The art of storytelling has existed since the beginning of human civilisation. Through storytelling we learn from others’ mistakes, find courage in their challenges and inspiration in their journeys. It was the art of storytelling, in particular the stories of Australian people, that inspired Deborah Fleming to create the celebrated ABC current affairs program Australian Story. Since it first aired in 1996, Australian Story has shared the journeys of hundreds of Australians, picking up seven Walkley Awards and four Logies in the process. After almost 15 years as executive producer of the program, Deborah believes that there are still so many stories to tell, and that it is her great privilege to play her part in telling them.
Growing up as a child in England, Deborah Fleming hadn’t yet discovered her love for journalism. But she had discovered her love for words – books, writing and the art of telling a story. Biographies in particular fascinated Deborah, as they gave her the opportunity to delve into someone’s life, live their story and find out what made them tick. The step into journalism came soon enough, as she began work as a copy girl at her local paper, running pieces of paper around the office. Then came a three-year in-house traineeship at the newspaper, before she made the move to London and soon found a job at BBC Radio.
“BBC London in the late seventies was wonderful,” Deborah recalls. “It was so different from the way things are now. It was a great place to work because you’d run into people like David Attenborough, Liam Neeson and Joanna Lumley in the lifts.”
But soon her love for her job was overshadowed by another love – one who would end up becoming her husband – and the two moved to his native Australia in the early eighties. While their first port of call was Geelong, it only took one visit to Brisbane to capture Deborah’s heart. “I just fell in love with the city,” Deborah laughs in reflection. “I thought it was paradise!”
While she had never worked in television before, Deborah was offered some casual work as a news reporter at ABC Brisbane, and from reporting then moved into producing and current affairs. The following years took her to Sydney where she began working as the executive producer on The 7:30 Report, a job she continued upon returning to Brisbane. It was here that the seed began to germinate for Australian Story.
“My boss at the time, Paul Williams, had been involved in a program called A Big Country, which was a magazine-style human-interest program profiling rural Australia,” Deborah recalls. “He thought there was a gap for a program like that and I was commissioned to start a new program that was kind of like a mix between A Big Country and a domestic version of Foreign Correspondent. But then it mutated for a number of reasons, and became something completely different, which was Australian Story.”
The first episode of Australian Story aired on May 29, 1996. The primary catalyst for the program’s genesis, Deborah implores, was the audience’s demand for something different in the media landscape. “Most of us working on the program had worked on The 7:30 Report and it was during the era of Frontline,” she elaborates. “We knew there was an appetite for something different. We had this arrogant idea that we were going to change the nature of current affairs and we haven’t really, but we have added something to the spectrum. It has had an influence in that there are more shows that emphasise the positive and are more affirmative.”
In its own words, Australian Story aims to: ‘make Australians, in their diversity and individuality, more understandable to other Australians. It seeks to explore how Australians lead their lives through ordinary and extraordinary events.’ The half-hour current affairs program, airing on the ABC every Monday night at 8:00 pm, features no reporter narration, but rather an introduction by revered Australian broadcaster Caroline Jones, or the occasional guest presenter. The rest of the story is exposited through the words of the subjects themselves telling the story. In its 14 years on the air, Australian Story has delved into the lives of many of Australia’s heroes and heroines, battlers, icons and even the occasional villain.
“The one consistent thing through all the stories is that we very rarely feature anybody who doesn’t have some kind of element of redemption,” Deborah clarifies. “We do try to reflect contemporary life in Australia – we’re not here to do a saccharine version of it. It’s just really about the human experience, which can be good and bad. Every individual has a mixture of good and bad impulses in varying degrees. We’re trying to reflect life to some level, but we do look for subjects who have had a good journey and have redemptive elements even in the most grim of experiences.”
This formula’s success, she admits, is largely due to the program’s devoted audience. “One of the fantastic things about the show is that we do have an intelligent, involved audience and, because there’s no reporter narration, people are invited to engage with the stories and think about what they’re seeing and form their own opinions,” she reflects. “You get such a range of responses. It’s so wonderful to observe people’s subjectivity in action and how differently they view the same material. I think that’s us doing our jobs because we’re putting it out there, contextualising it and letting the people in the lounge room be the judge.”
Having seen journalism evolve greatly during her thirty years in the industry, Deborah agrees that keeping in touch with the audience is a key factor to any show’s longevity. “People in 2010 are much more sophisticated and much more discerning about what’s served up to them in the media,” she says. “The arrival of the internet and blogging, vlogging and citizen journalism is introducing a really dynamic period of change to the media, in which people are more educated, sceptical and savvy. There are many more critical consumers of the media out there and the media is being democratised and turned on its head. It really is, and should be, keeping all of us on our toes in terms of staying relevant and knowing that we are being watched very critically, and that if we falter we will be picked up on it. I think the arrival of online and the sheer diversity of choice that people now have will force the media monoliths to be more attentive to what the audience and the reader want. I suspect that it will force change and will become a case of ‘adapt or perish’. Those of us in the mainstream media can’t just sit on our laurels because it is a period of dynamic change and challenge.”
Such adaptation, she affirms, includes a responsibility to take ownership of what is being projected into the world via the mainstream media. “I still think that the media is overwhelmingly negative, and bad news like plane crashes and the horrible things that happen dominate. Mainstream news concentrates a lot on bad news and blood and gore. I think that’s a bit of a misreading of what people want because, while they’re always going to be interested in the bad news, I think there is an appetite for good news. And not the ‘dog rescued from drains’ kind of story, but rather some of the more positive developments in science and technology and things people are doing that actually are good. You can get such a grim view of the world from news bulletins and that’s probably not an entirely healthy thing.”
In terms of defining her own success, Deborah admits that over the years she has learned to allow herself to occasionally revel in her prouder achievements. “I can’t deny that we are very proud that what started as a little program – and is the only prime-time show made in Brisbane, or outside Sydney or Melbourne – has succeeded in all criteria: critical approval, audience approval and good ratings. All the industry awards that are open to us we have won,” she beams. “Success, to me, is doing something that feels worthwhile to you internally and is credited externally as well. If you can get those two things, that’s great. I don’t need to be inspired to do what I do; I just enjoy it. I’m very aware that I’m lucky to be doing a job that I enjoy. It really is a privilege to work in the media and it’s interesting work.”
As for the people who inspire her, Deborah cites many of the ABC’s rising generation of journalists, including Kim Landers, Lisa Millar, Leigh Sales and Chris Uhlmann. But perhaps the woman who inspires her most is one who has shared the Australian Story journey from the beginning. “Caroline Jones inspires me,” Deborah reveals. “She’s been such a pioneer in our industry. There are so many women working in the media now, but when she started, and in fact when I started, women were an absolute minority. Now they dominate. Caroline was the first female reporter on Four Corners, doing investigative stuff. She’s right up there amongst people I’ve met in terms of having real integrity and genuinely being a principled, humble person.”
While she believes that everyone needs to discover their own wisdom in life rather than abiding by the axioms of others, Deborah can offer a few words of advice to aspiring young journalists. “Above all, it’s about perseverance,” she asserts with a smile. “Don’t expect a great job, results or a promotion first up. Get in there on the ground floor and prove yourself. I guess I feel like my own career is really a triumph of perseverance. I’ve always enjoyed what I’ve done and felt that it’s an incredible privilege to be doing a job that is incredibly enjoyable almost everyday and a job that other people would kill for. I think it’s about getting in there, working hard and enjoying what you’re doing, because if you enjoy what you do, you do it well. If you’ve got a modicum of talent and a big chunk of perseverance, it will take you where you want to go, but you’ve got to work at it. Be the person who doesn’t give up!”
Interview By Mikki Brammer.
