Teaching journalism students how to tell Indigenous stories in an informed way : a work integrated learning approach

Australian journalism schools are full of students who have never met an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Island person and who do not know their history. Journalism educators are ill-equipped to redress this imbalance as a large majority are themselves non-Indigenous and many have had little or no experience with the coverage of Indigenous issues or knowledge of Indigenous affairs. Such a situation calls for educational approaches that can overcome these disadvantages and empower journalism graduates to move beyond the stereotypes that characterize the representation of Indigenous people in the mainstream media. This article will explore three different courses in three Australian tertiary journalism education institutions, which use Work-Integrated Learning Approaches to instil the cultural competencies necessary to encourage a more informed reporting of Indigenous issues. The findings from the three projects illustrate the importance of adopting a collaborative approach by industry, the Indigenous community and educators to encourage students’ commitment to quality journalism practices when covering Indigenous issues.

Under-reporting of road crashes in Pakistan and the role of fate

Objective: Comprehensive, accurate information about road crashes and related trauma is a prerequisite for identification and control of risk factors as well as for identifying faults within the broader road safety system. Quality data and appropriate crash investigation are critical in reducing the road toll that is rapidly growing in much of the developing world, including Pakistan. This qualitative research explored the involvement of social and cultural factors (in particular, fatalism) in risky road use in Pakistan. The findings highlight a significant issue, previously unreported in the road safety literature, namely, the link between fatalistic beliefs and inaccurate reporting of road crashes. Method: Thirty interviews (one-to one) were conducted by the first author with police officers, drivers, policy makers and religious orators in three Pakistani cities. Findings: Evidence emerged of a strong link between fatalism and the under-reporting of road crashes. In many cases, crashes and related road trauma appear to go unreported because a crash is considered to be one’s fate and, therefore, beyond personal control. Fate was also implicated in the practice of reconciliation between parties after a crash without police involvement and the seeking and granting of pardon for a road death. Conclusions: These issues represent additional factors that can contribute to under-reporting of crashes and associated trauma. Together, they highlight complications involved in establishing the true cost of road trauma in a country such as Pakistan and the difficulties faced when attempting to promote scientifically-based road safety information to counteract faith-based beliefs.

Lessons from media reporting of natural disasters : a case study of the 2011 flash floods in Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley

Practice-led journalism research techniques were used in this study to produce a ‘first draft of history’ recording the human experience of survivors and rescuers during the January 2011 flash flood disaster in Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley in Queensland, Australia. The study aimed to discover what can be learnt from engaging in journalistic reporting of natural disasters. This exegesis demonstrates that journalism can be both a creative practice and a research methodology. About 120 survivors, rescuers and family members of victims participated in extended interviews about what happened to them and how they survived. Their stories are the basis for two creative outputs of the study: a radio documentary and a non-fiction book, that document how and why people died, or survived, or were rescued. Listeners and readers are taken "into the flood" where they feel anxious for those in peril, relief when people are saved, and devastated when babies, children and adults are swept away to their deaths. In undertaking reporting about the human experience of the floods, several significant elements about journalistic reportage of disasters were exposed. The first related to the vital role that the online social media played during the disaster for individuals, citizen reporters, journalists and emergency services organisations. Online social media offer reporters powerful new reporting tools for both gathering and disseminating news. The second related to the performance of journalists in covering events involving traumatic experiences. Journalists are often required to cover trauma and are often amongst the first-responders to disasters. This study found that almost all of the disaster survivors who were approached were willing to talk in detail about their traumatic experiences. A finding of this project is that journalists who interview trauma survivors can develop techniques for improving their ability to interview people who have experienced traumatic events. These include being flexible with interview timing and selecting a location; empowering interviewees to understand they don’t have to answer every question they are asked; providing emotional security for interviewees; and by being committed to accuracy. Survivors may exhibit posttraumatic stress symptoms but some exhibit and report posttraumatic growth. The willingness of a high proportion of the flood survivors to participate in the flood research made it possible to document a relatively unstudied question within the literature about journalism and trauma – when and why disaster survivors will want to speak to reporters. The study sheds light on the reasons why a group of traumatised people chose to speak about their experiences. Their reasons fell into six categories: lessons need to be learned from the disaster; a desire for the public to know what had happened; a sense of duty to make sure warning systems and disaster responses to be improved in future; personal recovery; the financial disinterest of reporters in listening to survivors; and the timing of the request for an interview. Feedback to the creative-practice component of this thesis - the book and radio documentary - shows that these issues are not purely matters of ethics. By following appropriate protocols, it is possible to produce stories that engender strong audience responses such as that the program was "amazing and deeply emotional" and "community storytelling at its most important". Participants reported that the experience of the interview process was "healing" and that the creative outcome resulted in "a very precious record of an afternoon of tragedy and triumph and the bitter-sweetness of survival".

On the use of Bluetooth MAC Scanners for live reporting of the transport network

Recently there has been significant interest of researchers and practitioners on the use of Bluetooth as a complementary transport data. However, literature is limited with the understanding of the Bluetooth MAC Scanner (BMS) based data acquisition process and the properties of the data being collected. This paper first provides an insight on the BMS data acquisition process. Thereafter, it discovers the interesting facts from analysis of the real BMS data from both motorway and arterial networks of Brisbane, Australia. The knowledge gained is helpful for researchers and practitioners to understand the BMS data being collected which is vital to the development of management and control algorithms using the data.

Prevalence and characteristics of Indigenous drink-driving convictions in Queensland, Australia

Alcohol-involved accidents are one of the leading contributors towards high injury rates among Indigenous Australians. However, there is limited information available to inform existing policies to change current rates. The study aims to provide information about the prevalence and the characteristics of such behaviour. Drink driving convictions from 2006-2010 were extracted from the Queensland Department of Justice and Attorney General database. Convictions were regrouped by gender, age, Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia classification (using court location) and sentence severity. A number of cross tabulations were carried out to identify relationships between variables. Standardised adjusted residuals were calculated for each cell in order to determine cell differences that contributed to the chi-square test results. Analysis revealed there were 9,323 convictions, of which the majority were for offences by males (77.5%). In relation to age, 52.6% of the convictions were of persons under 25 years of age. Age was significantly different across the five regions for males only (χ2=90.8, p<0.001), with a larger number of convictions in the ‘very remote’ region of persons over 40+ years of age. Increased remoteness was linked with high range BAC convictions for both males (χ2=168.4, p<0.001) and females (χ2=22.5, p=0.004). Monetary penalties were the primary sentence received for both males and females in all regions. The findings identify the Indigenous drink driving conviction rate to be 6 times that of the general Queensland rate and indicate that a multipronged approach is needed, with tailored strategies for remote offenders, young adults and offenders with alcohol misuse and dependency issues. Further attention is warranted in this area of road safety.

Local development planning and community empowerment in decentralised Indonesia : the role of local planning in improving self organising capabilities of local communities in Takalar, Indonesia

This study investigates the role of development planning in empowering rural communities in Indonesia’s decentralised era. Evidence is produced that the combination of procedural justice in planning development and social learning in its implementation can assist self-organisation and help empower local communities. Significant benefits are shown to result in: the acquisition and use of collective resources; the development of shared knowledge, skills, values and trust; community leadership; and the development of social networks. Two features of this empowerment model are community-based planning, utilising participatory rural appraisal at the level of the natural village, and the organisation of collective action. These are shown to be effective ways of incorporating procedural justice and social learning in self organisation and community empowerment.

Submission to expert panel on constitutional recognition of Indigenous people

Submission recommended addition of a new 'self-enacting' preamble and enacting words to the Commownealth Constitution, and replacement of the 'race power' by a series of more specific powers relating to the recognition of native title and laws of the indigenous people.

Hospitalisation of Indigenous children in the Northern Territory for lower respiratory illness in the first year of life

Objective To describe the epidemiology of acute lower respiratory infection (ALRI) and bronchiectasis in Northern Territory Indigenous infants hospitalised in the first year of life. Design A historical cohort study constructed from the NT Hospital Discharge Dataset and the NT Imm(u)nisation Register. Participants and setting All NT resident Indigenous infants, born 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2004, admitted to NT public hospitals and followed up to 12 months of age. Main outcome measures Incidence of ALRI and bronchiectasis (ICD-10-AM codes) and radiologically confirmed pneumonia (World Health Organization protocol). Results Data on 9295 infants, 8498 child-years of observation and 15 948 hospitalised episodes of care were analysed. ALRI incidence was 426.7 episodes per 1000 child-years (95% Cl, 416.2-437.2). Incidence rates were two times higher (relative risk, 2.12; 95% Cl, 1.98-2.27) for infants in Central Australia compared with those in the Top End. The median age at first admission for an ALRI was 4.6 months (interquartile range, 2.6-7.3). Bronchiolitis accounted for most of the disease burden, with a rate of 227 per 1000 child-years. The incidence of first diagnosis of bronchiectasis was 1.18 per 1000 child-years (95% Cl, 0.60-2.16). One or more key comorbidities were present in 1445 of the 3227 (44.8%) episodes of care for ALRI. Conclusions Rates of ALRI and bronchiectasis in NT Indigenous infants are excessive, with early onset, frequent repeat episodes, and a high prevalence of comorbidities. These high rates of disease demand urgent attention.

Submission to the inquiry into the high level of involvement of Indigenous juveniles and young adults in the criminal justice system

Introduction • The Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) is Australia's national research and knowledge centre on crime and justice. • The Institute seeks to promote justice and reduce crime by undertaking and communicating evidence-based research to inform policy and practice. • The AIC is governed by the Criminology Research Act and has been in operation since 1973. • The AIC is pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to the Committee's Inquiry into the high level of involvement of Indigenous juveniles and young adults in the criminal justice system. • There is a great deal of evidence to demonstrate that Indigenous young people are significantly over-represented at every stage of the criminal justice system in Australia.

Negotiating disability and colonisation : the lived experience of Indigenous Australians with a disability

Disability among Indigenous Australians lies at a nexus between the ongoing impact of European settlement from 1788 and the social effects of living with a disability. Colonisation, with its political, social, economic and cultural concomitants, continues to impact on Indigenous experience, extending to the institutions and services concerned with disability. There is little attention paid to Indigenous Australian disability in general, and the need to decolonise disability has recently been emphasised. Ethnographic research in Brisbane, Australia among Indigenous people with a disability (mostly related to diabetes) confirms the ongoing impact of colonisation. While this experience pervades all aspects of their lives, it also moderates their experience of living with a disability in positive ways. However, while individuals can negotiate their personal experience of disability, the decolonisation of disability services presents challenges that need to be addressed.

Valuing those close to us : A comparison of German and Australian quality newspapers’ reporting of death in foreign news

A number of studies into the coverage of death have provided some evidence of journalists giving preference to events from certain regions and to certain types of death. This comprehensive evaluation of how two German and two Australian newspapers cover death specifically in foreign news finds clear evidence that journalists primarily look for events in countries which are culturally proximate to their own. The cultural proximity thesis here includes links such as cultural, political, economic or linguistic connections with a country. Some important national differences in how journalists at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald report on death were also identified. These could be traced to some important cultural differences between the two countries, underlining the need for more research which locates culture at the core of news analysis.

Does improving school level attendance lead to improved school level achievement? An empirical study of indigenous educational policy in Australia

Current federal government policy initiatives in Aboriginal education and social welfare reform are based on assumptions about the relationship between increased attendance and increased student performance on standardized tests. There are empirical assumptions underlying these policy interventions and their accompanying public debates. Our aim here is to empirically explore the relationships between patterns of student attendance and patterns of student achievement in schools with significant cohorts of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander students at the school level. Based on an analysis of the publicly available data reported on the ‘MySchool’ website, we find that reforms and policies around attendance have not and are unlikely to generate patterns of improved achievement. Questions about the rationale and rhetoric of government policy focused at the school level as opposed to the need to focus on pedagogy and curriculum are discussed.

Corporate sustainability reporting of major commercial banks in line with GRI : Bangladesh evidence

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the tendencies of sustainability reporting by major commercial banks in Bangladesh in comparison with global sustainability reporting indicators outlined in the GRI framework together with banks' predilection toward reporting 16 GRI financial service sector (FSS) specific performance indicators. Design/methodology/approach – Based on the GRI G3 guidelines, the paper investigated banks' reporting in five broad areas of sustainability, such as environment, labour practices and decent works, product responsibility, human rights and society. The 2008/2009 annual reports of 12 major commercial banks listed on Dhaka stock exchange were analysed and coded using a content-based technique. Findings – The results show that information on society is addressed most extensively with regard to extent of reporting. This is followed by the disclosures prepared on decent works and labour practices and environmental issues. Furthermore, the disclosures of product responsibility information and the information for human rights are rather scarce in banks' reporting; on the subject of FSS-specific disclosures, only seven items out of 16 are disclosed by all sample banks. Research limitations/implications – The findings of the study indicate that Bangladeshi commercial banks' social disclosures could develop in this style to become more holistic and over time (in association with the country's central bank involvement) to resemble a type of structured reporting to the point where they are properly labelled per se. Originality/value – The study contributes to the social disclosure literature, in particular in a developing countries banking sector context, seeing as it disseminates evidence of the standing on social disclosures practices at the level of GRI with developing countries' banks data.