If you’re watching the election campaign, you may have noticed something: you’re more likely to spot a swift parrot, Maugean skate, or Tasmanian tiger than you are to see a journo from a local paper at an Albo or Dutton press conference.  

That’s because the Australian local newspaper is now an endangered species. 

New Australia Institute research shows that News Corp has gone from publishing over 200 unique publications in 2016, to just 19 living, breathing papers today. The other 100 that it still lists with the Press Council are more like zombies – staffed by a skeleton crew of journalists and supplemented with auto-generated articles, without their own websites or print editions. 

The report also shows that: 

• 10 million Australians live in a city without comparable print media competition 
• A quarter of Local Government Areas have no independently owned local news outlet. Twenty-nine have no local news at all. 
• Australian Community Media has gone from publishing 170 outlets to just 62 today. 

Full report here: https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/newspaper-competition-in-australia/