A survey of the state of the global media industry during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic has found 2020 was one of the toughest years in the Australian news media’s history.
The survey, conducted by the Reuters Institute of Journalism, found more than 150 news titles were closed or suspended in part as a response to Covid-19.
Australia was also in the spotlight because of government moves to introduce a mandatory news media bargaining code as a way of resetting the relationship between tech platforms and journalism.
The report said the pandemic triggered a radical round of redundancies and closures in the Australian news industry.
The global media giant News Corp suspended the print editions of 112 suburban and regional mastheads, axed almost 1,000 jobs and reported a 22 percent decrease in revenue for the year.
According to the News and Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra news access here has been declining overall in recent years.
Print has declined by 16 percentage since 2018 while mobile devices continue to increase as a source of news, with 62 percent of Australians accessing news on their smartphones each week.
Australians’ trust in news, however, is up by five percentage points, placing Australia in the mid-range among the 46 countries survey.
