Ever since Captain James Cook evaded British instructions to take possession of the continent now known as Australia “with the consent of the natives”, the interests of settlers have dominated media reporting on Aboriginal people.

This year, there’s been a global awakening. The events of 2020 including the Black Lives Matter movement and COVID-19 have challenged traditional narratives, creating new opportunities for how we tell stories, who tells them and what stories are told.

Black Stories Matter is a five-part podcast series that brings together media researchers, historians, former policy makers and Aboriginal journalists whose work is disrupting the patterns of the past.

Our guests have had front row seats to what’s gone wrong in Australian media reporting and share with us how Aboriginal perspectives have been silenced, and what the media can do to make things right.

It’s time to start a new narrative about Aboriginal people, with Aboriginal people because Black Stories Matter.

The Black Stories Matter podcast is inspired by the book ‘Does the Media Fail Aboriginal Political Aspirations: 45 years of news media reporting of key political moments’ by Amy Thomas, Heidi Norman and Andrew Jakubowicz from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UTS.

The Black Stories Matter podcast was made with the support of Aboriginal Affairs New South Wales as part of a strategy to improve the dynamics between Aboriginal people and governments.