Back-to-back conferences

It was a busy end to 2024 with three conferences in less than two weeks.

First up was an industry conference, Country Press Australia's annual gathering, this time in Torquay, Victoria. A day of interesting and international presentations on local journalism was followed by a dinner to celebrate the work of news producers in rural and regional Australia. It was an honour to help judge the awards.

The following week began with the Australia Aotearoa New Zealand Communication Association (AANZCA) conference, held in Melbourne at RMIT. I was the first speaker in the first break-out session, and presented the research my colleagues at Deakin University and I had conducted to explore dynastic family news businesses in Australia - that is, local news outlets that have been operated by the same family for more than 100 years. This paper fitted in with the conference's theme of pausing and reflecting, as it discussed the strategies these independent companies had adopted and adapted to remain sustainable in a changing media landscape.

Overlapping and then ending the week was the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA) conference, held in the impressive halls of Melbourne University. At this conference, I presented a joint study Professor Kristy Hess and I conducted that explored the cultural commodities local newsrooms are producing as alternative revenue streams for their newsrooms.

These conferences provided a valuable opportunity to get feedback on my research and hear about the exciting studies journalism and media scholars are working on.