The 2025 MDA Symposium is Media Diversity Australia’s flagship event, returning for its second year as a powerful gathering of journalists, editors, creators, academics, students and media leaders. Held in partnership with Western Sydney, the one-day symposium will unpack urgent challenges in Australia’s media sector with a focus on equity, truth-telling, and the transformational role ...
Media Diversity Australia
2025 MDA Symposium
GOAL
$3,000
Australia > National / Multi-state > Metro and Regional
Field of Interest
- Education/training and employment
- Social inclusion and justice
Target Population
- Asylum seekers, refugees, migrants and people from CALD backgrounds
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
Media Diversity Australia
At Media Diversity Australia, our mission is to transform the Australian media landscape to represent the diversity of our nation authentically.
As a national nonprofit, we are committed to creating an industry that looks and sounds more like Australia. We drive impactful change through evidence-based research, customised programs, and strategic partnerships.
Our core values of collaboration, honesty, inclusion, action, and respect guide us as we work alongside individuals and organisations dedicated to positive transformation.
By setting the agenda, creating pathways, and partnering for change, we empower media professionals and advocate for a more inclusive and representative media industry.
Together, let’s build a media landscape that celebrates diversity and amplifies the voices of all Australians.
Our organisation was established by passionate journalists, Isabel Lo and Antoinette Lattouf in 2017. Drawing on their extensive experience and expertise, they envisioned a media landscape that truly represents and includes culturally diverse voices. Their dedication and vision continue to guide our work towards achieving an industry that celebrates diversity.
Project Summary
The 2025 MDA Symposium is Media Diversity Australia’s flagship event, returning for its second year as a powerful gathering of journalists, editors, creators, academics, students and media leaders. Held in partnership with Western Sydney, the one-day symposium will unpack urgent challenges in Australia’s media sector with a focus on equity, truth-telling, and the transformational role of media in public life.
Under the theme Power, Platform, Possibility, this year’s program will feature keynotes, expert panels and practical workshops. Discussions will explore systemic media exclusion, how newsroom culture affects retention, and the deep misunderstanding of diversity as a threat to objectivity. Highlights include the launch of the Race Reporting Handbook, developed with the Australian Human Rights Commission, and the release of new national survey data by MDA.
The event aims to support racially and culturally marginalised journalists by giving them tools to advocate for themselves and push for systemic change. It will also educate decision-makers in media on how framing diversity as a conflict with impartiality undermines credibility, public trust, and social cohesion.
Project Outcomes
The 2025 MDA Symposium is designed to be more than a day of discussion — it’s a catalyst for real, lasting change in the Australian media landscape. Media Diversity Australia (MDA) envisions the event as a springboard for transforming newsroom cultures, policies, and practices around representation, equity, and inclusion.
One of the primary outcomes is to shift the industry’s narrative around diversity — dismantling the myth that racial and cultural diversity is incompatible with journalistic objectivity. Through panels like Redefining Objectivity, MDA aims to foster more inclusive understandings of fairness, truth, and responsibility in news reporting.
MDA will equip journalists and editors with accessible, practical resources that support ethical reporting on race and race-related issues. This, alongside the release of national survey data, provides attendees with tangible tools to take back to their newsrooms.
The symposium also aims to spotlight the disproportionate under-representation of non-European and First Nations people in Australian media and to pressure leadership to address this imbalance with urgency. This includes advocating for structural support systems, inclusive hiring practices, and pathways for retention.
Finally, MDA hopes the symposium will empower emerging journalists — particularly from marginalised backgrounds — through employment-ready workshops and direct engagement with media leaders. In doing so, the event seeks to build a pipeline of diverse talent, foster cultural safety, and ultimately, ensure that Australian media better reflects — and serves — all Australians.
Budget Breakdown
TOTAL BUDGET: $33,000
FUNDING
| Funding source | Amount |
|---|---|
| Western Sydney University | $8,000 |
| ACF | $5,000 |
| External funding | $17,000 |
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