You may have read that Australian Community Media have decided to shut down their four print publications in the South West Region and switch to exclusively digital publishing. These mastheads were printed at IVE Group’s Mandurah printing press . Unfortunately, the loss of this key client has led to IVE shutting down the only coldset printing site in WA – other than where the daily The West Australian is printed – effective from 19 May. This is where we print the Northern Valleys News.
As I’ve mentioned previously, being an independent news outlet frees us from being easily-slashed figures at the bottom of a spreadsheet. But it does not insulate us from the knock-on effects within the industry.
We have loyal advertisers, new advertisers coming on board every month, people regularly get in touch to compliment us on the publication, and we even receive requests to expand our coverage area. Demand is strong! What do you do when you have all the ingredients for a cake – and 15,000 people wanting a slice – but no oven in which to cook it?
So, what is the answer? Well, we are currently looking into viable, alternative printing solutions but there is a bigger issue here. Every time a publication goes to digital only there’s a wave of, “Tsk, tsk isn’t that terrible”, but it eventually dies down – I suspect because those who are tech savvy, can afford devices, and live in a region with decent internet and mobile coverage adjust to digital news, and the ones who don’t – well they no longer have a voice.
$50 million dollars was given out in grants under a public interest news gathering fund by the Morrison government in 2020. We received $0. We did receive a grant in 2022 to help offset printing costs, but due to overwhelming demand from applicants, amounts granted were heavily scaled back, to roughly 20% of the initial amount.
When we receive a request for advertising from the Department of Premier and Cabinet, it comes with the note that they want to “support regional print titles”. Well maybe State and Federal governments need to collaborate on this, perhaps centralise the support? Rather than throwing us a bone in the form of an ad every few months, or convoluted, time-consuming grant processes, maybe they can chip in and buy a printing press?
