“I don’t think I can get paid doing radio in this country as a profession while also maintaining my sanity. I didn’t have the capacity.” – @areejnur at @3CR’s Classroom to Newsroom: Racial Gatekeeping in Australian Media #C2N

“There are so few Australian people of colour in the media landscape, particularly Muslim people. When the ABC made a decision that due to political pressure, it was going to sever its relationship with @yassmin_a, it sent the signal that we can’t express who we are.” – @oz_f

“The advent of social media and organisations encouraging journalists to be on social have made individual journalists much more public-facing. But if you write about certain topics, you will receive threats.” – @oz_f #C2N

“The organisation that benefits from your work and your labour has a responsibility to protect you, but they don’t want to acknowledge that. They have to defend journalists of colour as vociferously as their high-profile white journalists.” – @oz_f #C2N

“If it wasn’t for NITV, I wouldn’t have been able to build my profile and get that experience that I needed to be a broadcaster on TV and radio.” – @MadelineHayman #C2N

“I don’t have to worry about going into work at Domain and someone writing a story that demonises African gangs. My white colleagues have written stories about African Australians in the housing market and I’ve been impressed at how they’ve written them.” – @thejimmalo #C2N

“When it comes to diversifying the media, one of the things that is lost in the discourse is that representation is not the ultimate goal. It’s the first step.” – @areejnur #C2N

“An institution that is predominantly white can only be white supremacist. Whiteness is considered neutral in the context of media organisations.” – @areejnur #C2N

“We need to have people in positions of power who are people of colour. We need to feel safe. It was great at NITV to have Black managers and we talked about having an Elder in residence who we could have a yarn with.” – @MadelineHayman #C2N

“Having the hiring managers be people of colour is important because there may be unconscious bias that people aren’t aware of.” – @thejimmalo #C2N

“If Australian media want people of colour to apply for roles, they should stop doing racist things. I have made a conscious choice not to work for News Corp. I couldn’t live with myself if I was cleaning their toilets.” – @thejimmalo #C2N

“When you’re one of less than five Muslim journalists at the ABC, you see people simultaneously grapple with wanting you to write an opinion piece and thinking you can’t do hard-nosed reporting because you have a vested interest.” – @oz_f on reporting on Christchurch #C2N

“This is a white supremacist attack and you’re white. You have a vested interest. Whiteness is not neutral.” – @oz_f on sending white journalists to cover the Christchurch shooting #C2N

“Aunty Tanya Day’s inquest had such community support around the family, but also me. I made sure we were there every single day of the inquest. No other media outlet did that. As a Black woman, it enabled me to tell a better story.” – @MadelineHayman #C2N

“I did go and see a psychologist after because I wasn’t feeling great and I had such a bad experience. She asked me to go down to the Aboriginal part of the river and talk to my people. Mainstream ways of dealing with stuff aren’t useful to Black people.” – @MadelineHayman #C2N

“The lack of diversity isn’t a reflection of the population, it’s a reflection of power and who holds power. It’s obvious who holds power in Australia; just look at our parliament.” – @thejimmalo #C2N

“Community radio is a legitimate sector in and of itself. It’s dynamic, vibrant, accessible to some extent. But the main thing is that it’s unpaid work. In one way, it becomes a stepping stone, but then it also becomes a space for people with the capacity.” – @areejnur #C2N

“The beauty of community radio is that you’re there for a reason beyond social capital. If you’re persistent with community radio, you learn so much. Mainstream media can learn from the active intentional work community radio does to seek out community members.” – @areejnur #C2N

“Until people are willing to put in the extra work to support people who aren’t native English speakers, the media is not a safe space. Part of the issue is we hold up whiteness as a gold standard.” – @thejimmalo #C2N

“The media is one workplace environment where coming from a non-Anglo background affects you. People aren’t subconsciously racist, they’re racist. They might not be willing to accept it, but it’s not subconscious.” – @oz_f #C2N

“At the ABC, you’ll hear a Scottish accent, an American accent, a Canadian accent but you’ll never hear an Indian accent or an East Asian accent, even though you’re far more likely to encounter these accents.” – @oz_f #C2N

“The gatekeepers in these institutions get to make decisions on behalf of the community. They make decisions that the listeners won’t understand what certain people are saying and as a result, listeners aren’t given the chance to listen to a variety of accents.” – @areejnur #C2N

“Unions, like any institutions in Australia, have their blind spots when it comes to racism.” – @oz_f #C2N

“Surviving in a white-dominated industry is similar to surviving in a white society. You need to pick your battles and choose when you think you can make a difference and effect change.” – @thejimmalo #C2N

“Picking every single battle is going to wear you out. You need to know you’re gonna make a difference and that you’ll be well-received when you’re trying to make a change.” – @thejimmalo #C2N

“The fact that there are shrinking jobs within the media industry should not stop someone who wants to be part of it. There are ways to get in. They’re difficult and not everyone can get in, but there are ways. It’s not impossible.” – @areejnur #C2N

“You have to decide if it’s something you want to do and if it’s the best place for you to perform.” – @areejnur #C2N

“I harassed the editor at my local paper into giving me a job. I know it sucks, but it’s the way in the media.” – @MadelineHayman #C2N

“One of the things we need to keep in mind as people of colour is there needs to be a degree of solidarity in how we act and react to white power structures. Selling yourself short to get ahead degrades conditions for other people of colour.” – @thejimmalo #C2N

“The Black Lives Matter movement has opened the media to learning more and amplifying the voices of their colleagues and creating safe spaces. I do think talking about these things makes a difference.” – @MadelineHayman #C2N

“Every single newsroom in this country needs anti-racism training, by the right people. We have really poor racial literacy in this country. There’s a colonial, genocidal history and present that isn’t taught.” – @areejnur #C2N

“For me, journalism is activism. You engage a large audience and write to the way people think and get them to think in a different way.” – @MadelineHayman #C2N

“If you want to network with other people of colour in the media, Twitter is the best way to do it.” – @thejimmalo #C2N

“I always encourage people of colour to DM me, especially if they’re Black journalists. If you have any kind of profile, you should help other people of colour come up with you.” – @MadelineHayman #C2N

“It’s really hard to feel like what you care about matters in this country when you’re not a white person. The hard lockdown of the towers in Melbourne was the most important thing to me. There was nothing more important than what was happening to my community.” – @areejnur #C2N

“Sometimes it’s better to go unnoticed than have your stories be butchered. But then these big and important experiences end up not being covered. Mainstream media don’t want to cover refugees anymore because nothing has changed. But that’s the story.” – @areejnur #C2N

“Don’t be afraid to speak up when you feel like you’re being used. I’ve made the decision that it’s better to be true to myself than be a model minority.” – @thejimmalo #C2N

“Black people aren’t your free information service. There is a thing called google. You shouldn’t be demanding my knowledge, you should be doing your own research.” – @MadelineHayman #C2N

“One thing you develop quite quickly when you’re not white in this country is you know when you’re being used. There are some people I would bend over backwards for, like Black journalists. But if it’s others who seek access to my people, that’s when it ends.” – @areejnur #C2N

“ @TMelanesian is an incredible badass journalist. She’s the reason why I engaged with RRR in the first place. She’s someone I can call whenever I want. She’s an amazing person who’ll tell you how it is. That changed the game for me.” – @areejnur #C2N