Local news is dwindling globally. Here’s how other countries are trying to fix it
- Written by Kristy Hess, Professor (Communication), Deakin University
Australians and people the world over rely on local journalism to keep them informed, but the sector is in a lot of trouble. More than 200 local newspapers in regional Australia significantly cut their services or closed during the COVID pandemic.
Many other newspaper businesses have centralised operations or made cuts to save money. Publications are increasingly filled with syndicated and homogenised content, meaning news is not always relevant to their audiences.
As it’s a complex problem, solutions have been challenging for media companies and governments alike. Our ongoing research project is looking for collaborative solutions, both here and overseas.
One potential answer lies in partnerships between local media outlets and public broadcasters.
As part of this work, we’ve released a report compiling evidence from across the globe to see how these partnerships can and should be done. We found compelling case studies that show how the ABC could work with local media outlets to ensure more Australians get the news they need and deserve.
A sector in crisis
The crisis facing local journalism is a national and international problem.
This has led to terms such a “zombie” and “ghost” newspapers, where news brands are local in name only. There are also “pink slime” outlets: ideologically driven publications of dubious quality masquerading as local news.
Read more: Pink slime and 'truthpapers': why more local news publications is not necessarily better
This has prompted a lot of discussion about the challenges facing public interest journalism. In 2022, a parliamentary inquiry into rural and regional newspapers in Australia outlined 12 recommendations to address some of these issues.
One recommendation included support for Australia’s public broadcaster, the ABC, to facilitate partnerships with small regional publishers. This could be modelled on a similar scheme in the United Kingdom: the BBC’s Local News Partnerships program.
The most well-known aspect of the BBC’s scheme is the Local Democracy Reporting Service. This involves the public broadcaster funding journalist positions in host local news organisations (mostly newspapers) to fill a gap in local reporting.
There has also been substantial federal government spending in Australia. More than A$75 million since 2017 has been allocated to trying to address the issue. This was first in the form of digital innovation grants, then support for cadet journalists and funds (among others) to bolster new associations working to support digital startups.
In late 2024, the federal government committed another $100 million to support news in Australia through its News Media Assistance Program initiative.
What are other countries doing?
It’s against this backdrop that our broader research considers how the ABC might be able to collaborate with existing providers to target “news deserts”. These are largely in regional, rural and remote areas vulnerable to losing access to quality local public interest journalism.
Our new report draws on survey data, document analysis and interviews with public service media representatives. The evidence comes from Australia, New Zealand and many other countries, including the UK, Canada, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Slovenia, Switzerland and the United States.
Public media in these countries are trying to make better quality news by collaborating, in various ways, with small local news outlets.
But they also do these collaborations in the interests of their own legitimacy as public service media comes under increasing right-wing populist attack. In the US, for example, President Donald Trump has followed through on threats to slash public media funding.
Partnership programs with direct government support and dedicated funding tend to be more likely to have a broader impact on the news ecosystem and be more sustainable than those developed at a grassroots level.
Local news partnerships involving NRK in Norway, the BBC in the UK, and RNZ in New Zealand are all good examples of programs with big impact.
Sometimes this looks like content and resource sharing or helping out with investigative, data and accountability reporting. Public service media organisations also provide training and collaborate during emergencies or natural disasters, among other things.
An example of how effective these collaborations can be is in Norway. The country’s public broadcaster, NRK, joined forces with local newspapers to bring powerful personal perspectives to the coverage of Norway’s suicide epidemic.
It became one of the country’s first major collaborations between the public broadcaster and local newspapers, leading to 339 original stories published across 79 newspapers. The partnership sparked a nationwide conversation, enabled ethical coverage and strengthened relationships across the media sector.
What can Australia do?
Every country tailored their partnerships to suit their specific setting. There’s scope for Australia to follow suit.
Australian media organisations can be very competitive against one another, despite their shared challenges. But as these international examples show, cooperation and partnerships can benefit all involved.
We are proposing the establishment of an independent national alliance that brings together all local news producers under the auspices of the ABC. We’re researching a suite of initiatives and pilots to determine what this collaboration could look like in practice.
Collaboration alone is not the panacea to the news crisis. The issues facing the sector run deep, including impact of big tech companies, the collapse of advertising revenue for legacy media and news avoidance.
But it’s clear that to solve Australia’s news desert problem, working together is essential.
The authors would like to acknowledge researchers Angela Blakston, Susan Forde, Alison McAdam, Ragnhild Olsen, Matthew Ricketson and Hugh Martin for their contributions to the research this article discusses.
Authors: Kristy Hess, Professor (Communication), Deakin University
