In the last two decades, local journalism in Australia, particularly in regional and rural areas, has experienced a significant decline. The availability of local news is influenced by various characteristics of Local Government Areas (LGAs).

This report, The Socio-economic Determinants of Public Interest Journalism in Australia, conducted an empirical investigation into the socio-economic factors associated with the presence of print and digital local news outlets in Australia, studying 540 LGAs across Australia. Preliminary findings include:

• That the size of the local market in terms of both readership and consumer base is critical to the survival of news publishers. Local news publishers become unviable when readership numbers are too low, or when the market size is not appealing to advertisers.
• That there appears to be a correlation between the presence of large companies in primary (mining) or secondary (manufacturing) sectors and a robust local news market. The number of businesses in a sector showed a stronger correlation with news availability than the number of sector employees, indicating that a diverse business environment may better support local journalism.

Study authors:

• Simon D. Angus Associate Professor; Department of Economics and Monash SoDa Laboratories, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

• Klaus Ackermann Senior Lecturer; Dept. of Econometrics & Business Statistics and Monash SoDa Laboratories, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

• David H. Kreitmeir Research Fellow; Monash SoDa Laboratories, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

• Paul A. Raschky Professor; Department of Economics and Monash SoDa Laboratories, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.