The Australian News Mapping Project recorded 12 outlet record changes in May, largely due to a partial review of the radio sector, while it found no market changes during the same month. This takes the number of news outlets to 1,219 across print, digital, radio and television news outlets.

As part of PIJI’s Australian News Sampling Project, our research team surveyed 11 local government areas in Western Australia’s Great Southern Region, including Albany in May.  This was a resample, with the first sample conducted in May 2023. We found high to very high levels of public interest journalism at all outlets. Community was the biggest focus overall, largely due to the coverage provided by local-scale print news outlets. Government was the largest focus of public interest journalism at the public broadcaster, and the second-largest focus at most other outlets sampled.

Finally, we conducted a comparative analysis of this month’s sample of Great Southern, WA and the first sample undertaken in this region in May 2023, which found highly consistent results in terms of the scale and public interest journalism focus of news articles between the two samples. Our research team observed a significant overall increase in public interest journalism from May 2023 to May 2024.

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