PIJI is developing and refining several projects that expand and build upon our current research into public interest journalism.
This suite of projects will help to build a robust dataset informed by both rigorous qualitative and quantitative data, as well as by community and industry knowledge.
Health Check On Local News
In September 2022, PIJI commenced a pilot project to analyse the level of core news, such as court, local government and local community reporting, in three local government areas across Australia.
The examines and contrasts the volume and frequency of locally relevant news content in a cross-section of different communities. It is being developed to creates benchmarks on which to assess media diversity and plurality at an individual community level.
The results from the Health Check will be overlaid with PIJI’s other mapping research.
Broadcast News Producers Data – Open For Feedback
PIJI is seeking sector and community feedback on Broadcast News Producer data collected as part of the Australian Newsroom Mapping Project (ANMP). The feedback period ends Monday 31 October.
This project used publicly available radio and television licence data from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to identify news producers. It then conducted geo-spatial analysis to translate broadcast license areas into local government areas.
It is hoped these maps will provide an assessment of the health of Australia’s news landscape and demonstrate to lawmakers and other policy professionals where there are gaps in news coverage in Australia.
Learn more about the Broadcast News Producer data.
News Coverage Of Local Councils: Survey
In 2019, PIJI worked with the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) to conduct a survey of media managers employed by local governments to try to better understand the state of local journalism across the country.
Three years on, PIJI is repeating the survey to gain an understanding of the changes that have occurred in levels of coverage of local government, interactions that media managers and other council staff have with local news in their communities, and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The survey is open until 5pm 14 October. Please click here to access it.