Don't be a 'forgotten Australian' - support the local news you trust

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1) Clearly, you have excellent taste. Never in doubt. Love your work.

b) How good are short lists? I know, right? The best!

iii) Thank you for your support.

Whether you are reading this at one of Australian Community Media's local websites or in our daily free newsletter, your interest in exploring news and views from the bits of this majestic-but-alarmingly-moist-free land that aren't Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane is important to us.

In a jiffy, we will present for your consideration some compelling journalism and incisive commentary that we're pretty proud of this week - storytelling that digs a bit deeper, that asks a bit more, that goes beyond the written word.

This is work that would not be possible without you. By reading - and *cough* signing up as a subscriber at one of our network's many fine and welcoming internet establishments - you are helping us tell the stories you won't find anywhere else and produce the journalism that communities around regional Australia depend on to keep them informed and connected.

Antony Catalano, our new co-owner here at ACM, has made some public comments this past week about the future of regional media.

The man has at least 115 million reasons to care.

At a media industry conference in Sydney on Thursday he said the federal government should relax ownership rules to allow consolidation between regional print and radio operators and struggling TV broadcasters like Prime Media and WIN.

He happily name-checked Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader Michael McCormack as sympathetic to the challenges - as you would hope and expect a former editor of Wagga Wagga's Daily Advertiser to be.

And he even appeared to invoke a ScoMo-ism, warning that, without strong support for the trusted local media that gives them a voice, regional Australians risk becoming "the forgotten Australians".

Perhaps Mr Catalano's most emphatic statement about his ambitions for the future of regional media came on Friday in the form of a deal with the owners of the Bendigo Weekly to merge their free newspaper into ACM's paid daily, the Bendigo Advertiser.

"It's a mature, sensible way to protect these businesses and an example of the kind of decision-making that should go on in regional media," he said.

The Bendigo merger is Mr Catalano's first strategic move since taking control of ACM on July 1. Partnering with Alex Waislitz and his ASX-listed Thorney Investment Group, the ex-Fairfax Media executive and Domain CEO bought the former Fairfax regional publishing division from Nine Entertainment for $115million following last year's Nine-Fairfax merger.

"We've acted quickly and decisively because we know that Bendigo's two most trusted sources of local news and advertising will be much stronger together," he said.

Bendigo and the Bendigo Advertiser go way back, of course. The Addy, as the locals fondly call it, was founded on the goldfields 166 years ago. Some 500 copies of the first edition of the single-sheet "Bendigo Advertiser and Sandhurst Commercial Courier" were printed on December 9, 1853.

Over the past year the Addy and 40 other ACM news sites around the country have introduced digital subscriptions and asked online readers to support their local news source by becoming subscribers.

At a time when international digital platforms like Google and Facebook are hoovering up the advertising dollars that might otherwise be helping pay for Australian journalism, the response of regional audiences signing up as subscribers for the news they can trust online has been encouraging.

And it's the support of our growing army of digital subscribers and long-standing newspaper-buyers that has helped us bring you two of this week's most compelling pieces of storytelling by the ACM editorial team.

Shut-up-and-take-my-money-worthy storytelling, we reckon.

First, cartoonist David Pope's deeply felt, hauntingly drawn comment on the sentiment at the heart of Friday's Climate Strike.

No. Words. Required.

The full gallery of David Pope's daily cartoons is here.

Yes, you have to be a Canberra Times digital subscriber to see David's cartoons. But membership has many privileges, including a nightly email revealing David's unique take on the day's events before the cartoon is published in the newspaper.

And our second highlight of the week, journalist Carla Hildebrandt's true-crime podcast, Annette: Cold Case Unlocked, about a 40-year mystery and a forgotten victim, Western Australian teenager Annette Deverell, whose family deserves the truth.

The first episode of the four-part series, The Skeleton in the Forest, was played almost 10,000 times in its first week and reached No. 1 in Apple Podcast's Australian Top Charts for news content.

The second episode, Who Was Annette Deverell?, dropped this week, and delves deeper into the suspicions and secrets of Annette and her former high school friends in their small seaside town.

For more about Annette, and to listen to episodes 1 and 2, click here.

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