Australian Rural & Regional News is the first platform featuring independent news from and for the whole of rural and regional Australia.
There are many dedicated independent journalists and publishers based outside the Australian capitals reporting on the news from their local area and others that focus on rural and regional news.
Some independent news publications are long-established mastheads that have been the trusted source of news for their community for generations and are now in print and online. Some older independents now produce only digital editions. Other newer independents from the digital age have always been online only.
Since its inception on 26 January 2021, Australian Rural & Regional News has been proud to showcase a vast array of stories contributed by our esteemed affiliates from across much of Australia. We have continued to broaden our reach with other publishers, journalists and commentators contributing to the platform.
Australian Rural & Regional News also features relevant news and media releases from clubs, societies and organisations, companies and businesses, government bodies, local councils, and State and Federal Ministers and Members of Parliament. The source of these items is always indicated so that our readers can know whose words they are.
Australian Rural & Regional News is a growing newsroom, separate from the mainstream media, covering Australia outside the capital cities.
Contributing publishers share selected stories with Australian Rural & Regional News, which can be shared with other contributors in turn. Content published on Australian Rural & Regional News remains the property of the copyright holder and Australian Rural & Regional News endeavours to properly attribute all content.
We continue to practise the philosophy that developed over 2021, our first year of operation, of seeking to present a range of views from credible or otherwise significant sources, with a view to helping our readers become fully informed and able to exercise their own judgement.
2026
In 2026, our sixth year of operation, we are ready to scale up and branch out.
We want our news platform to have more stories and in more forms, words, images, audio and video, whichever best tells the story. Australian Rural & Regional News is uniquely placed to amplify the voice of rural and regional Australia.
In 2026 we’ll be launching the Australian Rural & Regional News podcast where we’ll invite special guests to join us to discuss important and tricky issues.
We want more readers and we want them to come directly to Australian Rural & Regional News for its singular collection of news, articles and commentary that paints a picture of Australia outside the capital cities and raises the issues relevant to rural and regional people.
We want readers to bookmark ARR.News and side-step the search engines with their arbitrary algorithms, faulty AI summaries and AI mode that are actively damaging, even cannibalising the news and publishing industries around the world. Search engines have a great opportunity to be a possibly unparalleled index or digest, and in my view that is what they should endeavour to be, not an encyclopaedia.
We want more contributors. I’ll be on the road for a good part of this year, visiting publishers, show societies, picnic race committees and other community groups and inviting them to contribute. We are opening up our contributor base to selected public relations people to submit relevant newsworthy, accurate and well-written stories directly to Australian Rural & Regional News.
If you have purely
promotional material to share on
Australian Rural & Regional News, we can spread the word by you becoming a valued and lauded
sponsor. Rates for sponsored pieces are reasonable and there is scope for a range of images with no arbitrary word limits. Find out more in our
media kit.
Our
Events Calendar will be filling out with even more shows and picnic races, and there’s room for
markets, festivals and bespoke events. We can put up a detailed listing and sell tickets to your event too, for a competitive price. We are the only platform gathering information about all the agricultural shows across Australia in one place and posting
show stories on a news platform.
2026 will be an important year for Australian Rural & Regional News and for independent news everywhere.
Welcome support
Between 2022 and 2025,
Australian Rural & Regional News was pleased to have received support from Google as part of the
Google News Initiative which supports “digital transformation” projects. The projects completed have enabled us to develop the platform far more speedily than we otherwise may have done and helped prepare us to scale up.
In 2022,
Australian Rural & Regional News was one of the
450 newsrooms from 52 countries globally that received funding as part of Google’s
News Equity Fund, an initiative to support news organisations that primarily serve underrepresented audiences.
Between 2022 and 2024,
Australian Rural & Regional News received support from the
Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund for reviews of
of a wide range of books by Australian writers, many of which are listed in the
ARR.News Store. I thank the
Copyright Agency for its support of ARR.News and Australian writers.
Membership
Australian Rural & Regional News is very pleased to be one of the early members of the
Local & Independent News Association (LINA), which in only a few years has grown to be a valuable advocate for a great many local and independent news providers in Australia. Well done LINA team and thank you for your ongoing practical assistance and support.
I look forward very much to continuing to build Australian Rural & Regional News into a significant platform for independent news from across rural and regional Australia.
Fiona Fox
Managing Editor
