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Aust'n newspaper readership sinks to all-time low

Xinhua, August 18, 2016 Adjust font size:

Newspaper readership in Australia is at an all-time low, according to a new study released on Thursday.

The data, published by the New York Times, revealed that just seven newspapers were bought daily in Australia per 100 people, down 45 percent since 2011.

The New York Times data found that Japan leads the way in newspaper readership with 34 newspapers bought in the country per 100 people while the United Kingdom registered at 16, Canada 14 and the United States 12 per 100 people.

Fairfax Media has contemplated discontinuing printing its two major mastheads The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald after posting a 680 million US dollar loss in financial year 2015-2016.

Eric Beecher, a former editor at The Sydney Morning Herald and News Corporation, said trouble at Fairfax "constitutes a crisis in civic journalism in our country, because the resources will no longer be there."

"The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald have always done the heavy lifting of civic journalism and investigative journalism."

Despite the latest data, News Corporation CEO Robert Thomson said that print media would continue to play a part in multi-platform publishing.

"We have to confidently exert the values of all our platforms and our people," Thomson told staff at Sydney's Daily Telegraph in comments published on Thursday.

"There is a vast cauldron of crap content out there. It's ladled out liberally by distributors and recyclists who are not environmentally sound but are the news equivalent of strip miners.

"That is why we have to work so hard to protect our intellectual property and assert... our values and the primacy of acts and creation.

"Aussie sensibility is a definite advantage in a time of challenge."

Enhanced Media Metrics Australia data released on Thursday revealed that News Corp publications reach 16.2 million Australians, or 89 percent of the population, every month. Endit