For the past three months, I’ve been filing for Crikey from the Northern Territory.
When I moved to Mparntwe (Alice Springs) to report on one of the biggest national stories this year — the referendum for a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous Voice to Parliament — my objective was to report fewer Yes-No and more Voice-adjacent stories.
This place regularly features as a political sound bite but there’s a lot of well-founded cynicism here among locals about politicians and media types who fly in and fly out. I started filing on stories about the environment, science, youth, sport, the justice system, local alternatives and simple quirks around town. The hope is that these help illustrate what First Nations-led learning, programs, education and solutions actually look like — what a Voice means, what it doesn’t, what it should look like, and what it ought not to. It reveals much more than any Yes-No pamphlet or politician can.
Today that coverage takes on a crucial new element as Crikey officially joins forces with Indigenous Community Television (ICTV) — a remote community television station based in Alice Springs. It’s a small and deadly team that reports in language, in community and for First Nations mob in remote communities.
The partnership between Crikey and ICTV emerged from a desire to fill a dearth of contextual coverage in central Australia. The hope, from both parties, was to bridge politics (Crikey) and community (ICTV).
In practical terms, it’ll mean filing stories in partnership with the journalists at ICTV. It means heading out to communities across the territory to speak to First Nations peoples in their first language and, hopefully, propelling local issues into the national news agenda.
Our first story comes from Ross River Resort, just east of Alice Springs, with an exclusive on the release of a landmark First Nations report calling for national reform of the education system. We’re here at Utyerre Apanpe — a Black-only First Nations education conference that Crikey and ICTV were given permission to attend.
As Crikey’s now formal NT correspondent, I’m extremely excited to learn from the team at ICTV.
A word from Damien Williams, reporter at ICTV:
Ever since we started doing vox pops in language in community about the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, media have been asking us at ICTV how to report on Aboriginal issues appropriately. We’re the only First Nations TV news outlet in the country that reports in language.
This is an opportunity for us to show Crikey how to put a culturally sensitive lens on news stories — how to approach, report and write stories from a First Nations point of view. Take something as simple as introducing a person — you want to know who their people are and where they’re from. For example, I’m Western Arrarnta man Damien Williams from Ntaria.
For ICTV, this collaboration allows us to reach another audience and put our news on a different platform. A lot of our mob are watching the news and not really reading it. This is a chance to show them something different.
For me, working with Crikey is an opportunity to learn more about digital news media. It’s a different format and a very different time frame to what I’m used to because we broadcast monthly at ICTV.
