The National Ethnic and Multicultural Broadcasters Council (NEMBC) is seeking support and funding from Government and non-Government sources to establish a Multilingual News Service (MNS) for ethnic community radio.
 
NEMBC Executive Officer Russell Anderson says, “The NEMBC is concerned that non-English speaking people during this coronavirus pandemic are not receiving the necessary news and health information that is important to containing this pandemic.”
 
“The MNS is a daily news bulletin produced as a podcast in 16 different languages to be distributed to 311 programs across Australia. The news and information will be sourced from highly credible news services and compiled by an experienced news editor, with language production at community radio stations. The bulletins will be used in a Social Media campaign to combat fake news.”
 
“This service will be a “living and breathing” one, with active local reporting as opposed to static information so that the communities are engaged in relevant, up-to-date and believable information”.
 

 The service has the potential to reach 1.7 million non-English speaking people weekly.
 
Mr Anderson, says, “This is a very important initiative. The service would provide consistent and reliable messages and news for this audience – a place to go to in their language reaching an audience that is not serviced by other platforms.” 
 

Subscribe to the radioinfo daily flash briefing podcast on these platforms: Acast, Apple iTunes Podcasts, Podtail, Spotify, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, or wherever you get your podcasts.