WHEN checking historical facts, people invariably turn to newspaper archives.
They are the public record. The place where the truth lies.
This week, Australia’s news landscape was dealt another blow by the announcement Australian Associated Press (AAP) would close, with the loss of 180 journalism jobs.
The wire service has provided news content for the country since 1935, ensuring every paper has had access to accurate reports on matters of national significance.
Sunraysia Daily, like most other regional publications, has been a long-time subscriber to the AAP service.
And in a new world of social media and misinformation, Australia needs more sources of real news, not fewer.
Whereas keyboard warriors can flippantly post words that will disappear into thin air within seconds, journalists and newspapers are accountable for the words they publish. They live forever.
What should concern us all is just how critical the crisis in public interest journalism has become across the country.
Over the past decade, 106 Australian local and regional newspapers have closed.
It’s not just sad for those communities, it threatens our democracy. For instance, many local governments now go completely unreported. Who else now fights and advocates for those communities without fear or favour? Who now is their voice?
Here at Sunraysia Daily, we take that role very seriously.
Just this week, I had a passionate lady come in to my office to plead with Sunraysia Daily to keep highlighting the issues on the lower Darling. She asked that we not lose interest in the story, to keep fighting for the rights of those communities and the health of the river. To hold governments and policy makers to account. If not us, then who, she asked.
And she’s right.
Let’s face it, without the media, water thefts may have long continued up north, never to be investigated.
Without the media, corruption of all sorts would never be exposed.
We don’t want to become a nation where our communities are relying on social media posts and fake news, where democracy ceases to work. We can’t allow spin doctors to control every story.
The demise of AAP, an organisation that has been with us for 85 years, should make governments sit up and take notice. An industry that is vital to our country needs its support.
In 2017, the Federal Government took a positive step in announcing the implementation of a $60 million Regional and Small Publishers Jobs and Innovation Package. That package included a program to support 200 cadetships over two years, valued at $8 million.
Sunraysia Daily was successful in obtaining a grant to subsidise the wage of one cadet reporter for one year. It also received an additional grant to help fund a website project.
But it’s estimated that in total only about $12 million has been allocated for innovation funds projects across the country, and less than $2 million for cadetships in regional and rural locations.
That is a long way short of $60 million.
If democracy is important to our government, then it needs to live up to its promise, as well as look at what else can be done for the industry.
Australia needs its regional newspapers to keep recording history, not to become part of it.
