Kicking 2022 off with a bang!

Welcome to 2022. At PIJI, we’ve been working hard over the break and we’ve kicked off the year with a flurry of activity.

Our first event of the year will be at the Walkley Regional Journalism Summit, which is being held on Thursday, February 10, entirely online and free of charge. PIJI is convening a morning panel on the topic, “How can we sustain regional journalism?”, led by PIJI CEO Anna Draffin. Panellists are Sue Cross of the Institute for Nonprofit News (USA), Natalie Egleton of the Foundation for Rural & Regional Renewal (Australia) and Jonathan Heawood of the Public Interest News Foundation (UK). Join us and all the other expert panels by registering here (all online sessions are free).

You can now read the Australian Newsroom Mapping Project’s December report, which documents the latest changes in news production. These include the closure of The Great Southern Weekender in Albany, Western Australia, after 28 years of production, as well as the reopening of the Longreach Leader in Queensland as Leader Today after initially closing in October 2021. The January report added four News Corp digital hyperlocal titles; Launceston, Burnie, Warrnambool and Mount Gambier.

PIJI last week made a submission to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts inquiry into Australia’s regional newspapers. We are hoping the submission will be published soon so we can share it with you, but in the meantime, make sure you’re signed up to be the first to read about our groundbreaking new data release later this week. It’s the first of its kind released publicly in Australia.

And finally, just a reminder that if you missed it, you can check out the PIJI annual report on our website. The report maps our achievements for 2020/21 and that subsequent to year end, PIJI secured additional philanthropic support to underpin its operations. We also confirmed a new collaboration with the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism to replace our previous relationship with newDemocracy Foundation (nDF). Our thanks to the nDF board and team for their support over the past two years as PIJI has continued to evolve and grow.

Strap in, it’s going to be an exciting and fast-moving year for the news production sector. We look forward to keeping you updated and sharing our part of the journey.

Recent Media Coverage

Australia

• Regional news needs subscribers to thrive, parliamentary inquiry hears. The Canberra Times, January 28
• Saving journalism: views on how to pay for reliable information. The Conversation, February 3
• The crisis in regional journalism, why it’s a big health concern, and some suggested solutions. Croakey Health Media, February 2

International

• USA
  Media groups divided over bill targeting Google, Facebook digital ad market power. The Hill, February 2.
• United Kingdom
  Ideas for innovating public interest news: The Australian Newsroom Mapping Project. Journalism.co.uk, December 22
• New Zealand
  Media industry announces Te Rito journalism cadets. StopPress, January 13.

News

• A monthly selection of new research from academic and industry groups, relevant to the future of public interest journalism. Before reception: trust in the news as infrastructure , Rachel E Moran, Efrat Nechushtai, Journalism
• Change in news access, change in expectations? How young social media users in Switzerland evaluate the functions and quality of news , Lisa Schwaiger, Daniel Vogler, Mark Eisenegger, The International Journal of Press/Politics
• How journalists and advertising sales managers in news organizations perceive and cope with native advertising
  Johannes Beckert, Journalism
• Do local newspapers mitigate the effects of polarized national rhetoric on COVID-19?
  Catie Snow Bailard, The International Journal of Press/Politics
• Perceptions of partisanship in local television news , William O’Brochta, Electronic News