Print decline not just happening in the U.S.; Australian news conglomerate moves 100+ local papers online-only

The decline in print media isn't just an American phenomenon, as demonstrated by this week's news.

News Corp Australia, one of the nation's largest media conglomerates, "has confirmed that more than 100 local and regional newspapers will become digital only or disappear entirely, and there will be a significant number of job losses," Amanda Meade reports for The Guardian. "A total of 112 of Rupert Murdoch’s print newspapers will stop the presses, including 36 which will close altogether and 76 which will remain as online mastheads. News Corp will not specify how many staff each title will have, if any, or how much local reporting will continue."

That brings "to 92 the number of online titles published by the company after News Corp launched 16 new online titles in recent years," Meade reports. The company suspended 60 papers in April because of the coronavirus, with no promise that they would return.

Paul Murphy, the chief executive of Australian trade union the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, told Meade: "The closure of so many mastheads represents an immense blow to local communities and, coming off the back of hundreds of previous regional closures during this period, it underlines the seriousness of the crisis facing regional and local journalism." Australia is one of the few countries where rural journalism is a recognized specialty.

Though a review showed that consumers were reading and subscribing to news online, and that advertisers were transitioning to online-only ads, the move will hurt the sustainability of the news media, Murphy said. That's because print advertising makes up the majority of News Corp's revenue. 

Writer sees parallels in rural voters' ouster of Australian government and political trends in U.S.

Rural voters were key to last weekend's ouster of Australian Prime Minister John Howard, and the Daily Yonder's Bill Bishop, right, sees some parallels between Howard's shrunken base of support and those of Republicans in the United States.

"Howard had built his previous electoral victories in the suburbs and rural communities with a combination of conservative, values-based positions and strong economic performance," Bishop writes. "Howard campaigned against gay marriage and migrants seeking asylum in Australia. He refused to issue an apology for the treatment of Aboriginal Australians. And he refused to sign the Kyoto treaty aimed at stemming global warming. Howard strongly supported the invasion of Iraq and President Bush."

Bishop adds, "Like Bush's strong showing in the rural U.S., Howard had a near monopoly in rural parts of Australia. In the 2004 parliamentary election, Howard's Liberal party won 41 of the 45 seats classified as rural by the Australian Electoral Commission. That rural-based coalition crumbled Saturday, when the Labor Party's Kevin Rudd won what's been described as a landslide election. . . . Rudd won 14 of those 45 rural seats and the Labor party was competitive in the Australian exurbs for the first time in a decade."

Rudd promised to sign the Kyoto treaty, which had a higher profile because of what Bishop calls "an epic drought" that is stressing rural regions. Royce Millar of The Age, a Melbourne newspaper, reports that "A study of the costs of climate change has found rural communities will pay almost twice as much as city dwellers for the effects of environmental degradation." (Read more) Also among Rudd's campaign promises were broadband Internet connections for the whole country, a key issue in rural areas worldwide. Darren Osborne of The Australian, a national newspaper based in Sydney, write before the election that “For many voters in regional and rural Australia, broadband could be the election issue that decides who gets their vote.” (Read more)