First Nations Media News: Converge coming together | Policy updates

PAW Media conducted a Cyber Teasing workshop, in which students have presented a range of situations and asked whether they thought it was Cyber Teasing or not. After which they made films about the situation, as well as ways outcomes they could develop that would minimise impacts of negative behavior. The principal of Laramba School reached out to PAW Media to conduct the program as Laramba recently received Wifi connection at the shop and was worried about cases of Cyber Bullying developing in the school. Paw Media also ran multiple other Filmmaking workshops with students producing short video works.

First Nations Media Australia will be appearing at a public hearing today as part of the Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs' Inquiry into Pathways and Participation Opportunities for Indigenous Australians in Employment and Business. Representatives from the FNMA Board and the Interim CEO will speak to the FNMA submission to this inquiry, highlighting the opportunities for employment growth in the First Nations media and communications sector.

This week FNMA has made submissions on the following topics:

Inquiry into Mental Health and Suicide prevention - highlighting pressures on the First Nations media industry during 2020 and the role the sector undertakes in community engagement and mental health literacy within the community, sharing information about relevant services and breaking down stigma.
Response to the ACMA's consultation paper on proposed changes to the TCBL license application guidelines. The changes are part of the ACMA's ongoing work to simplify license processes and make guidelines more readable for applicants. FNMA has supported the proposed changes to the guidelines, noting our ongoing request for legislative changes to establish an Indigenous license category and extend temporary licenses for RIBS sites.

Both of these submissions are available to view on our website here.

Simon Correnti has been working with FNMA for the past 6 weeks as a Jawun secondee. We have borrowed Simon's expertise from Bluescope where he usually works as a Product Owner on metal coated products. Simon is a specialist in process mapping and has been working closely with our Member Services Officer, Stephanie Stone to refine our member service processes so that we can expand our value offering for members moving forward. Simon leaves us today with some really useful templates and fresh ideas to help serve our members better. We want to thank him for being a great contributor to our team during his secondment with FNMA.

Some of our members are grappling with how to approach conversations about the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in reporting and broadcast content. Addressing misinformation and localised concerns will vary from region to region. Some useful background resources to help update mob on the vaccine rollout here.
These resources have been developed for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander vaccine providers, however they provide factual information on roll-out stages, progress to date and comments from spokespeople that can be used in broadcast content. Read more.