Not sure I agree on this - its not really Council’s place to be newsgathering outside of their own operations. If this helps them better communicate what Councils are doing with their community, then its a really good thing - but thats where it should end.
Council’s are often the operator of last-resort for many things in regional communities, news shouldnt be one of them
Yep - you need this stuff at arms length - fund it, provide space in the council buildings as studio areas - but you need editorial independence from council - as so much of the important local news is to hold local councils to account for service delivery failures. Otherwise you’re just making a “what’s on in town” fluff show, not ‘news’.
It’s not just a local news issue - the ‘in house news department’ is a big problem for the sporting codes trying to control their narratives, a lot of them ‘try’ to be independent and there’s plenty of good journos working for them - but you just can’t make a living of making your boss look bad.
And that is the issue. You’ll end up looking like a corrupt state broadcaster if you cover up the ills of the council, which can be many in some cases. The councils have enough on their plates without having to become news providers.
The old curse of biting the hand that feeds you. 
And that’s what councils need to avoid doing. Stick to the roads, rates and rubbish.
There should be laws against it
What an absurd thing to say, then you’d have any crazy person demanding to interview a leader. Dan Andrews doesn’t want to go on one radio program, big deal.
As a leader, you should be on as many platforms as possible to get your message across and stop the doubters from getting their points across. But if you don’t want to be on that many platforms, that’s fine, it’s your loss.
You should be able as a leader to appear on left and right wing outlets and be able to answer any questions asked. Any leader refusing to go on a particular platform because of an agenda should not be allowed. Including Scott Morrison refusing to go on Q and A or be interviewed on 7:30 or a Labor leader refusing to go on 4BC or 2GB., yes they may ask tough questions that’s their job, you should be able to handle it as a leader and not refuse to go on the show because of it.
Yes, but it’s only to that individual’s detriment.
Rarely are political interviews consequential these days (see: Michael McCormack this week). 3AW, 4BC etc. will continue to analyse and scrutinise - as they damn well should - regardless as to whether their leader appears or not.
To bring this back on topic, you’d have to wonder how long this exercise will last. Residents tend not to like their councils spending money on frivolities, which is what this really is.
Exactly. Next rates notice and news that they got permission to increase the rates - then people will start complaining. And understandably so.
Or they don’t raise rates but instead revalue everyone’s land/properties so residents end up paying more in rates anyway
Either way…they won’t like it. They’ll see what the council is doing and make the link, either rightly or wrongly.
If it’s anything like my council, they would be spending about the same amount sending out stupid newsletters telling us how great they are.
Another council in the news game - and it’s been recognised by Google as a news source
“No magic pill” for regional broadcasters | TV Tonight
Continuing the discussion from Nine News Local:
While I don’t believe in necessarily having one broadcaster in regional markets (which would be a monopoly), I think having two would be a sound initiative as part of media reform package to remove the past its used-by-date voices test. The top two affiliations get the cream of the dollars. The third affiliation is then either provided by one of the affiliates, or they can install a jointly-owned station.
Ten would be the loser but again, their content mostly just doesn’t work to achieve 40+%. I would expect their affiliation to drop to around 20-25%. If Ten wants a top affiliation, they need to shape up.
The plan would have seen WIN buy Prime then become the Seven affiliate in RQLD, NNSW, SNSW, and VIC, then re-negotiate a lower affiliation with Ten to provide that content on the secondary station. WIN and Prime’s news divisions merge to produce at least 17 bulletins. Southern Cross continues its Nine affiliation, if it isn’t happy with Nine, it has the option of trying to negotiate a better deal with Ten, likewise with WIN. The one left at the alter gets stuck on the secondary agreement - and this is why you won’t get agreement from the metro networks for the plan.
Obviously it is too late now with the recent affiliation changes made, but government have been too slow as always to fix the vacuum of money being flushed out.
… just to put it into some perspective, at the time aggregation was first being considered Perth still had only two competing commercial television services yet it was determined that Wagga would be able to handle three 
This is what happens when you let the market drive most of the terms of engagement - its all good until it isnt, but when it goes wrong, its often too late to arrest the issue
I’m fine with merging newsrooms as long as the output actually increases
Do they?
Did Imparja seriously say that? Lord.
Nine DARWIN are the ones covering Imparja’s ass with local content by frequently flying journalists to the area to deliver local stories on the bulletin. Imparja do not pay for this at all.
Recently, the Darwin-based journos have been taking turns with working out of Alice Springs for 7-10 days at a time. All what IMP does is complain about their costs to the government but continue to invest in things with no return at all.
We’re not government funded
A lie. Imparja receives a large amount of government funding and grants - including wage subsidies for aboriginal employees.