A Right to Media? Lorie M. Graham - Columbia Law School

2010] A RIGHT TO MEDIA? 493
relevant to the topic at hand was the recommendation that media
organizations “encourage the recruitment and advancement of
Aboriginal and non-Englishspeaking journalists within the industry”
and train non-indigenous journalists to be more culturally sensitive
in their reporting. 254
Australia has taken a number of important steps to meet its
duties under Article 16 of the UNDRIP to promote a right to media.
These steps include promoting indigenous run media 255 and
encouraging national efforts, through its public broadcasting
corporation, to develop appropriate guidelines in the coverage of
indigenous communities by non–indigenous media. 256 Moreover,
infrastructure projects such as NITV have the potential to reach
larger audiences, both indigenous and non-indigenous. 257 Yet, as is
true for many countries with large indigenous populations, Australia
must assume the larger task of promoting tolerance and
understanding between indigenous and non-indigenous communities.
4. Maori Media
The indigenous peoples of New Zealand, the Maori, have for
centuries asserted their rights to self-determination through media.
As certain scholars note:
Maori have a history of using media to preserve cultural
practices and to organise resistance to colonisation . . . .
Maori quickly realized the need for media production,
developing the first Maori language newspaper in 1842 and
production radio broadcast from 1942. These developments
enabled Maori to engage in deliberations regarding
indigenous rights and represent a community-based
tradition of media production . . . . 258
These important linkages were recently affirmed by the
Waitangi Tribunal, an inquiry commission charged with the task of
investigating actions of the Crown dating back to the 1840s. 259
254. Id. paras. 59–62.
255. See supra notes 227–238 and accompanying text.
256. See supra note 239 and accompanying text.
257. See supra note 242 and accompanying text.
258. Hodgetts et al., supra note 2, at 193.
259. See Waitangi Tribunal, Report of the Waitangi Tribunal on the Te Reo
Maori Claim, para. 7.2.3 (1989) (“We are quite clear in our view that Article II of
the [Waitangi] Treaty guarantees protection to the Maori language as we have
said, and we are also quite clear in our view that the predominance of English in
the media has had an adverse effect upon it.”); Laura Beacroft, The Treaty of