Stan Grant has lashed out at the Australian media and its treatment of Indigenous journalists during the Voice to Parliament referendum.
The former ABC presenter officially left the public broadcaster in August, months after going on leave following a barrage of racist abuse.
He has since taken up a new career as a professor of journalism at Monash University in Melbourne.
Speaking at CONVERGE, First Nations Media Australia’s annual conference in Canberra, Grant identified what he saw as negative attributes of his former profession.
“We must not hide behind the lies of objectivity and neutrality,” he told those present on Tuesday.
Former ABC presenter Stan Grant (above) accused the Australian media of hiding ‘behind the lies of objectivity and neutrality’ during the Voice to Parliament referendum
Grant criticized the treatment of Indigenous journalists during the Voice to Parliament referendum, who he claimed were criticized for telling the truth.
“We were accused of sowing division and our claims were downplayed,” he said.
Grant said this treatment was at odds with the way the claim that colonization had benefited Indigenous Australians was received.
He said the media had taken the truth and ‘yindyamarra’ and ‘turned it into hatred’.
Yindyamarra is a word from the language of the Wiradjuri people of central New South Wales and broadly means ‘respect’.
‘It remains a hostile environment [for those who want to tell the truth] … it has introduced poison into the bloodstream of society,” he said.
Grant stepped down as host of Q+A in May after being subjected to “relentless racist nastiness” following his appearance on a panel discussing colonialism ahead of King Charles’ coronation.
Grant (pictured with wife Tracey Holmes) left the ABC in August after receiving racist backlash for his comments about colonization ahead of King Charles’ coronation in May
The motivation behind his departure was due to relentless pressure from the media due to his references to the negative effects of colonization, and a lack of support from ABC management.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney also addressed the Canberra conference, which runs until Thursday.
Like Grant, she criticized the media after the overwhelming rejection of the referendum.
“I think the media needs to look at itself and see how this issue has been handled,” she said.
“We are almost in a post-truth era and that is so crucial for the media.”
She also said there was a need for more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander journalists in the press gallery in Canberra.
‘This is about lives, about change for our people, not just something interesting every day for people [to watch].’
Grant (above) has since been appointed as the inaugural director of the Constructive Institute for the Asia Pacific at Monash University
Monash University has since announced that Grant has been appointed as the inaugural director of the Constructive Institute for the Asia Pacific region in its Faculty of Arts.
In this role, Grant will lead projects and debates that “embrace global solutions, nuance and dialogue with newsroom cultures.”
He will also fulfill a dual role as professor of journalism.