmingly white.

According to a 2022 research, more over three-quarters of Australian TV reporters and broadcasters are of Anglo-Celtic descent. The disparity was considerably more obvious at the executive and board levels.

The Media Diversity Australia study forced the five TV networks under investigation to admit to a lack of diversity. However, the channels questioned the report's results, citing how it defined cultural background and the study's brief, two-week research span.

Several others mentioned that they had expanded diversity in other areas of their output or that they had worked to boost representation through targeted positions and recruiting.

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However, the wider issue has long been a source of contention in Australian media, with opponents blaming it for leading to high-profile incidents.

In 2019, a newspaper was extensively criticised of employing racial stereotypes in a cartoon representation of Serena Williams; nonetheless, media authorities finally found the picture acceptable.

In 2020, Channel Seven's Sunrise, Australia's most watched breakfast show, resolved a racial discrimination complaint after an all-white panellist urged that Aboriginal children be forcefully taken from their families.

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