Submission to the Parliament of Australia's Independent Inquiry into Media and Media Regulation

Abstract

This submission argues the newspaper business model is in crisis, putting downward pressure on revenues, and threatening the livelihood of Australia's workforce of professional journalists. Alongside the ABC, Australian newspaper companies are the biggest employers of news gatherers. Newspapers play a crucial role in producing quality information in the public interest and supporting democracy. For more than one hundred years, mass circulation newspapers have combined two quite distinct functions, one public, and one private. The public or civic function is reporting news, and the private function is operating as a business. Today the public/civic function of newspapers is in danger because of the growing failure of the business model. The inquiry provides a timely opportunity to examine the economic and technological forces driving the transformation of journalism, and its implications for professional journalists and ongoing investment in public interest journalism. We argue that a vital public interest is served by developing creative and innovative new ways of supporting professional journalism in the context of fundamental changes to the business of news.