Government has duty to get the message to everyone

THE Federal Government is faced with arguably its greatest ever challenge in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

For Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his team, communication will be crucial during these unprecedented times.

So it can’t ignore regional Australia with its messaging.

The government has been running full-page advertisements in metropolitan newspapers in the past week with official medical and health advice on COVID-19, which is vital information for those who live in the cities.

But not one of those advertisements has appeared in a regional or community paper across the country.

Not Ballarat, not Bendigo, not Albury, not the Latrobe Valley, not Sunraysia … not anywhere outside our major cities.

For a government that promotes itself as being here for all Australians, that city-centric thinking is not just neglectful and out of touch, it’s dangerous when we are in the midst of an international health crisis.

Community and regional newspapers are the trusted source of information in country areas. Sunraysia Daily is this year in its 100th year. Other regional daily papers have been around a lot longer.

Those mastheads are who locals turn to for their news, particularly the older generation, who are at most risk in this crisis.

To think that social media is reaching the majority of those people is naive at best.

All forms of government invest lots of taxpayer dollars into social media advertising, seemingly at the advice of young marketing “experts” who fail to understand not only how the older generation source their news, but how little trust many Australians have in social media as a medium.

Just this week, it was the Federal Government itself slamming social media for the spreading of false virus information.

So on one hand we have the PM warning Australians to ignore the fake news on social media, while on the other his government uses that platform to advertise crucial health information.

Journalists across the country feel a great responsibility in these times to provide a service for their communities.

That is particularly the case in regional areas, where we all live, work and socialise. The health of our towns matters to us. A lot.

Regional newspapers across the country need their federal and state members to explain to their colleagues how things work in the bush.

They need to spread the message beyond the city limits, through a trusted media source that local communities have been turning to for more than a century.