Making a difference
After 20 years of sharing Indigenous stories with the nation, Living Black host Karla Grant reflects on her career and the importance of building trust with a community, writes
KARLA Grant was 17 years old and full of hope when she applied for a cadetship at an Adelaide newspaper. After a nerve-racking interview, the then-teenager was stunned when one of the panellists turned to his offsider and said: “She’s pretty enough, but do you think she can communicate?”
“He was talking about me as if I wasn’t even there,” the awardwinning journalist says incredulously.
“When I think about it now,
I am so angry. But I wasn’t angry at the time. Just disappointed I didn’t get the cadetship. That sort of thing could have made me retreat and believe I was never going to be a journalist.
“It could have had a negative impact, but it only made me want to keep going.”
Smarting from the brutal rejection, Grant moved to Canberra to study journalism and after a stint in public service, she finally found her way into a newsroom. There, she has made it her mission to tell stories that make a difference ever since.
It was that drive to report on issues affecting First Nations people and culture with balance and sensitivity that drove Grant to create the Indigenous current affairs program Living Black 20 years ago.
“If you turned on the TV 20 or 30 years ago, you wouldn’t have seen many Indigenous stories on it, because commercial stations very rarely ran a news story concerning Indigenous affairs, and if it did, it would be very unbalanced and very stereotypical and portraying Aboriginal people in a bad light,” she explains.
“Those stories were very negative. I believe over the period of time since I’ve been a journalist, it has changed a lot for the better. And you can put that down to the programmes like Living Black and NITV [National Indigenous Television] in general.”
After her own struggle to get a foot in the door all those years ago, Grant has endeavoured to keep it wedged open for the next generation of First Nations reporters.
“When I started this program 20 years ago, I was scraping around to find any black journalists and we had to create a cadetship at SBS to get more blackfellas coming through as journalists,” she explains.
“A lot of those people now have gone off to ABC or to commercial
TV, and that’s been really pleasing to see, and I feel really proud that I’ve been a part of this change.”
That’s because, as a child growing up in Adelaide, Grant never saw her culture being celebrated anywhere outside her home.
“No one welcomed anyone to country and we didn’t have any sort of Indigenous Studies at school at all,” she says.
“And when you did learn something about the history of this nation, it was all about Captain Cook discovering this country.
“I would be sitting there thinking, ‘Well that’s not right’. But I couldn’t really say anything. I felt shame or embarrassment because they [peers and teachers] would make you feel so low if you did talk about it. That was the racism at the time.
IF YOU DON’T HAVE THAT CULTURALLY SAFE SPACE FOR PEOPLE, THEN THEY’RE NOT GOING TO OPEN UP TO YOU
“We couldn’t speak up about things because if you did you just got called every name under the sun. I was called Boong, Abo, Coon. And when it happens you just want to crawl under the desk.”
Grant is grateful that times are changing and that her three adult children haven’t had to face many of the difficulties that were commonplace in her own youth.
While there is still a long way to go, Grant says having more Indigenous voices on screen and behind the scenes is creating cultural changes and ensuring far more balanced reporting.
“More Indigenous people are infiltrating newsrooms and actually educating people about how to cover these sorts of stories,” she says.
“When you are covering an Indigenous story you need to get various points of view, you don’t just go to the one person.
“There are protocols as well. You can’t just walk up to a community unannounced and expect that everyone’s going to start talking to you because blackfellas are very wary. That’s where that trust and respect comes into play.
“If they don’t trust [you], you’re not going to get anything out of them.
“And so, having a lot more Indigenous journalists right across our industry will help to educate and also improve the coverage of Indigenous Affairs.”
While she is always mindful of trying to remain impartial, some of the issues Grant covers on Living Black are challenging and can stir up painful memories from her past.
Grant explains that she witnessed her uncles being unfairly targeted by the police, recalling: “They got picked up so many times and taken to the cop shop, where they were beaten up.
“They’d come home bruised and battered. And so, when I’m speaking to families who’ve lost loved ones in custody, it reminds me of my family and I can really relate to what they’re talking about.”
Despite her discomfort, Grant believes its important that these sorts of issues are no longer swept under the carpet. And Living Black offers people the chance to share their story with honesty to someone who empathises.
“We’ve been going for 20 years now so people know that they can trust me,” she says.
“I’ve won that trust and respect from those people. And they know that when I come to talk to them, they’re going to be able to share their story in a way where they feel comfortable in a culturally safe environment.
“That’s really, really important because if you don’t have that culturally safe space for people, then they’re not going to open up to you. And talking from one blackfella to another, they feel that safety.”