ABC has started hiring cultural advisers to ensure the taxpayer-funded broadcasters deal with sensitive stories appropriately

The taxpayer-funded broadcaster has started employing cultural advisers to deal with queries from content makers about diversity in content.

The ABC has begun recruiting ­cultural advisers as part of its latest move to help staff, including journalists, deal appropriately with “culturally sensitive stories”.

The new measure to hire cultural guidance advisers was first revealed in the ABC’s Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Plan in July, shortly after the axing of more than 120 jobs at the public broadcaster, including 40 roles in the news division.

Earlier this month, the ABC’s head of Indigenous news Suzanne Dredge announced that journalist Miriam Corowa, a Minyangbal and Bundjalung woman, had been appointed as the senior cultural adviser in the news division.

Ms Dredge said the move to ­introduce cultural advisers was “one of the ways to ensure we ­better reflect social and cultural ­diversity in our workplace and make our content more accessible to more Australians”.

“The remit of the role is to ­provide informed advice and support across the division around awareness of Indigenous and ­diverse cultural issues, protocols and opportunities and support the inclusion of Indigenous and diverse perspectives and cultural issues,” she said.

Ms Corowa, who is based in Sydney, will be the first point of contact for any queries ABC staff have about diversity in content and making sure culturally ­sensitive stories are managed ­appropriately.

Her role will also establish cross-divisional communication on Indigenous and diversity matters and work with other divisions, including the Bonner Committee and staff-led diversity groups.

Just last week the ABC also advertised for a senior cultural adviser of content. The role is only open to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island applicants.

ABC senior cultural adviser Miriam Corowa.

The job has a remuneration of between $117,000 to $129,000 per year, plus 15.4 per cent super­annuation and sets out to provide “advice, support and guidance on Indigenous issues, protocols and opportunities”.

The ABC said in its Belonging Plan that it would hire three ­cultural advisers by June this year, as the taxpayer-funded organisation continues to battle cultural problems internally among its Indigenous staff.

At senate estimates last week, the ABC’s managing director David Anderson was questioned by Greens senator Mehreen ­Faruqi about the culture at the ABC and noted the challenges the broadcaster faced, including when producing content.

“What I’ve done is embrace a culture where the culture we have, the content we have and the people we have reflect the communities we serve,” he said.

“I think the ABC has made great inroads into that,” Mr Anderson said.

“I do accept that culturally we are not without our problems and we are not without the need to ­improve,” he said.

The new cultural adviser job states that staff must be given clear guidance on stories that are culturally sensitive, and even engage communities if necessary.

The adviser, who can be based in Melbourne or Sydney, will work with both Corowa and Dredge.

The ABC has been plagued by ongoing criticism of its treatment of staff, including Indigenous ­employees such as former Q+A host Stan Grant, a Wiradjuri, ­Gurrawin and Dharawal man, and complaints from another ­Indigenous staff member, Dan Bourchier who is a Sydney-based newsreader on the ABC’s 24-hour news channel.

The ABC ombudsman Fiona Cameron last week cleared the broadcaster and Indigenous ­Affairs editor Bridget Brennan of breaching impartiality standards in an Australia Day news report, in which she declared that the country “always was and always will be Aboriginal land”.

Ms Cameron determined that the comments were in response to ABC News Breakfast host Michael Rowland’s “reflection that Australia Day has vastly different meanings to different people.”