A national report into local news sustainability is challenging the perception of print newspapers and is calling on governments to revise their advertising rules to help local news providers and better target regional and rural communities.
These are two recommendations of 22 in the new report, Media Innovation and the Civic Future of Australia’s Country Press, the culmination of a three-year Australian Research Council project, led by Deakin University, in partnership with Country Press Australia, the nation’s peak local news lobby, and RMIT University.
Project lead Professor Kristy Hess, of Deakin’s School of Communications and Creative Arts, said the project’s aim was to examine the local media landscape to identify challenges and opportunities for sustainability and innovation.
“We wanted to examine the challenges facing small-town news providers given the commentary in recent years about the crisis they are facing in Australia and across the world,” she said.
This was the first comprehensive report of its kind in Australia and its recommendations provide a blueprint to preserve and grow rural and regional news for future generations.
The study began at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in the temporary or permanent closure of dozens of local mastheads across Australia and a shift among some to digital-only platforms.
It found people in many regional and rural towns and cities were passionate about their local mastheads but rejected an overreliance on syndicated content, in print and digital, sourced from neighbouring areas or other parts of the country. The research team conducted two main national surveys – one with local news audiences and one with those who do not engage with local news; 35 interviews with Australian news editors and proprietors; and seven interpretive focus groups with editors, journalists and advertising managers within the Country Press Australia network.
One key finding was the strain on local mastheads hit with lost revenue from local, state and federal government advertising, which in recent years had prioritised social media and metropolitan news outlets with a larger digital reach.
“Our research found there is this obsession with digital reach. That’s all well and good, but a local masthead, whether in print or online, isn’t designed to reach 1 million people. If we use the digital reach metric as an indicator as to which news outlets should get government advertising, these independent regional and rural outlets are going to lose out every time,” Professor Hess said.
The report supports a recent Parliamentary Inquiry recommendation that stipulates 20 per cent of all Federal Government advertising expenditure be directed to regional and rural news organisations.
CPA president Andrew Manuel said people living in country areas remain passionate and engaged with their local mastheads, and the report highlights the need to better support local news, and equally, the pivotal role and responsibility of country papers to communities scattered across the continent.
“Our members continue to provide the local and civic news that readers crave more than ever, often as the only local media outlet serving a particular region,” he said.
“Coming out of the pandemic, many publishers have reported a strong revival in their readership, underpinned by a focus on hyper-local and unique news that has been a common denominator of country papers since their inception.”
He urged the government to recognise the importance of CPA members in the local community and for government to adapt the way they seek to engage readerships. “Acting on the recommendation for 20 per cent of the federal government’s advertising expenditure to be allocated to regional and rural news organisations,” he added.