A new report has “revealed” the seemingly-obvious as Christmas came early for an Australian media mapping initiative and the country’s biggest independent news agency.

Communications minister Michelle Rowland announced a further $800,000 in funding for the Public Interest Journalism Initiative – adding to $900,000 announced in June – during a local news roundtable in Sydney yesterday.

The government will also spend $10.5 million over four years to deliver a ‘news measurement framework’, the idea for which had been floated by the Australian Media & Communications Authority in December 2020.

This would help “monitor levels of diversity and localism” across Australia’s print, radio, TV and online news media landscape, and help guide the government’s News Media Assistance Program (News MAP) and media reform and diversity rules.

Rowland announced the opening of a consultation into News MAP.

A first report under the new ACMA Media Diversity Measurement Framework is to be published by the end of next year, with further reports then following every two years.

At the Sydney event, Rowland also announced a further $6 million in federal government funding for national newswire Australian Associated Press.

Results of a report commissioned by PIJI from Monash Business School were also released at the roundtable, which focussed on local news markets. Entitled Socio-economic determinants of Public-Interest Journalism in Australia, it outlines what the group says are “two key trends vital to understanding local news in Australia”.

These are that local news outlets are more viable in larger markets, and that having a large mining or manufacturing company in town helps.

PIJI chief executive Anna Draffin said the further funding meant work on mapping the sector and reporting on its health could continue uninterrupted.

“We are grateful to Minister Rowland and the federal government for recognising the importance of both our work and also the health of the public interest news sector, which is crucial to the function of Australian democracy,” she said.

The Monash research complemented PIJI’s own understanding, developed since 2019 when PIJI began monitoring the “significant and steady decline” in news production and availability.

A second piece of new research – produced by the Centre for Media Transition – looks at attitudes to generative AI in news production and steps being taken by newsrooms to deploy it.

Researchers found newsrooms “cautiously experimenting” with AI, acknowledging strong upsides while attuned to “significant downsides” if accuracy, authenticity and bias were not adequately dealt with.

Peter Coleman

Pictured: Mount Isa in Queensland, where mining company Glencore’s decision to pull out by 2025 will impact already depleted news media. The local Mt Isa Star – once family owned – shut its print edition in 2020.