I got a taste of my dream job at 21.
And the habitat for this dream job was mind-numbingly generic - unremarkable chairs and tables, inaccessible outlets to charge my laptop, computer programs with unfriendly user interfaces. It was like every other office. And like every other office I’d worked at as a journalist in Australia, there was one incontrovertible truth staring me right in the face – I was the only person of colour in the department.
My experience is by no means a novel occurrence. The Who Gets to Tell Australian Stories? report revealed more than 75 per cent of presenters, commentators and reporters in Australia have an Anglo-Celtic background. And 77 per cent of respondents with culturally diverse backgrounds believed their backgrounds are a barrier to career progression. I’ve felt the latter. At every internship, job, even at community radio stations where diversity is a core tenet, it’s present – like an insidious hand on my shoulder.