ABSTRACT
Australians cluster in the country’s five largest coastal cities, which together account for more than 16 million of the nation’s 25 million people. This concentration of population in a vast continent presents abiding challenges for national politics and society. News media is no exception. Australian local and regional communities therefore offer a potent case study of the effects of changes in how news is produced and distributed, and the impact on local communities of weakened media business models. This weakening presents an opportunity to study the resultant journalistic deficit, and through that evaluate how journalistic activity and the production and distribution of news affects civic society and democratic health. That was the objective of the research presented in this chapter. The study draws on interviews with journalists, media proprietors and civic leaders in four case studies. It finds emerging deficits in the coverage of what the researchers call civic journalism, in particular coverage of local government, courts and local centres of power.
