17 July 2024
PDF Version [588KB]
Nell Fraser
Social Policy
This quick guide provides links to resources regarding news
media in Australia, including lists of news outlets and reports on news
consumption patterns.
News outlets in Australia
- The
Australian News Data Project,
by the Public Interest Journalism Initiative, provides a range of resources to
‘assess media diversity and plurality’ in Australia.
- The
Australian News Index is a
searchable database of news outlets,
entities and membership bodies.
Outlets are searchable by format (print, radio, television and digital), scale,
geographic area and entity. Each listing includes a link to the outlet’s
website.
- The
Australian News
Sampling Project produces reports that assess digital and print ‘news
output by specific geographic location/s to understand the local character and
quantity of public interest journalism production’.
- The
National Ethnic and Multicultural
Broadcasters’ Council website includes a map of community radio stations in
Australia. The map can be filtered to show ‘general’, ‘ethnic’,
‘Indigenous’, ‘print handicapped’, and ‘religious’ radio stations, as well as
community television stations.
- The
Commercial Radio and Audio
website includes a map
of commercial radio stations in Australia.
- James
Cook University’s Indigenous
Studies Guide: Newspapers, Media, TV, Radio and Film includes links to
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander media outlets.
- There
is no central database of multicultural news outlets in Australia. The
following resources include some useful compilations:
- Western
Australia’s Office of Multicultural Interests provides
a list of culturally and linguistically diverse media in Western Australia.
Many of these outlets operate nationally.
- The
Queensland Government’s multicultural
resource directory can be filtered to ‘media’ to provide a list of media
organisations ‘with an ethnic community focus in Queensland’.
- Some
multicultural media outlets in New South Wales are listed as previous
recipients of the Premier’s Multicultural Communications Awards (see: 2023
and 2022 winners).
- Some
multicultural media outlets in Victoria are listed as previous recipients of
the Victorian Government’s Multicultural
Media Grants program.
- Professor
Wanning Sun’s Chinese-Language
Media in Australia: Developments, Challenges and Opportunities (2016)
provides a list of major Chinese media in Australia as at 2016 (pp. 26–36).
Media diversity and ownership
News media governance, peak bodies and industry standards
… is responsible for promoting high
standards of media practice, community access to information of public
interest, and freedom of expression through the media. The Australian Press
Council is the principal body with responsibility for responding to complaints
about published material other than advertisements in Australian newspapers,
magazines and digital sites. [link added]
The Australian Press Council also
publishes Standards
of Practice, contained in its Statement of General Principles and Statement
of Privacy Principles, which apply to its members, as well as advisory guidelines
for particular aspects of media practice.
- The
Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance
(MEAA) is the key union and industry advocate for those in creative industries,
including people working in television, radio and journalism. The MEAA Journalist Code of
Ethics applies to all journalist members of MEAA.
- Independent Multicultural Media Association
(IMMA) is a media alliance of over 30 independent multicultural media
organisations in Australia, which present and publish in heritage languages and
in English.
- Digital Publishers Alliance (DPA) is an
industry association representing over 56 digital-first publishers, including
many news titles.
- The
national broadcasters – ABC and
SBS
– are bound by their Charters, as contained in their respective pieces of
enabling legislation.
- ACMA
is an independent Commonwealth statutory authority which regulates
communication and media services in Australia. ACMA may investigate
whether broadcasters are following the law, particularly requirements under the
Broadcasting
Services Act 1992. ACMA also publishes industry codes of
practice for radio and television broadcasters, many of which include
aspects related to news content.
News consumption in Australia – survey results
- The
ACMA Communications
and media in Australia research series includes interactive
reports on how Australians communicate and use and access media, based on
annual survey results. Reports allow for results to be filtered by gender, age
and location. The latest report, How
we access news, was published in February 2024.
- The
University of Canberra’s News and Media Research Centre publishes an annual Digital
News Report: Australia. The reports are:
… part of a long-running
international survey coordinated by the Reuters Institute for the Study of
Journalism, an international research centre in the comparative study of
journalism based at Oxford University. The Digital News Report delivers
comparative data on media usage in 47 countries and across 6 continents.
The reports provide insight on a range
of topics, including how people access news, people’s interest in news and
politics, use of social media and podcasting to access news, attitudes towards
journalism and attitudes towards news curation and algorithms. International
data is presented through the University of Oxford’s Digital
News Report.
- The
Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications
and the Arts commissions
and publishes data related to media consumption. The 2023
Television and Media Survey, prepared by the Social Research Centre,
includes a section on ‘News Content’.
- The
Lowy Institute’s Being
Chinese in Australia interactive report includes a short chapter
on Chinese-Australians’ interaction with news and media.
- VOZ reports bring together
total television viewing figures for free-to-air and subscription television
programs across televisions and connected devices (including smart TVs,
computers, tablets and smartphones). These reports can be used for comparing
the reach of television news programs.
- Regional TAM provides TV
viewing figures for free-to-air and subscription television programs in
regional Australia. The weekly reports can be used for comparing the reach of
television news programs.
- The
Australian
Podcast Ranker, commissioned by Commercial Radio and Audio, Australia’s
peak commercial radio body, lists the top podcasts from participating
publishers that are consumed by listeners in Australia. The ranker can be
filtered to ‘news’ and ‘news and politics’.
- Roy
Morgan and Think News Brands publish quarterly reports on readership
numbers for newspapers in Australia. Reports prior to June 2021 include
readership numbers by newspaper title.
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