What responsibility do public media have to help solve the local news crisis?

HL: It also has a specific focus on what public media can or should be doing, to support local news systems. From a theoretical point of view, do you think this is a responsibility that falls to public media? Why?

KH: Public media has an important role to play in addressing this problem. In Australia, the ABC is entirely funded by the Federal Government and really should play a role ensuring all audiences have access to relevant news in the interests of democracy and social wellbeing. We also know that public media is coming under increasing right-wing attack – look at what has happened to funding of PBS in the United States – and so public media understand that helping solve the local news crisis is important to their very legitimacy, especially if they are seen to be helping other small news producers lift their capabilities. It’s also important to recognise that in many countries there has been some resentment from small news operators towards public media given they are struggling to stay viable and so collaborating can have a reputational benefit for PSM.

“Collaboration is really an important step in addressing challenges ahead. There is scope for investment to solve local challenges through innovation labs involving researchers, local news and PSM.” – Kristy Hess, Professor at the University of Deakin

HL: There are some interesting case studies that you draw on. But if we start with the ABC, what are they currently doing? And does this report indicate they should be doing more?

Angela Ross: You’ll see lots of examples in the report about how the ABC collaborates to help sustain rural and regional journalism. The public broadcaster began collaborating with media organisations in the South Pacific about 20 years ago and in more recent times we’ve developed partnership agreements with peak associations focusing on sharing expertise and knowledge and building trust.

In terms of doing more, this report doesn’t intend to act as a scorecard but instead demonstrate different ways public service media are approaching collaboration and help identify support mechanisms that might be used to ensure success. Most public service media included in the report were keen to build on their current local news partnerships and the ABC is no different – it’s open to learning from its efforts and the success of other public broadcasters to improve the impact of collaboration.

HL: You surveyed members of the Public Media Alliance on the extent to which they were involved in partnerships with local news organisations. From the responses and your other analysis, do you have a sense that many public media are already engaging with this issue? Or do you think that more should be doing it?

KH: For all of the reasons we’ve outlined I think collaboration between PSM and local news providers is increasingly prevalent.

HL: There are broadly three different types of partnerships you point to: macro, meso, and  micro – can you tell me a bit about each one, and provide an example of each?

AR: Yes, we’ve separated collaborative approaches into macro-led, meso-led or micro-led. Although each category is distinct there is constant interplay between each level.

Macro-led collaborations are mandated from the top through government policy and direct funding and can be embedded into Charters. They’re also more likely to involve systematic impact measurement keeping them accountable to their aims. An example is the approach used by the BBC and RNZ. Their approach is slightly different but they’ve both adopted the Local Democracy Reporting Service which is a funded initiative that’s kept accountable to its purpose.

Meso-led collaborations are led at the organisational level and tend to be characterised by internal strategic plans, departmental initiatives and semi-structured or informal arrangements. Most PSM in the report take a meso-led approach and one example is SRG SSR – in recent years it has expanded content-sharing arrangements to more strategic and integrated partnerships.

Collaboration at the micro-level is responsive, so it’s driven by local conditions and opportunities presented by relationships. NHK Japan is one example as it mainly engages in collaboration during emergencies, so it responds to immediate needs. In the spirit of collaboration, these micro-level relationships need to be fostered and encouraged but are most effective when coupled with top-down support.

HL: Across the board, what foundations are necessary for collaboration? What are those essential elements which make collaboration conducive and likely to succeed?

AR: All the public service media included in the report have enjoyed successes and one clear factor that stands out is having passionate people inside organisations that believe in collaboration and persist in working to ensure its continued success – we call these people collaboration champions – they play an essential role in building shared values and brokering connections.

“There is potential for collaboration to be used in the innovation space to both combat challenges and drive efficiency.” – Angela Ross, Research Lead at the ABC

HL: Even if the environment is conducive to success, that doesn’t guarantee success. So in the various case studies you explored, what factors are critical that make collaboration between public media and local news actually work?

KH: There are many factors, but key is support from the top. Macro support is really important for sustainability of collaborative partnerships. Mutual respect for what each partner brings to a collaboration is also essential and clarity on its purpose – everyone needs to be clear about the value of that partnership. There also needs to be a clear evidence-based approach adopted to ensure the spirit of collaboration is targeted, fair and does not lead to the market being negatively disrupted.  We also know that collaborative models need to be built for their specific contexts, for example, a country’s geography and market conditions. It’s never a one-size fits all approach.

HL: Even with these types of collaboration, there are still enormous challenges both here and now, and also lurking in the future (chatbots, for example), for both local media and public media. Do you think any of these examples are going to combat these challenges, or is it a case of doing much more, much faster?

KH: Collaboration is really an important step in addressing challenges ahead. There is scope for investment to solve local challenges through innovation labs involving researchers, local news and PSM.

AR: Yes, there is potential for collaboration to be used in the innovation space to both combat challenges and drive efficiency. There’s one example in the report about Yle’s leading role in developing Artificial Development and prioritising sharing that knowledge through training programs including YleGPT, which allows journalists to create personalised AI assistants and news story bots. One area there’s definite potential for future collaboration between public media and local news organisations is the responsible use of AI, including generative AI

HL: What are your recommendations from this report?  What would you like to see happen in the short, medium and long term?

KH: We have a suite of recommendations but one of the first things we would like to do is establish a global community of practice to enable PSM to come together to share ideas and challenges around collaboration and we will be looking to lead that in the months ahead. This should also encourage to collaborative exchanges between PSM to learn on the ground how other collaborations work.