Earlier this month the Australia Human Rights Commission published the Race Reporting Handbook in partnership with Media Diversity Australia. Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan (Giri) Sivaraman joined guest host Emma Buckley Lennox on Spin Cycle to talk about the handbook, which is a practical tool for mediamakers to help indentify and eradicate racist tropes and stereotypes in writing and news.

Giri told Emma that race and racism are "about power and privilege": "In the media, if you're white you have the power to decide whose stories are told, who tells the stories and how they're told. And it's a privilege to nearly always be centred in the media without having to think about it, and not worry about how your race is represented in any story."

A strong media is vital to a properly functioning democratic society, but Commissioner Sivaraman says the media doesn't just have to shine a light externally; it also needs to shine a light on itself: "Media is very powerful. It influences a narrative, it's a storyteller and shapes people's opinions. And on race it's done a pretty bad job for 238 years".

As part of addressing this, Emma asks Giri about taking an anti-racist approach, and how that differs from just not being racist. He responds by outlining how an anti-racist approach requires challenging the white power and privelege in media institutions. "If you're not an anti-racist then you're just letting those systems and structures remain as they are and the racism engrained in them will never dissipate. That's why you have to take an active anti-racist approach."

Emma reflects that this is a concept that's really important for people to bring into their work, media or otherwise.

One of the ways mediamakers can challenge baked-in racist attitudes is by building racial literacy. Giridharan Sivaraman says Australian media needs to ask itself: "What kind of language do you use? Who do you centre in your stories? Who gets to tell the stories? Who's on your editorial team? Do you have people with lived experience of racism that are deciding those things?"

You can read the Race Reporting Handbook on the Human Rights Commission's website.