Do we really need public funded journalism?

To put it mildly, Australia is light years away from ever emulating the USA in terms of social policy alone.

Third, given that Australia does possess many old and new media sources, individual media players should survive on their own merits in line with a free market for news.

With some highlighting the potential of the web to remove "the power of the gatekeepers to use (and abuse) their media to influence society" given that consumers can now "can access content that is often deeper and richer on niche sites", it is up to all media players to perform or perish.

As it stands today, notwithstanding one 2006 view that newspapers only "at their best" held "governments and companies to account", there are a number of reasons why more people look to alternative media sources for the news and opinion. Deloitte's Media Consumer Survey 2015 indicates that 44 per cent of Australians continue to rely on television for their news (just 9 per cent for print newspapers), although a reliance on online and social media sources increases greatly with younger generations.

In addition to the mainstream media failing to predict the success of Donald Trump and Brexit, including the various reasons why considerable social dissent now exists in many liberal democracies, one 2009 article reminds us how the mainstream media failed to provide quality information about the world's true financial affairs prior to the global financial crisis.

With the 2017 Digital News Report (Reuters Institute) finding that just 41 per cent of Brits agreed that the news media did a good job in helping them distinguish fact from fiction, with just 18 per cent approval for social media, my own decision to move my superannuation from shares to cash in 2008 was very much shaped by online information obtained via minor media players.

Notwithstanding the obvious need of any media source to provide information that is interesting and relevant, however, there are a number of arguments why public assistance is not desirable.

Graham Young, the founder and editor of OLO, who has seen his site's advertising revenue decline considerably from its peak of $120,000 per year in the face of greater competition and other reasons, strongly believes that a media source should survive on its own merit.

Young fears state backed publishers on the basis they are "immune from what the audience thinks when compared to commercial counterparts as they are "not dependent on audience response to pay their bills"; are often "out of line with the issues that the general public feels are important"; are "more costly in terms of productivity as operations such as OLO are far cheaper to produce public comment"; and make it much harder for private media organisations to survive, as was the case when the ABC's Drum took readers away from OLO.

So what measures can old and new Australian media sources adopt to ensure their survival?

Julie Coe, Deputy Editor of the Border Mail, in response to my questions, states that the regional newspaper remains important by producing "more local content than ever", including a recent homelessness series (May 27 to June 14) with the involved reporter nominated for a 2017 Kennedy award.

Despite the present difficulty newspapers have with regard to how to "monetise" higher online page viewing "into greater profit", Coe argues there are "no limits to online publishing" with its ability to report anything quickly and comprehensively at any time of the day to reach an audience long before the paper (with limited space) rolls off the press.