Purpose and scope

PIPI maintains a longitudinal record of print and digital public interest journalism outlets operating in Australia from 1 January 2019 onwards. The project records the operational and geographic characteristics of eligible outlets and significant changes that occur to those outlets over time.

This methodology describes how potential outlets are identified, assessed and classified, how changes are recorded, and how historical records are maintained and corrected.

Eligibility and inclusion

To be eligible an outlet must primarily distribute its news content in a written format, meaning digitally or in print. It should primarily and regularly produce (1) original public interest journalism for (2) a public audience and be subject to (3) identifiable professional or ethical standards.

(1) Original public interest journalism means content that records, reports or investigates issues of public significance for Australians, issues relevant to engaging Australians in public debate and in informing democratic decision making, or content which relates to community and local events.

(2) To be eligible, news content should be published to a public audience, meaning that it is readily available to any person who wishes to access it. This does not preclude a company from charging a fee for access to the content, but it should not otherwise be limited through, for example, requiring a person to be a member of an association or industry body.

(3) Journalism is a process of finding out information, verifying it and applying editorial judgment. It is characterised by professional values including independence and fairness. News outlets must adhere to identifiable professional and ethical standards.

An outlet will satisfy this test if it is subject to the rules of one of the following:

  • The Australian Press Council;
  • The Independent Media Council; or
  • Substantially equivalent editorial standards.

An important ethical standard is that news outlets have editorial independence from the subjects of their news coverage. This means that they are not owned or controlled by a political advocacy organisation (such as a political party, lobby group or union); and not owned or controlled by a party that has a commercial interest in the coverage being produced (for example, a publication that covers a sport that is owned or controlled by the sport’s governing body).

This does not include the inherent commercial interests a news company may have in the production of content. It describes where such coverage may give rise to a conflict of interest which disadvantages or misleads the public audience.

Community News Organisations

Some outlets are tagged as Community scale news producers. These outlets have different characteristics to other news producers, but nevertheless can fill an important role in a local news ecosystem.

These outlets tend to be non-commercial and produced by volunteers, sometimes without journalistic training, and covering hyperlocal issues such as events, profiles of individuals in town, and local history. They are often produced by a local civic institution such as community centre or social organisation.

The community scale option is intended to reflect these outlets, which do not provide the depth, consistency or professionalism of local news outlets, but which are important parts of community news provision. I do not apply the requirement to adhere to professional and ethical standards to these outlets, though I do require that they be editorially independent of local government or other interests like chambers of commerce or tourism boards.

Discovery of potential outlets

PIPI uses several processes to identify news outlets that may be eligible for inclusion.

Potential new outlets are identified through monitoring changes to industry association and Australian Press Council membership lists, outcomes from relevant grant programs, the ACMA Eligible News Businesses Register, third-party reporting, and direct contact from publishers.

Geographic gaps in the dataset are also used as a discovery signal. Where an LGA is recorded as having no regular coverage, searches are undertaken using the relevant council or place name in Google News, and returned news sites are reviewed for potential eligibility.

These discovery processes are systematic but not exhaustive. Outlets with little institutional visibility may be more difficult to identify, particularly where they are not members of industry associations, do not appear in grant or regulatory registers, do not have a significant web presence, receive little third-party coverage, and do not otherwise come to the attention of the project.

Identification through a discovery source does not result in automatic inclusion. Potential outlets are assessed against PIPI’s eligibility criteria before being added to the dataset.

Assessment and evidence

PIPI uses a field-specific evidentiary approach. The weight given to a source depends on the characteristic being assessed and how contestable that characteristic is.

Evidence may include direct observation of outlet activity, statements or correspondence from publishers, third-party reporting, industry association records, government registers and, where relevant, archival material. For historical records, archival sources may be used where an outlet is identified after having already operated for some time.

In limited circumstances, local community sources may also be used to establish straightforward factual matters where the publisher cannot be contacted. These may include local councils, newsagents, libraries or historical societies, for example to confirm whether a publication was recently in circulation.

A single primary source may be sufficient for a relatively uncontested fact where it is consistent with observable behaviour. A publisher confirming that an outlet has closed, for example, may be sufficient where observable publication activity has also ceased. More contestable claims require greater independent verification. LGA coverage is always independently assessed rather than accepted solely on the basis of an outlet’s own description.

Conflicting evidence does not necessarily prevent a determination. Where a publisher statement conflicts with observable behaviour, PIPI may rely on documented thresholds and corroborating evidence to determine the recorded value. For example, sustained inactivity may outweigh a claim that an outlet remains active.

Where evidence remains insufficient, the status quo persists and the record is scheduled for further review in the following quarter. Where no existing value can be supported, the field is left blank rather than estimated.

Some source types are treated as indicative rather than determinative. Distribution maps, media kits and other advertising buying materials may help identify the likely geographic reach of an outlet but are not treated as evidence of editorial coverage.

Geographic coverage assessment

PIPI has two assessments of the coverage geography of a news outlet: scale and local government areas.

Scale

Each news outlet in PIPI is allocated to a Scale, representing the primary geographic focus of their news articles.

  • Community, meaning the outlet primarily covers hyperlocal social issues.
  • Local, meaning the outlet primarily covers a small geographic area, from a single town or local government area up to a sub-state region.
  • Metropolitan, meaning the outlet has a coverage area which includes an entire capital city. News outlets in this category tend to cover news over a large geographic area and provide irregular attention to any single place, unlike Local scale outlets.
  • State/territory, meaning the outlet has a coverage area which includes an entire state or territory. Any local news tends to be reactive or illustrative of a larger issue facing the state or territory.
  • National, meaning the outlet primarily covers news which affects the entire country, such as federal politics or the economy.

This does not suggest that any news outlet exclusively publishes local or national stories; most will provide a mix of each of these scales depending on the issue. Scale represents the types of issues that are selected for coverage and how they are presented to the audience.

Local government areas

PIPI records the Local Government Areas (LGAs) that are regularly covered by each eligible outlet. Geographic coverage is assessed independently and is not assigned solely on the basis of publisher descriptions.

For an article to contribute to an LGA coverage assessment, it must meet PIPI’s public interest journalism criteria and substantively concern that LGA. In local coverage assessments, relevant subject matter commonly includes local government, courts and crime, public services such as education, emergency services and health, and community issues including local individuals and events.

An article may contribute to the assessment of more than one LGA where the reporting substantively concerns each of those places. Incidental references to another LGA are not sufficient.

Regular coverage is currently defined as an average of at least 12 qualifying articles over a rolling 12-month period. Assessments are benchmarked to the end of the preceding calendar month to allow time for recently published material to be indexed and identified.

The threshold is intentionally low. Australia has many very low population towns where relatively few news-generating events may occur in a year. A higher threshold would risk treating genuine but low-volume local news provision as absent. The principal methodological risk is therefore over-allocation: assigning an outlet to an LGA on the basis of incidental reporting.

Where multiple outlets operated by the same entity report on neighbouring areas, it is assumed that content production is shared between them and LGA coverage is not automatically attributed to every title. Coverage is allocated according to the outlet that appears to substantively and regularly serve that LGA. More than one related outlet may be assigned to the same LGA where each independently meets the coverage standard, including for distinct content.

Where evidence is insufficient to establish regular coverage, the LGA is not assigned.

Outlet status and closure

PIPI uses outlet status to distinguish between active publishing, temporary uncertainty about continued operation, and confirmed closure.

An outlet is considered active where it publishes at least one item of eligible news content within a quarter. Where no eligible publishing activity is observed for one quarter, the outlet is classified as Inactive. Where no activity is observed for a second consecutive quarter, the outlet is classified as Closed.

A closure may be recorded earlier where other evidence strongly supports that conclusion. Relevant indicators can include cancellation of the operating entity’s ABN, removal from industry association membership lists, and sustained inactivity across other public channels such as social media.

Inactive is a provisional status rather than a permanent determination. An outlet that resumes eligible publishing activity in the following quarter is returned to Open status and treated as higher risk, with subsequent quarterly review until continued activity is established.

Closed outlets may reopen. Where the outlet retains substantial continuity of identity, it is generally recorded as a new historical version of the same outlet record. Where more than 12 months has passed and the outlet reopens under new ownership, it will generally be treated as a new outlet record using the same brand.

Where the exact day of an opening or closure cannot be established, the first day of the known month is recorded. Where the month cannot be established, December of the known year is used. Uncertainty at the year level has not been encountered to date.

Inactive is used only for an unannounced absence of publishing activity. Where an outlet announces a temporary suspension of publication, that period is recorded as Closed and the outlet is added to regular review for evidence of reopening.

Operating entities and ownership

PIPI records the legal entity directly responsible for operating each outlet. Parent entities are also recorded where known, allowing the immediate operator to be distinguished from an ultimate corporate owner.

Legal entity names are recorded using Australian Business Register naming, with limited normalisation for presentation. This includes standardising inconsistent use of terms such as Proprietary/Pty and Limited/Ltd.

Business names registered to a particular entity are used as supporting evidence rather than as a requirement. The presence of the relevant business name at an entity can confirm the relationship, but its absence does not disqualify that entity because business name registration is inconsistent. Where a business name is discontinued at one entity and commenced at another, this may also provide evidence about the timing of an ownership or operating-entity change.

Parent and child entities are represented through relationship fields. Registered sole traders are treated as operating entities in the same way as incorporated entities. Unregistered operators are not recorded as operating entities, and it is not a PIPI eligibility requirement to be operated by a registered entity.

Any change to the operating entity associated with an outlet is recorded as an Ownership Change and creates a new outlet version. This includes internal corporate restructures as well as sales or other transfers of ownership. Changes to the entity record itself do not create a new outlet version.

An outlet will usually be treated as continuous through a change of operating entity.

Operating entity identification is one of the fields for which direct publisher confirmation is particularly important. Publishers often identify their ABN in website terms, media kits or other public material, but where this information is not published it can be difficult to establish the correct operating entity independently.

Change classification

PIPI records significant changes to outlets where those changes affect market structure, outlet operation or the historical interpretation of the record.

Each recorded change creates a new version of the outlet record.

Under the current methodology, Change Type and Change Category have fixed relationships:

  • Outlet Opened is recorded as an Expansion.
  • Outlet Closed is recorded as a Contraction.
  • Ownership Change is recorded as Other.
  • Other changes are recorded as Other.

The Change Category field is retained from the earlier PIJI methodology, when a broader range of event types were grouped as expansions or contractions. Under the current PIPI methodology, openings and closures are the only events classified in this way.

Changes recorded as Other include significant presentational or operational changes that are useful to preserve in the historical record but do not necessarily imply an increase or decrease in news production. These include outlet name changes, the commencement or cessation of a print edition, changes to print frequency, scale, state and primary format, as well as when an outlet changes from Open to Inactive.

Where several changes occur as part of the same broader event, they are recorded as separate changes and therefore create separate versions. Where dates conflict or multiple changes occur on the same date, records are ordered according to the following hierarchy:

Ownership Change → Outlet Opened → Other → Outlet Closed.

Versioning and historical records

PIPI uses version records to preserve significant structural changes to outlets over time. A new version is created only where a recorded change occurs.

The fields that currently trigger a new version are outlet name, outlet status, primary format, print frequency, operating entity, scale and state.

Version Start and Version End dates are determined by the dates of the changes that bound that version. The most recent version of an outlet is recorded as Current; earlier versions are retained permanently and recorded as Superseded.

Where later evidence shows that a historical version was incorrect, the affected historical record is corrected retrospectively rather than creating a new change to represent the correction.

Not all PIPI fields are versioned. Fields that do not themselves trigger a recorded change, such as Sub Formats, represent the current known state and do not preserve a complete historical record of earlier values.

Changes to LGA coverage do not themselves trigger a recorded change or new version, because an amendment to PIPI’s geographic assessment does not necessarily correspond to a dated change in the underlying market. Where there is specific evidence of a substantive and dated change in an outlet’s geographic coverage – a publisher announcing that they are ending coverage of a particular place from a certain date, or expanding into a new place after absorbing the news outlet that had covered that place – that event may be recorded separately as an Other Change, with the corresponding LGA coverage amended to reflect it.

Review and monitoring

PIPI combines monthly monitoring with scheduled manual review of outlet records.

Each month, a monitoring process is manually initiated to check outlet website and sitemap activity, website availability, changes to Australian Business Register information, and changes to relevant industry association membership records. These checks are used to identify potential changes requiring further review.

Every outlet recorded as Open is also manually reviewed at least annually according to a schedule. During this review, the current stored fields for the outlet are reassessed and updated where necessary.

Eligibility is not routinely reassessed in full during every annual review unless there is evidence that circumstances may have materially changed. This means that eligibility criteria which are not represented as stored fields, including whether an outlet remains subject to relevant professional or ethical standards, are more vulnerable to becoming stale over time.

Outlets may be reviewed more frequently where recent activity or uncertainty warrants closer monitoring.

Internal validation and reconciliation

PIPI uses automated checks to identify particular internal inconsistencies and stale external information. These checks are intended to flag records for manual review rather than make automated corrections.

A versioning workbench checks Version IDs and dates to ensure that versions are sequenced correctly, that the earliest version corresponds to the earliest dates, and that the most recent version is recorded as Current. It also flags inconsistencies between the end of one Version and the start of the next.

Australian Business Register information is periodically checked against the ABR API to identify entity details that may have become outdated.

Where an automated check identifies a potential inconsistency, the record is reviewed manually and corrected where necessary.

Corrections and retrospective changes

PIPI distinguishes between corrections to existing records and previously unrecorded changes in the underlying news market.

Where an existing value is found to have been incorrect, the affected record is corrected retrospectively. If the incorrect value appears across several historical Versions, each affected Version is amended. Where the correct historical value cannot be established with sufficient confidence, the field may be left blank rather than retaining a value known to be wrong.

Where new evidence reveals that a substantive historical change occurred but was not previously recorded, that event is added to the historical record. This may create a new version that is already Superseded. For example, if an outlet is found to have changed operating entity in 2022 and that change had not previously been recorded, a historical change and version would be added for that period.

Corrections are backdated to reflect the period to which the corrected information applies. Errors reported by users or industry participants are handled through the same process as errors identified through PIPI’s own review and monitoring.

Where records are reassessed because the methodology itself has changed, they are identified separately in public documentation and the Methodology and Structure Changelog so users can distinguish changes arising from new evidence from changes arising from a revised methodological rule.