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How technology is transforming local news

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The news came as a depressing reminder of the realities of traditional TV news.

WIN News will cut jobs and no longer provide dedicated local TV bulletins to regions across Victoria and Queensland, the network announced on Monday.

BENDIGO ADVERTISER – MAY 24

The demise of local TV news has been coming former 20 years. As a 15 year old aspiring journalist, I did work experience with Win News in Ballarat. I remember the News Director telling me how tough it was for the industry. The advertising market had crashed and there was no sign of recovery.

Ahron as a 15 year old at Win News in Ballarat in 1997
Ahron as a 15 year old at Win News in Ballarat in 1997

At that time, Win News presented all of the Victorian news out of its Ballarat state headquarters. I remember watching the anchor Denis Walter present seven bulletins (six pre-recorded and one live) one after another. Denis is a great presenter and showed how much he cared about the local community.

But I wondered about how much you could really know about what’s going on in say, Mildura, when you live in Geelong. Regardless, they had journalists on the ground in those regional centres.

The other thing I noticed was how archaic the systems were. Not just in terms of technology. But all those people, all that great, for half an hour of news. Each reporter would cover three stories a day, and a cameraman/editor would rush along as well. Everyone hoping for a traveller (a story that could be shared across all bulletins for the state).

POPULATION SEACHANGE

But everyone was a slave to the fundamental flaws of TV News to date. It’s cumbersome, and the story is only as good as the pictures. The cost of operating satellites and transmission towers are enormous. I don’t know how they keep the lights on. Compare that to people using a device they already own on a mobile network they pay for to access video and written content they are interested in. We live in a world full of niches. How does a half hour bulletin produced from a different state even compete with that?

Fast forward to 2021, and the retreat of local TV news comes at a time when the population is doing the exact opposite. Net migration to Australia’s regions is at a record high.

Supercharged by the desire to get out of the cities thanks to COVID lockdowns, but also because of technology. With the NBN now up and running in more places, ideally there’s very little difference between working from home in the city, and working from home somewhere a bit further out.

Of course, public transport is still pretty slow in comparison with Europe or Asia, but if you don’t need to travel, many Australians are discovering that a tree change or sea change is a great way to improve their liveability, and cut their costs. After all, the mid 20th century saw a huge number of Europeans migrate to Australia to get away from living on top of each other and to the promise of a quarter acre block.

THE POWER OF LOCAL

I began my career at a local newspaper called the Southern Peninsula Local. It was the bedrock of the local community, and was the independent alternative to the News Corp owned Leader.

My editor, Zoe Sterling, was a brilliant mentor and a fabulous editor. She didn’t just care about the local community, she thoroughly enjoyed sticking it up to authority, whether that be the council or the local politicians. The Local (which people often confused with the pub), was owned by three people who listened to the community and created something unique and special. People were willing to pay 55 cents for it, and the advertisers loved to be involved.

Ahron as a newspaper journalist at The Local, aged 18. With his mother, Carmen, and Zoe Sterling (right)
Ahron as a newspaper journalist at The Local, aged 18. With his mother, Carmen, and Zoe Sterling (right)

Why? Because it owned the community. We all knew every aspect of how it worked and why, and who was in charge or what was to blame.

They eventually sold to a former metro newspaper man who came in, changed everything, dropped the local from The Local, and focused too much on Portsea real estate. Within a year the paper had folded.

Now Australians are turning their backs on cities and moving to the country.

The ABS said a net 43,000 Australians moved to regional areas from capital cities in 2020. That is more than double the number in 2019.

The ABS says a net loss of people from the capitals has been seen before, but the amount of people staying in the regions is new.

NEW EXPECTATIONS

And city people bring with them city expectations. There are already articles about how cosmopolitan voters moving to regional areas may in fact change voting patterns and reduce the conservative grip on regional seats. But that’s a story for another day.

My point is, when John and Linda from Malvern move to Woodend, they don’t just expect great coffee when they arrive, they also expect the same level of infrastructure and service.

Look at the US, where the decline of local news coverage is being blamed for the decline in standards in politics.

As the author illustrates, the laws of supply and demand aren’t working for local news. Even when viewers turned to news in record numbers last year to find out about lockdowns and health advice, the revenue for those local news outlets collapsed dramatically.

The pandemic has accelerated a crisis which has been a long time coming for local news.

The other problem is… the audience doesn’t really know much about what’s happening to local news. Even though in the industry, we can feel and see our colleagues losing their jobs.

In late 2018, 71 percent of Americans told the Pew Research Center that their local news media was doing very or somewhat well financially, even though only 14 percent said they had paid for local news in the past year.

PEW RESEARCH CENTRE

TECHNOLOGY IS ON OUR SIDE

But like every part of our economy, whenever an established presence starts to enter crisis territory, usually the solution isn’t far away.

My father lives in a regional area and I visit him when Melbourne isn’t in lockdown. Five years ago, he was glued to the local news on TV and had the local newspaper delivered every day. During COVID, the newspaper stopped printing, yet his appetite for local news didn’t stop with it.

He turned to his local community Facebook group. He loves it because if there’s a crash on the freeway, he’ll know about it long before a traffic reporter will read it out on the radio. If a pub is closing, he’ll know about it long before a journalist has picked up the story, passed it via the editor, gone out to cover it and compiled a piece for a newspaper that no longer publishes.

The fact is, local news is still happening, it’s just not happening through the three traditional ways – TV, radio and print.

Of course, just like when TV arrived, the movie business found a way to survive. They made fewer but bigger movies, with budgets that TV networks could never imagine. That worked until Netflix came along.

NOT A GOOD TIME FOR MIDDLE-MEN

Following the news from Win, I fear local TV networks across Australia will become nothing more than relay towers for US content and reality shows made in and for the sorts of demographics that buy from Coles in Sydney and Melbourne.

With the sudden rise of streaming services directly from Hollywood studios, how long until people realise that for $10, they can cut out the middleman.

When you find yourself in a situation where your structural costs to operate are so high that you have to pair back or cut the very thing that makes you unique, well, good luck with your business.

Facebook community groups and noticeboards have become the go to place for so many people right around the Australia. It’s a magnificent space of shared ideas and public feedback.

The future of local TV news won’t be just on the TV. It’ll come from within the community, using technology that is now in everybody’s hands. The divide between city and regional living and expectations are dramatically narrowing and the upsides are incredible.

The answer is doing it smarter, and putting local first.

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What will happen to the Louvre jewellery after the heist? There are two likely scenarios

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Andreas Schloenhardt, The University of Queensland

The spectacular heist of jewellery from the Louvre museum in Paris has many people wondering how a theft like this could occur in broad daylight and what might happen to the items that were stolen from the museum.

In a matter of minutes, four thieves were able to enter through a first-floor window, break into secure glass displays, and take nine items of jewellery of immeasurable value.

Although an alarm was set off and museum guards were nearby, the thieves were able to escape quickly, using motor bikes to get away. They dropped one stolen item, a diamond and emerald-encrusted royal crown that had belonged to Empress Eugénie, Napoleon III’s wife.

Their loot include jewellery from French imperial times – brooches, necklaces, earrings and a tiara. The French prosecutor’s office said the jewels were worth some 88 million euros (A$157 million), not including their historical value.

The speed and professionalism of the heist shows this was a well-planned crime, carried out by highly skilled perpetrators. That suggests they are linked to organised criminal groups.

Several media outlets reported a number of smaller thefts from French museums in recent weeks, including gold nuggets from the Paris Natural History Museum. There is no suggestion these thefts were linked to the Louvre heist.

What might happen to the loot?

The stolen jewellery includes well-known pieces that are easily recognisable. This will make it difficult, if not impossible, to sell them on the black market, even to well-heeled collectors and buyers.

This problem is well-known from other museum heists – such as the theft of the Canadian “Big Maple Leaf” giant gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum in 2017 or the famous heist of 13 masterpieces by Degas, Manet and Rembrandt from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. Those paintings have never been recovered.

An empty frame in the Boston museum where Rembrandt's 'The Storm on the Sea of Galilee' used to hang.
Two visitors to the Gardner Museum, Boston, observe where a Rembrandt painting used to hang, before it was stolen.
John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Instead, most experts believe one of two scenarios are more likely.

In the first, the jewellery would be broken down into smaller pieces. Diamonds and other gemstones may be taken out, altered and then offered for sale. Silver and gold may be used to manufacture other pieces or may be sold separately.

This scenario would make it easy to conceal the origin of the pieces and sell them openly or online. The combined value, however, would be significantly lower compared to leaving the pieces intact. It is thus doubtful the thieves targeted the specific jewellery for this purpose.

Scenario two would involve the thieves, or more likely the masterminds behind them, trying to sell the pieces back to the Louvre or trying to extort money from the French government for their return.

This may be done through brokers or other middlemen and may not happen for a while, until there is less public and media attention and the perpetrators feel sufficiently safe to contact – directly or indirectly – museum or state authorities.

Given the historical significance of the pieces coupled with the embarrassment caused by the heist, the Louvre and the French government would be keen to have the pieces returned as swiftly as possible and might be willing to negotiate, albeit secretively.

Much of this remains, however, speculation. Only a few days have passed since the heist occurred and many questions about the events, perpetrators and their motives remain unanswered. And just who may be behind this spectacular heist from France’s largest museum has everyone guessing.

Similarities with a Dresden museum heist

The Louvre theft brings to mind the jewellery heist at the Green Vault at the Zwinger Palace in Dresden, Germany, in 2019.

In this case, the perpetrators had closely examined the museum’s security system for many days and were able to enter the building without being caught on camera. They entered through a window on the first floor and within minutes stole 21 pieces of jewellery from several displays.

Unlike the Paris heist, the Dresden thieves entered at night and used brute force to damage the displays to take their loot.

An employee stands in the Jewel Room of the Historical Green Vault at the Zwinger Palace in Dresden
The Jewel Room of the historical Green Vault at the Zwinger Palace in Dresden, which was robbed in 2019.
Sebastian Kahnert/picture alliance via Getty Images

Some years after the robbery, German authorities were able to identify and arrest the thieves involved in the heist – all five were members of a notorious Berlin-based crime family.

The perpetrators have since been tried and convicted and are serving long jail times. Most of the jewellery was retrieved and returned – unaltered – to its famous home.

It is hoped the French authorities will soon be similarly successful.The Conversation

Andreas Schloenhardt, Professor of Criminal Law, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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An Amazon outage has rattled the internet. A computer scientist explains why the ‘cloud’ needs to change

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Jongkil Jay Jeong, The University of Melbourne

The world’s largest cloud computing platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), has experienced a major outage that has impacted thousands of organisations, including banks, financial software platforms such as Xero, and social media platforms such as Snapchat.

The outage began at roughly 6pm AEDT on Monday. It was caused by a malfunction at one of AWS’ data centres located in Northern Virginia in the United States. AWS says it has fixed the underlying issue but some internet users are still reporting service disruptions.

This incident highlights the vulnerabilities of relying so much on cloud computing – or “the cloud” as it’s often called. But there are ways to mitigate some of the risks.

Renting IT infrastructure

Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of diverse IT resources such as computing power, database storage, and applications over the internet. In simple terms, it’s renting (not owning) your own IT infrastructure.

Cloud computing came into prevalence with the dot com boom in the late 1990s, wherein digital tech companies started to deliver software over the internet. As companies such as Amazon matured in their own ability to offer what’s known as “software as a service” over the web, they started to offer others the ability to rent their virtual servers for a cost as well.

This was a lucrative value proposition. Cloud computing enables a pay-as-you-go model similar to a utility bill, rather than the huge upfront investment required to purchase, operate and manage your own data centre.

As a result, the latest statistics suggest more than 94% of all enterprises use cloud-based services in some form.

A market dominated by three companies

The global cloud market is dominated by three companies. AWS holds the largest share (roughly 30%). It’s followed by Microsoft Azure (about 20%) and Google Cloud Platform (about 13%).

All three service providers have had recent outages, significantly impacting digital service platforms. For example, in 2024, an issue with third-party software severely impacted Microsoft Azure, causing extensive operational failures for businesses globally.

Google Cloud Platform also experienced a major outage this year due to an internal misconfiguration.

Profound risks

The heavy reliance of the global internet on just a few major providers — AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud — creates profound risks for both businesses and everyday users.

First, this concentration forms a single point of failure. As seen in the latest AWS event, a simple configuration error in one central system can trigger a domino effect that instantly paralyses vast segments of the internet.

Second, these providers often impose vendor lock-in. Companies find it prohibitively difficult and expensive to switch platforms due to complex data architectures and excessively high fees charged for moving large volumes of data out of the cloud (data egress costs). This effectively traps customers, leaving them hostage to a single vendor’s terms.

Finally, the dominance of US-based cloud service providers introduces geopolitical and regulatory risks. Data stored in these massive systems is subject to US laws and government demands, which can complicate compliance with international data sovereignty regulations such as Australia’s Privacy Act.

Furthermore, these companies hold the power to censor or restrict access to services, giving them control over how firms operate.

The current best practice to mitigate these risks is to adopt a multi-cloud approach that enables you to decentralise. This involves running critical applications across multiple vendors to eliminate the single point of failure.

This approach can be complemented by what’s known as “edge computing”, wherein data storage and processing is moved away from large, central data centres, toward smaller, distributed nodes (such as local servers) that firms can control directly.

The combination of edge computing and a multi-cloud approach enhances resilience, improves speed, and helps companies meet strict data regulatory requirements while avoiding dependence on any single entity.

As the old saying goes, don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.The Conversation

Jongkil Jay Jeong, Senior Fellow, School of Computing and Information System, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Australia’s tech lobby wants deregulated ‘digital embassies’ for offshore clients

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Angus Dowell, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

When Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets US President Donald Trump on Monday, the visit is expected to seal major big tech investment deals on artificial intelligence (AI) and data centres.

In the lead-up, Atlassian cofounder Scott Farquhar (in his role as chair of the Tech Council of Australia) has been pitching a plan to make Australia a “regional AI hub”.

In July, Farquhar unveiled his vision in a speech at the National Press Club of Australia in which he held up Singapore and Estonia as proof that nimble regulation to attract foreign capital can turn nations into digital powerhouses.

But based on my research on the geopolitics of data-centre markets, these examples don’t quite hold up – and following them risks narrowing the debate about Australia’s tech future at a crucial moment.

However, as Australia advances its AI agenda, these examples can offer important lessons if read more carefully.

The Estonian data embassy

Farquhar proposes Australia should host “digital embassies”. These would be datacentres on Australian soil owned by foreign companies and exempt from Australian law. He cites as a precedent Estonia’s data embassy in Luxembourg.

Estonia’s case, though, is quite different from what Farquhar proposes. After a series of Russian cyberattacks in 2007, Estonia sought to guarantee the continuity of government if its domestic systems were ever disabled.

The result was a bilateral treaty with Luxembourg. The treaty allows encrypted copies of critical state registries – citizenship, land and business records – to be stored under Estonian jurisdiction abroad.

It was an act of defensive statecraft built on the Vienna Convention. This agreement grants diplomatic immunity to state functions but explicitly excludes commercial activity.

By contrast, the digital embassies proposed by Farquhar would cater both to states and to foreign corporates. It would allow them to operate under their own law but draw on Australian resources.

Farquhar himself concedes this would necessitate revising the Vienna Convention. But this would undermine six decades of established diplomatic practice and further destabilise an already fragile international system.

Without the diplomatic costume, Farquhar’s digital embassies look more like special economic zones. These are areas designed to attract investment through the strategic loosening of laws.

What really transformed Singapore

Farquhar’s reading of Singapore’s example similarly overlooks its deeper economic and political foundations.

Singapore is often romanticised by neoliberal thinkers as a haven of free enterprise. But Singapore’s success in using its natural strengths and foreign direct investment has rested on massive state-led investment and equity in infrastructure and firms.

Through its sovereign wealth funds, Temasek and GIC, Singapore retains dominant stakes in its airlines, banks, ports and telecoms. That same strategic state investment produced Changi Airport and the Jurong Industrial Estate, cornerstones of Singapore’s regional hub status.

Australia has taken a different path.

For example, recent Australian Tax Office data shows major technology firms – such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google – have secured billions in government contracts while contributing relatively little in tax.

In 2024, Microsoft reported $8.63 billion in Australian revenue, but only $118 million – about 1.4% – was payable in tax. Amazon Web Services earned $3.4 billion locally yet paid just $61 million after deductions reduced its taxable income to $204 million.

Much of this is explained by profit-shifting arrangements. Most revenue is booked in tax havens such as Ireland through inter-company “service fees”.

US tech companies have undoubtedly captured significant domestic value. However, local benefits, such as jobs, exportable digital industries and global competitiveness, remain largely hypothetical.

A cloudy memory

Australia has chased the dream of jurisdictional deregulation before.

More than a decade ago, Google and Microsoft told then prime minister Julia Gillard they could build a “Silicon Beach” here. This echoed Ireland’s “Silicon Docks” – a digital growth strategy of creating a deregulated haven for big tech.

Farquhar’s AI-hub vision appeals to the same logic. However, it has even thinner appreciation for the statecraft and public investment required.

Without it, Australia is unlikely to achieve AI hub status.

Some will argue Australia’s minerals and favorable relations with the US make it an inevitable frontier of data-centre expansion. Yet that position also gives Australia leverage to define sovereign growth on its own terms.

As economist Alison Pennington has asked, “is a shift from foreign-owned mining to foreign-owned data mining with even less control the best we can do?”

If Australia wants to build a resilient and credible AI sector, it won’t find its edge by joining the global race to the bottom – puncturing its territory with legal carve-outs and filling them with foreign-owned and unfettered direct investment.

Instead, Australia could build a model of sovereign control by investing in public infrastructure, skills and governance frameworks that secure national forms of ownership and accountability.The Conversation

Angus Dowell, PhD Candidate, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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