Right now, we’re getting a preview of what a world without newspapers — democracy’s traditional fourth estate — might look like. Local elections in NSW are taking place largely in a local news media vacuum, as the traditional regional chains owned by News Corp and Australian Community Media (ACM) shut up shop.
Not that long ago, there were 11 long-established daily newspapers serving each of the largest cities in regional NSW (that is, outside the Sydney-Newcastle-Wollongong metro area), buttressed with a string of tri-, bi- and weekly papers in the smaller towns.
Now, there are just three daily newspapers, while most of the papers on a lesser frequency have been shuttered and rolled into a single corporate digital offering, like News Corp’s Daily Telegraph.
Last week, ACM
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