WTF is happening in rural news?

Travis Holland

— 3 min read
WTF is happening in rural news?

In my decade-long tenure as a media academic at "Australia's leading regional university" (🙄), I was regularly asked to comment on shifts and changes in regional broadcasting and news.

It was a difficult position on occasion because we needed to work closely with regional broadcasters to place student interns and graduates while also exercising our role as expert commenters on newsroom closures and cutbacks. Several organisations expressed their displeasure at comments from myself and other academics in my team, sometimes directly and sometimes via our students.

I can't pretend that complaining about cutbacks helps address the economic challenges of regional news, but at some point I forlornly hoped it might at least draw attention to the problems posed for regional communities when no-one covers local councils, courts, developments, roads, drought and disaster, agriculture, business, or health (to name a few issues). And yet, the 'news deserts' continue to expand. It is basically a full time role to chronicle the ever-shrinking number of publications, newsrooms, and jobs in Australian regional media.

The current state of rural news
In 2019, a major report by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) found substantial structural declines in news, including:

  • 26% reduction in local government news
  • 40% fall in local court matters
  • 15% decline in local and regional papers since 2008 (a loss of 106 individual papers)
  • 21 local government areas losing their local paper in that period

These trends accelerated substantially in the COVID period amid major disruption to traditional advertising markets (among the other disruptions, of course), with University of Canberra research noting "local newspapers have been closing at an accelerated pace during the Covid-19 pandemic. This has been pronounced in regional Australia".

Other recent research shows:

What news workers say
I spoke with a journalist friend about the state of the industry from their 'on-the-ground' perspective. Here are few comments:

  • constant staff changes: despite only being in the role a short time, this person feels they are now the most 'senior' person in their newsroom, with the longest tenure and experience. Some other staff are burning out, others are leaving regional news for metro markets.
  • the organisation's branding changed, but they weren't given new equipment with the branding (like umbrellas), meaning "whenever we have to do live crosses in the rain, we can’t use the umbrellas"
  • regional events are closing as well, which means less good news stories to cover.

Shoots of hope
Two decades ago, "hyperlocal" journalism (largely as a form of of blogging) was touted as a panacea to overly concentrated corporate media power. Hyperlocal publications were those dedicated to small beats: single suburbs or towns, or perhaps even single streets. Now, in the face of the larger corporates declining ever more, the notion of hyperlocal news produced by small and independent publishers is once again prominent in the discourse.

A handful of entrepreneurial types - or perhaps those to stubborn to do anything other than newsgathering - have started a range of new small news publications across the country. The Local and Independent News Association (LINA) and the Community Broadcasting Association both support small news operators, very often (though not exclusively) in the kinds of rural and regional communities where commercial entities have all but closed shop. In fact, LINA has developed a free newsroom 'starter kit' resource to try and support aspiring publishers. Just over half of their members are reporting in regional communities.

And then there's the ABC. Despite constant attacks on its independence, and criticisms from across the political spectrum of perceived bias one way or another, the ABC still largely anchors local broadcast media in the regions and its multi-platform disaster coverage (especially during disasters) is second to none. What I think it struggles to do is think beyond the daily schedule of getting programs to air. There remains a large gap between what a regional ABC bureau is designed to do and what is needed in terms of comprehensive local coverage. Essentially, local stories struggle to attract attention on the ABC unless they are of interest to a statewide or national audience, leaving the smaller stakes (but nonetheless important) stuff like daily council decisions, local politicians, businesses, and institutions un-addressed. Nonetheless, the ABC is an anchor media institution in rural and regional communities.

The UTS Centre for Media Transition proposed a range of ideas to further underpin the viability of regional media, including more collaborative and networked journalism infrastructures, 'radical sharing' (particularly non-profit and publicly funded organisations sharing with commercial entities), a greater level of aggregation, and future supports for non-profit media. But can any of these support a news ecosystem unless audiences fundamentally shift to paying for news?

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