Celebrating the ever increasing number of independent news publishers across Australia The Beagle readers join with over 1 million other Australians every month keeping local communities strong, informed and connected.
Known as hyper-local, these news outlets are springing up across the nation as communities look for accurate, timely and local news that is fast disappearing from the churn being witnessed as major mastheads present cloned, out of area stories and further downsize their staff and their newsprints.
Locally we have seen the once proud Moruya Examiner masthead disappear from sight without any explanation. After serving the community for 150 years the popular masthead vanished overnight as ACM closed down their Batemans Bay and Narooma offices sending their already skeleton staff to work remotely due to Covid in 2020.
Since then the Bay Post has reduced its editions from twice weekly to just once a week on Wednesdays and has reduced its pages even further to just 16 with nearly 50% of its editions being advertising. The once very popular Narooma News, under editor Stan Gorton, has sadly become a weekly clone of content from the Bega News and Bay Post.
The many independent newspapers outside of NewsCorp and ACM are proven to be committed to keeping their communities informed , included and most importantly in a timely fashion that presents the news as relevant.
“There is nothing worse than buying a paper to read about what happened last week or last fortnight.”
“I don’t buy the local paper any longer. It is adverts and rubbish and always out of date. I get the free one at the supermarket in winter to start my fire”.
While independent media company ACM has launched a large-scale marketing campaign to “seduce advertisers across the country” in a bid for a larger portion of the national advertising market the majority of hyper-locals springing up across the country have stepped in to provide local businesses with affordable advertising to support their own local economies.
Get to know your own local independent news sources:
A spokesperson for the recently launched hyper-local Connect Today campaign said that Your News – Connect Today was is an initiative that encourages the community to support simply by becoming aware of who their local independent papers were and recognising that local businesses are being promoted rather than national advertisers.
“We have to remember that the budgets for many of our local businesses is very modest. They need to advertise so that we are aware of their goods and services. Facebook ads just don’t cut it. When you see a local business advert you can see the passion behind it. The owner, their family, their employees. They are our community. They are us. This is why they are given preference in our news feeds. Without those businesses we have nothing. No goods, no services and no community”.
In the South East you have the weekly Braidwood Bugle, the monthly The Triangle and 24/7 The Beagle publishing local news.
