First Nations Media News December 2021

First Nations Media Australia wishes you a happy, healthy, and well-earned break. Our head office will be closed from Friday 17th December 2021 and will reopen on Monday 10th January 2022.

Thank you for all your support this year. We hope your holidays are filled with love, family and happiness for you and your team. We look forward to continuing to work with you in 2022! Before we sign off for the year, here's a big update on just some of the things happening in the First Nations media sector in December...

First Nations Media Australia have extended the nominations for the 2021 First Nations Media Awards until 25 February 2022.

COVID-19 is still a huge focus across the sector with vaccinations, the easing of borders, and restrictions being lifted, plus we are getting close to Christmas, which means office closures. Because this is such a busy time of the year, we want to give everyone that extra opportunity to recognise the incredible people in our sector, and the work being done within media organisations to support the delivery of the amazing content being produced all year round.

If you have any questions or get stuck with the nomination process at any point, contact jenni@firstnationsmedia.org.au or call 08 8952 6465.

Nominations close on 25 February 2022

The First Nations media sector has been constrained by a lack of available data to demonstrate our impact in an ongoing, national way. There is an opportunity to resolve some of these barriers in telling our sector’s stories through numbers emerging in the planning on data development activities under the Closing the Gap Agreement. FNMA has partnered with the Lowitja Institute to do an environmental scan of available data relating to how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are getting news and information, and what recommendations we might make to Government to monitor the impact of the First Nations media sector and the representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in media more broadly. Lowitja Institute is gathering information and speaking with some of the government and industry stakeholders in the data space at the moment, including potential data sources and research currently underway. If you would like to learn more and/or contribute to this process, email Claire Stuchbery.

The ABC has teamed up with First Nations media organisations to co-produce a number of special broadcast pieces in 2021. Some examples include:

Bumma Bippera Media and Carli Willis from ABC Far North QLD shared content and infrastructure to broadcast from the Laura Dance Festival. Carli did 5 radio pre-records and took photographs for Bumma Bippera. Bumma Bippera invited Carli to share their tent and use their storage and made her lots of cuppas.
triple j Marketing and Event specialist are assisting Glenys and her team at Noongar Radio to organise a festival event happening in December.
6DBY and the ABC teamed up to make the Women AFL in the Kimberley Video Project. The 6DBY team worked with the ABC Kimberley team to shoot the story, under the guidance of ABC Sport’s Damien Peck and Maddie Whitford, an Indigenous filmmaker engaged by ABC Content Ideas Lab to lead the project editorially. A shorter version of the story was broadcast on News Breakfast in September, and the longer version of the story was distributed on social media platforms and radio. Watch here.

Is there an issue in your local community that you would like to work with an ABC journalist to investigate? Or a content idea you have that you would be keen to engage an ABC person with particular skills to work on (eg. graphic designer, camera person, podcaster, event planner)? Or do you have an upcoming festival/ event that sharing ABC equipment/ personnel resources would be super useful? Contact Stephanie Stone to set up a conversation with the ABC about what might be possible for 2022.

FNMA represents the First Nations media sector in a broad range of forums, including the NIAA’s digital inclusion planning processes, the ACCAN Advisory Group, the Northern Territory’s Public Interest Reference Group and the Coalition of Peaks. Recently Spots & Space invited FNMA to join the CBAA in presenting to Government media buyers at Universal McCann, highlighting developments in the sector in 2021-22 and opportunities to connect with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander audiences. FNMA has also been contributing to the Codes of Practice Review Committee, working alongside other community media representatives to develop a consultation draft of the revised Codes, incorporating comments from the ACMA and test station representatives. The Draft Codes of Practice will be circulated for sector-wide input in 2022. FNMA will keep members informed of discussion opportunities in the new year and encourages all members to consider the proposed amendments when they’re published.

Infrastructure Audit Project Assistant, Kirstyn Lindsay recently travelled to the Cherbourg community on the Wakka Wakka nation to work with management and staff at Cherbourg Radio 4UM, 94.1FM on their asset and infrastructure register for the 2021 Infrastructure Audit Refresh.

After a catch-up meeting with Manager’s Michael Monk and Arlene Langton, Kirstyn worked with the team to move through the studios and station to document equipment and infrastructure. Some great discussions were had around the stations broadcasting and equipment needs including, training and content development, to bring them into the future.

The Cherbourg Radio mob have plenty of vision and goals for the station and community and it was a wonderful opportunity to learn more about community and Country and experience their great on-air sound. A big thank you to the team at Cherbourg Radio 4UM, 94.1FM.

It's crunch time for the infrastructure audit project as we come to the end of the information gathering stage for the sector-wide infrastructure audit. Wayne and Kirstyn have been working hard over the past five months to gather the information from member stations for the Assets Register. This register has given our member stations a chance to document the equipment that they have, and it has also given the station managers a chance to think about the equipment required to operate the station and to think about the age of that equipment. Some valuable questions in the equipment audit for the assets register include:
·     Is it a few years old now?
·     Does it meet current needs?
·     Could it be upgraded for the changing needs of the operation?
·     Will it work in the next five years?

The process involved requests being sent to each station to complete the equipment audits which were placed into a Smartsheet before being sent back for checking by the stations. After developing 4 templates for the audit, we held two Zoom forums to gauge how members were feeling about the project.

We know that the audits have placed pressure on our members, and our constant humbugging to get the information has added more pressure, but the audits will benefit members in the future. We also hope that stations will adapt the audit sheets to continually update asset registers and keep track of their equipment.

The latest instalment of First Sounds launched last week with the release of VOL.7, featuring 12 deadly new tracks from our First Nations artists raising the bar to deliver you a thought-provoking collection filled with culture, strength, and passion.

Profoundly deep and rich with soul, the album features First Nations artists making music from across the country including Noongar, Torres Strait and Kirrae Wurrong artists, with contributions coming in from Gimuy (Cairns), to Boorloo (Perth) to Alyawarre in the NT.

Award winning musician, and proud Noongar-Wongi rapper, Flewnt is one of the most thrilling up and coming artists in Boorloo (Perth). Excited to have his single, Desert Rose feature on First Sounds Vol.7, he explains:

“The desert rose represents resilience, growth and beauty in the harshest of environments and we believe that to be the same for our people. It was incredible to be able to work alongside Scott Wilson on this track with the legendary, Alan Pigram (Pigram Brothers) and Optamus (Downsyde) to create a piece of art we believe is very important for our people.”

First Sounds is distributed to over 250 community radio stations and broadcasters, creating awesome exposure for our emerging First Nations artists. If you would like a copy, drop Donna Woods and email. And stay tuned for the callout for First Sounds VOL.8 opening in early 2022!

Donna is a Wakka-Wakka woman of the Bujiebara clan of South East Queensland and also a first-generation Australian. She has been working in the music industry for a number of years, most recently with the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Music Office (NATSIMO) as the National Writer Representative. Before that Donna worked with MusicNT where, as well as project management and assisting in the delivery of the annual Bush Bands Bash program, her work included leading remote music workshops across a number of communities in the NT and broader Central Desert region. She has a Bachelor of Music Performance from the University of Tasmania.

Dennis Charles (right) recently joined the FNMA Archiving team as a casual Digitisation Officer. Dennis is an experienced radio and media worker from Yuelamu in the NT.

Our Digitisation Coordinator, Steve Hodder Watt has been training Dennis in analogue to digital conversion techniques for video and audio using the PAW Media collection.

The collection contains a lot of different material, including videos made by Dennis when he worked for PAW. Dennis is also assisting with cataloguing the material and identifying people and places in the videos as he digitises them. We are looking forward to working more with Dennis in the new year.

The inDigiMOB team has had a busy year! We've continued to engage with communities in the NT and started creating connections with some more regional areas of SA and WA. Participants have been interested in a wide variety of digital activities (including podcasting, video recording/editing, sound recording, social media) so this has definitely kept our team on their toes!

We have also recently started an Online Safety project in partnership with the eSafety Commissioner. This project aims to engage with regional and remote First Nations organisations and groups (across NT, SA and WA) to discuss their experiences with online safety and scams so that we can then provide some tailored assistance in these areas, and help groups connect with appropriate resources and services. It's a short-term project but we hope it'll be interesting and beneficial for participants, while at the same time improving the service inDigiMOB provides.

A friendly reminder that CONVERGE Adelaide which was due to be held on Kaurna this year is postponed until 2022. COVID-19 is still proving disruptive to travel and to our member organisations who are working through vaccine campaigns at the moment. FNMA is providing support to members through this period, both to keep their own staff safe, adhere to all organisational requirements and of course, keep important information flowing through to our communities. Further information and a registration date will be announced soon for the online conference in 2022 - watch this space!

Congratulations to Broadcasters, Amethea and Percy, of Radio Umbakumba on 106.3FM in Groote Eylandt, for completing their technical and advanced Zetta training at the TEABBA Studios.

The training ran over three days and prepared the broadcasters for the new and exciting programs and equipment that will be coming to their Umbakumba Studios soon!!

On the second and third day, both broadcasters went live from TEABBA Studios and did an hour each day of a live broadcast in English and language sending shoutouts to friends and family around the TEABBA Footprint.

The Australian Government has launched its JobTrainer packages to support trainees with free or low-fee courses. Fortunately for the media sector, many of our RTOs are able to offer subsidised courses through state government supports. However, JobTrainer could be a viable option for longer term traineeships of up to three-years, such as cadet journalists. Employers can access wage subsidies up to 50% through the program, pairing wage supports with relevant training courses in your state. Applications close on 31st March 2022. Read more.