Another uneven year for public interest journalism
The latest edition of the Australian News Data Report is a revealing portrait of an industry still reeling from the turmoil of the COVID emergency years and ongoing digital disruption.
The December 2023 report, which also includes the latest quarterly data, logged 171 sector expansions and 327 contractions since 1 January 2019. This equates to a net result of -156 at year’s end, a deeper decline than the -144 recorded at the same time in 2022.
Read more about the state of Australia’s public interest journalism in the December 2023 report.
Upcoming PIJI-hosted News MAP discussion sessions
The Public Interest Journalism Initiative is holding stakeholder discussions over the coming weeks on the Federal Government’s News Media Assistance Program (News MAP) consultation. These will help inform our submission to the consultation.
Our first discussion session is full, however we have scheduled two further online industry discussions on Monday 4 March 12-2pm and Friday 8 March 12-2pm.
Please email info@piji.com.au if you are interested in attending.
Recipients of Meta Australian News Fund’s third round announced
Fifty-one news publishers and independent journalists have been announced as the recipients of AU$5M in funding from the third and final round of the Meta Australian News Fund.
According to The Walkley Foundation, the fund has so far supported around 150 eligible Australian-based newsrooms and journalists to foster innovation and improve public interest journalism in Australia.
In this round there was an additional focus on stories or projects that prioritise video first, women in sport, First Nations languages and languages other than English.
Read the full list of recipients on The Walkley Foundation’s website.
Upcoming opportunities and key dates
- 1 January 2024 – 31 December 2024 – News Media Bargaining Code deals expire.
- 21 February 2024 – The Walkley Foundation webinar: Making the business case for solutions journalism. Register here.
- 22 February 2024 – Government consultation on News MAP closes.
Industry news roundup
Australia:
- Former News Limited CEO Kim Williams set to replace Ita Buttrose as ABC chair
- Luke McIlveen announced as Nine Entertainment’s new publishing executive editor
- New year, new ratings data from OzTAM: Big changes in TV audience measurement
- The Daily Aus plots partnership strategy and overseas expansion
- Leisa Goddard: Why AI will never replace journalism
- Katharine Murphy quits The Guardian Australia for role with prime minister Anthony Albanese
- Nine’s Georgie Purcell image shows the risks of AI in newsrooms
- Adobe Photoshop’s AI tools put women politicians in bikini bottoms and their male colleagues in suits
- David Anderson is under siege. Laura Tingle says ABC staff are why she backs him
- TV battle for ‘prominence’ heats up, as Foxtel cries foul over search
- As billionaires vie for Paramount, a Network 10 sale looks more likely
- Media agencies will continue to trade TV using TAM until 2025 or VOZ Streaming launch
- Local news websites accused of using AI to rip off other outlets’ articles
- Four out of five Australians say they have fallen for fake news, AI content
- SBS World News launches new AR feature
- Australian journalists abandon X in wake of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, survey shows
- Smart TVs must showcase Australian free-to-air channels alongside streaming services under proposed legislation
- Antony Catalano and Alex Waislitz take on Seek in regional Australia
- News Corp in ‘advanced negotiations’ with AI companies over access to content, CEO says
- News Corp profits rise, Foxtel sheds customers
- Exclusive: Guardian Australia appoints Karen Middleton as political editor
- Radio industry calls for overhaul of prominence and anti-siphoning bill
- TV advertising revenue down, but not out
- Facebook parent Meta steps up its fight for TV’s ad dollars
- Stokes’ Seven takes on News Corp with nightly newspaper, supported by Gina Rinehart
International:
- After a bleak turn for The Baltimore Sun, independent outlets see a surge in subscribers and attention
- Government research plays down BBC local news sector impact
- L.A. Times Layoffs Are Latest Sign of Billionaire’s Clipped Ambitions
- Dog bites man
- ‘Pink Slime’: Partisan journalism and the future of local news
- Disinformation often gets blamed for swaying elections, but the research isn’t so clear
- Bloomberg now providing artificial intelligence summaries
- Worcester Sucks & I Love It: Why communities need columnists (by a columnist)
- What works in community news? ‘There is no one answer’
- Global news industry trends for 2024: Publishers optimistic on new revenue streams
- Why Google and Meta ‘owe’ news publishers
- A Boston Globe columnist crossed journalistic lines. Should the Globe still have run his story?
- “Economic headwinds”? No, The Messenger’s flop is the result of one man’s blindness to his own bad ideas
- How to meet readers where they are (when where they are is offline)
- News Organizations Are Leaving Twitter. What About You?
- Google plans to limit reader data sharing for publishers to groups of five sites
- The Future of Journalism: A Conversation with Monika Bauerlein of Mother Jones
- How the Collapse of Local Newsrooms Made All Politics National
- Microsoft, pushing generative AI in newsrooms, partners with Semafor, CUNY, the Online News Association, and others
- Publisher ad tech platforms Ozone and Mantis advance amid fight to save journalism on open web
- Meta Calls for Industry Effort to Label A.I.-Generated Content
- They gave local news away for free. Virtually nobody wanted it.
- Many small news nonprofits feel overlooked by funders. A new coalition is giving them a voice
- Patterns in philanthropy leave small newsrooms behind. Can that change?
- The New York Times made more than $1 billion from digital subscriptions in 2023
- A global rise in government-led fact-checking initiatives cause concern, worries of misuse
- Life after Google: Should news industry embrace Amazon and Microsoft?