ABC partners with Murray Bridge News on content-sharing project
You might see some ABC News content on this website during the next few weeks as part of the Australian Local News Resilience Project.
This story includes contributions from Kristy Hess.
Murray Bridge News will partner with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to enhance news access for local audiences as part of a pilot to support news sustainability in rural and regional areas.
For the next four weeks, we will have access to ABC national, state and regional content that we will develop to provide fresh local perspectives and voices for the benefit of our audience.
The pilot is part of the Australian Local News Resilience Project, a three-year Australian Research Council-funded project led by Deakin University, with the ABC and Griffith University.
It’s developing an evidence-based blueprint for a collaborative local news program to improve local news access, quality and content diversity across regional and remote Australia.
Project lead Professor Kristy Hess said the crisis facing local journalism was a national and international problem, with more than 200 Australian local news outlets significantly cutting their service or closing since 2019.
She said Murray Bridge News provided optimism for the sector because we provided regular, reliable place-based news for the Murraylands; and that the project was designed to provide support where needed most.
The project is using pilots to test and refine potential solutions developed after more than two years of exhaustive research, consultation and co-design with local news providers.
It also draws on experiences and programs adopted by other public service media around the world.
“The ABC provides broader regional coverage but passionate journalists like Peri (Strathearn) know their smaller, niche audiences,” Professor Hess said.
“For the benefit of democracy and quality journalism, working together just makes sense.
“Audiences consistently tell us that they want more local news that relates to the towns and cities (where) they live, and this is also a way for the ABC to play an important role in helping to address this gap.”
Murray Bridge News managing editor Peri Strathearn said he was excited about the pilot project.
“Partnerships between the ABC and independent news publications are, I think, the best way to both fill the gaps between the ABC's coverage areas and maximise the benefits of taxpayer spending on the ABC's news division,” he said.
“I hope that, during the next four weeks, we'll be able to localise state and national stories which are relevant to our area, giving local audiences access to journalism of a kind that we might not be able to produce ourselves.
“Murray Bridge News has collaborated with the ABC before, on a report about security guards at the Murray Bridge hospital; and we are always happy to do so with other organisations which share our aims.”
The content sharing initiative is one of six pilots the ABC is supporting over the coming months as part of the project, with a final report to be produced in early 2026.
