Black Justice Journalism
This month, Dr Amy McQuire will outline the development of Black Justice Journalism.
Black Justice Journalism describes independent Indigenous insurgent journalism centred on the fight of 'justice', in the ways that First Nations peoples define it. 'Justice' is not predicated on carceral logics, but instead, focuses on resistance and resurgence. It is strictly abolitionist, anti-racist and anti-colonial. In a media landscape which is concentrated and wedded to journalistic cornerstones like objectivity and impartiality, Black Justice Journalism is predicated on Indigenous ethics and Indigenous storytelling traditions.
Dr Amy McQuire is a Darumbal and South Sea Islander journalist with 18 years experience working in Indigenous and independent media. She is currently co-host of the investigative podcast Curtain and is a postdoctoral Indigenous Fellow at the QUT School of Communications. Amy's first non-fiction book Black Witness: The Power of Indigenous Media is due to be published by University of Queensland Press in 2024 and she is currently working on her second book, to be published by Penguin Random House in the near future.
Event details
When: 5:30pm, Wednesday 27 March
Where: QUT Gardens Point – P Block – Room 506 (Level 5)
RSVP: Humanitix
Last month – Food criticism and storytelling in the age of social media algorithms
Kelly Wong from the ABC and Matt Shea from Brisbane Times joined us for a conversation about how we tell stories about food today. Kelly and Matt started by talking about how they got into food writing – Kelly by starting a foodblog back in 2012, Matt through working in restaurants, writing for a range of culture publications.
Matt told us about his time as Brisbane Broadsheet editor-at-large and the way food publications build credibility. It’s more important to produce good journalism to start with by finding stories behind the food. Having a knowledge of venues helps build authority and cut through the vast amount of food-related content being produced every day.
Kelly talked about the diverse range of food voices who have found an audience through social media. There is lot more cultural diversity (covering a broader array of food cultures) outside traditional media.
I was particularly interested by Kelly and Matt’s reflections on food’s visuality. On a trip to South Korea, Kelly visited cafes in which the food was secondary to the visual aesthetic of the venue. Both speakers talked about how an emphasis on visuals played out in Brisbane, with some venues designing menus for instragram and others focusing on just making good food.
Probably the clearest point of the night was about the importance of food as culture and food stories being important. Restaurants done well are cultural objects and part of the city’s cultural fabric. There is a lot of meaningful work to be done talking and writing about them to build context, understanding and appreciation of food.
From elsewhere
ABC Investigations has traced the spread of misinformation about the identity of the Bondi Westfield knifeman.
Google has blocked some news from California in response to a proposed law, the California Journalism Preservation Act, that would see it pay news orgs when it sells advertising next to links to their stories (here’s Google’s statement too).
Do you have what it takes to be the next editor-in-chief of the New York Times? Find out with The New York Times Simulator from independent game developer Molleindustria.
See you in person next week!