In October I started a new job as a Policy and Research Officer at the Local & Independent News Association (LINA), a peak body for digital news publishers. In this role I’ll be engaging with local and state governments on behalf of member news companies. I’m only a few weeks in, but I’m really enjoying it.

The position creates a potential conflict of interest, however, with my continued maintenance of the Public Interest Publishers Index (PIPI). It would be reasonable for others to question whether my advocacy role crosses into my research activities, such as whether LINA members would get more favourable assessments of eligbility or coverage.

To avoid any actual or perceived conflict, I’ve established a new review process for changes made to LINA member data in PIPI. Where I want to make a substantive change – a definition of this is below – it must first be reviewed by an Independent Advisor.

I’m very happy that Dr Alison McAdam, Lecturer in Communication at Deakin University, has agreed to act as the Independent Advisor. Alison has extensive expertise in local news and is, I think, the leading scholar on mapping tools and methodologies in Australia.

Every quarter, before adjusting any data relating to LINA members, I will prepare a written report for Alison clearly detailing the changes that I want to make, the evidence for those changes, and the alignment of that evidence with the project definitions and methods.

She will then review that report and either support or not support the change, based on her own assessment of the evidence provided, which she will provide. These reports will not be made public, but in the narrative summary of any changes made in the data, I will note each instance where a change was made to a LINA member, as well as whether it was reviewed.

Only substantive changes – those that give rise to an apparent conflict – trigger a review. These are predominantly fields based on subjective decisions, and are any assessment of eligibility for inclusion, as well as any change to the outlet status, primary format, sub format, print frequency, scale, coverage area, change category and change type fields.

Non-substantive changes are those fields not based on subjective decisions, and are changes to the outlet name, record ID, outlet start, outlet end, entity name, entity type, URL, version ID, version start, version end and version status fields. These can be changed without prior review.

I’ve introduced this distinction for a couple of reasons:

  • It keeps the governance light. This project is entirely volunteer-based, and I do it in my spare time around other commitments. It wouldn’t be practical to prepare a report justifying the need to update a record’s URL to https:// from http://.
  • It mitigates the potential conflict, which arises where I’m making decisions that I might not otherwise make in order to benefit a LINA member. It’s clear how an eligibility assessment could lead to that perception; it’s not at all clear to me how changing the web address or record administrative fields could reach that level of concern.

Separately, I’ll note that PIPI data is based on publicly-available information, usually accessed through the publication’s website, social media channels, and/or the Australian Business Register. Where I can’t find particular information I also contact publishers directly, by email, identifying PIPI as the reason for my inquiry. No information that I have access to due to my employment at LINA is used in PIPI.

This new governance arrangement commences in the current quarter, Q4/25, being the same quarter in which I started the LINA job. No changes have been or will be made to LINA member data in the interim.

If you’ve got any questions about this, feel free to email me.