PIJI welcomes ACMA consultation paper

PIJI welcomes ACMA consultation paper

18/January/2023

The Public Interest Journalism Initiative (PIJI) welcomes the consultation paper “A new framework for measuring media diversity in Australia”, released by the Australian Communications and Media Authority this morning.

“We are pleased to see the government’s commitment to longitudinal data, which is essential if we want to create informed policy to support diversity and plurality in the media sector,” said PIJI CEO Anna Draffin.

The consultation paper notes, “PIJI’s research provides a particularly valuable source of public data, and its various projects closely align with the outputs that we originally proposed in our news measurement paper, such as the development of a local news database and online map, and a local news assessment.”

Indeed, PIJI has developed a growing body of work to provide key insights over the past three years of unprecedented industry volatility.

“Our Australian Newsroom Mapping Project is an internationally recognised data collection and visualisation tool that has enabled invaluable sector insights, international peer investment and policy development,” says Draffin.

PIJI will continue to release new data each month.

“We look forward to working with government and agencies to develop nuanced understanding the news supply and demand without which Australia’s democracy cannot function,” said Draffin.

The closing date for submissions to the consultation is March 17 and submissions can be emailed to: [email protected].

Background

• PIJI’s data shows there have been at least 120 news outlets closed and 128 outlets opened since 2019
• Regional Australia is experiencing the greatest change, with around two thirds of all market contractions identified there
• News content sampling suggests low levels of localism in some regional areas
• Coverage of local government appears to be generally high, but court reporting generally low