Lismore has lost its local printed newspaper once again, with the Lismore City News printing its final edition on Saturday.

This will be the second time that Lismore will be without a printed newspaper following the closure of the 144-year-old Northern Star on Saturday, June 27 2020.

Outside of the capital and major regional cities, where the population can sustain a printed newspaper, regional areas throughout Australia are being forced to transition onto digital platforms. There were not enough customers who paid $2.20 a week for a physical printed newspaper, so the costs of printing outweighed the revenue derived.

This is how and why the Lismore App was started in November 2017. The future of the printed newspaper was in question, with sales declining not only in Australian but around the world.

Once the Northern Star closed and we moved through the global pandemic, the Federal Government announced a $50 million Public Interest News Gathering Fund. This fund was aimed at helping regional communities restart or start community newspapers that had stopped printing during the Covid-19 years.

This fund was misguided. It was totally aimed at the printed newspaper only and did not support digital startups, which were the future of public interest journalism in regional Australia. It also favoured larger media companies like Australian Community Media (ACM) or Nine Entertainment.

Then, in August 2022, the Albanese Government announced a $15 million Regional and Local Newspaper Publishers Program to support printed newspapers because of an increase in printing costs. Again, there was no investment in to the development of digital newspapers, the future of local journalism in regional Australia.

Lismore City News published its first edition in November 2021 and if it weren't for the government grants, it would have likely stopped printing earlier.

There is the current Meta funding debate that larger media companies say is having an effect on local journalism and jobs.

Meta, the owners of Facebook, and Google agreed deals with the Federal Government through the News Bargaining Code that helped fund larger media companies and some regional operators to operate their media rooms. This included radio and TV as well as printed newspapers. The number bandied about was $200 million. It was hard to get an exact figure due to confidentiality clauses.

Once again, the large media companies received the bulk of the money, the small regional operators received a smaller slice of the pie, and independent operators received nothing.

The federal government needs to wake up and encourage regional operators to start their own digital newspapers. Put it back in the hands of the people who live in the community. The people who have relationships in town, people whose children go to school in town. The days of the large media companies owning and running hyper-local regional newspapers are over. The Northern Star was a great Lismore newspaper because it was owned by local owners before Murdoch got hold of it.

The Lismore City News's decision not to publish its newspaper is not a tragedy; it was expected. The people suffering are the journalists who have just lost their jobs. Editor Cathy Adams and journalist Mitch Craig are nice and decent people caught up in a fast-changing media landscape.

If local news outlets, like the Lismore App, are to survive, they need the support of the community first and foremost. This means local businesses buying advertising space. Local supporting locals where the profits stay in town. That also allows enough money to be spent on hiring another journalist, which means better coverage of local news.

The federal and state governments can play their part here too. They spend tens of millions of dollars on advertising each year through advertising agencies based in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane. Those agencies don't know how regional news is changing so they buy the traditional and easy platforms, which is print (although not enough), radio and TV. The independent media operators receive very little advertising dollars. In fact, the Lismore App has received zero advertising dollars from the federal government.

The Lismore App reaches an average of 33,000 readers each month; how is that not worthy of an anti-vaping campaign ad or a Tax Cut ad?

The Lismore App survived its first three years and is now an established digital daily newspaper in the Lismore and Northern Rivers communities. After seven years of bringing you breaking news, celebrating local heroes, highlighting community news, covering sports and covering every aspect of the 2022 flood and the recovery so far, we are here for the future.

Our hope is that the federal and state governments see the digital future through local ownership and give potential owners the incentives and support they deserve.