Newsmakers with Claire Stuchbery

Kate Watson

Introducing this week’s Newsmaker: Claire Stuchbery from LINA

Claire Stuchbery is the CEO of the Local and Independent News Association - LINA works to ensure that local audiences are served with independent, original, high-quality public-interest news reporting on important issues.

In our conversation, Claire points to some examples of where local reporting has been able to combat misinformation and surface stories that would not have been told otherwise.

Most of us would agree this is important work. But if the business model doesn’t stack up, that means the ability for these newsrooms to continue is threatened. Claire doesn’t sugarcoat that reality. So the question becomes what does an Australia without local news look like? 

Claire is one person who’s doing her best to ensure we don’t find out. 

You can watch the video of our conversation below, listen to the full podcast interview or scroll down for an edited transcript. 

Claire Stuchbery on overcoming the challenges of the local news business model…

Kate Watson: Tell me about a LINA publisher…

Claire Stuchbery: One that comes to mind is Newsport Daily and their coverage of Cyclone Jasper earlier this year… What was happening on the ground there was phenomenal and did actually save lives. They were reporting live on people who were stuck on roofs and were able to get immediate support and helicopters to those people to take them off the roofs of their houses. So, when you're thinking does reporting have an impact? In that instance, yes, and within 30 minutes. And not just within that 24 hours that the cyclone was happening, but everything that happens thereafter when the community is rebuilding - which businesses have now reopened? Who's got the coffee? Who's got the cleaning supplies? Where do we go for clean water? ... It's the follow-up that doesn't necessarily happen when it's no longer the nationwide or statewide headline story.

KW: It’s hard to hear that story and not be convinced this [issue of local news availability] is a problem we need to solve. What is the biggest problem right now?

CS: The biggest issue is the scale of coverage needed and the industry's capacity to manage that. I think the commercial model is a massive challenge, and both those are inextricably linked. How many journalists can we pay for? Can we make it a secure career for people? And yes, I think we can, but for how many people is a different story. We've got news deserts all over the country partly because the commercial model doesn't hold up in areas without the population density … So being able to find enough revenue streams to support that and make it sustainable is a huge and ongoing challenge. That's why we've seen the newsroom closures that we have.

KW: According to a report from the University of Canberra this year, people do have an appetite for local news and recognise that there’s a gap. How do you make the business model work?

CS: So different business models work in different areas, depending on population density and the socio-economic profile of the area. And say, when we do a fundraising campaign, people's capacity to contribute varies widely. So in terms of the solutions for monetising news, that's not the same across all areas. But what we look at is kind of what's best practice and supporting newsrooms to test and trial what works for them and what is within reach, particularly for newsrooms that might be operating with a really small number of staff… 

KW: So there’s the ad model … reader contributions … government funding … What's your ideal scenario?

CS: Yeah, I think it does need to be a mix generally. Market failures are common - for example, a town of 30,000 people is big enough to warrant a local news service, but not necessarily big enough to maintain one in terms of the number of people who can actually contribute anything to it. And even in terms of subscription models, it's something like $10, maybe $20 a month. You have to have quite a lot of people to contribute that to equate to a wage for someone to live on. And that's for one journalist… 

KW: What about attracting younger audiences to local news?

CS: I think there's a really good opportunity around that actually. I think there's a lot of younger people who are a little bit tired of the news, and partly that's about the way it's been presented. Because the reporters are being told what their community want all the time - at the supermarket, when they go for school pick up, online - and what we're seeing out of that is a really kind of personalised sort of news services evolve. Not just in terms of tailored content but also a more personable type of reporting. And interestingly, I think once we're able to engage more of the younger audience, they're the people who have grown up with subscription TV more so than older generations who are used to having things for free. The data is showing us that younger people are more willing to pay for a subscription, but how much they can pay is a different story…

Tell us what you think…

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