This is very commendable, but regional television networks need to be reminded they have closed or downgraded many of their newsrooms leading to the loss of jobs for journalists across Australia, the ones who they claim provide a voice for regional Australians.

For example, WIN TV has closed or downgraded many of its newsrooms across regional NSW with the news for those centres now produced and broadcast from Wollongong.

The Canberra television news is now produced and broadcast from Wollongong after WIN TV downgraded its Canberra newsroom in June 2013.

We lost a number of  good young journalists who were cutting their teeth in television news and had aspirations to work in metropolitan television newsrooms or overseas.

Now the ABC runs the only fully-functional newsroom in the national capital.

It’s sometimes embarrassing to watch the WIN TV Canberra news when, because of their new mid-afternoon deadline, they miss a major story or the presenter in Wollongong can’t even pronounce the name of a Canberra identity or a popular location. 

Meanwhile, Prime and Southern Cross have only paid lip service to the national capital for years with short news updates, very little content and missing many major local stories.

These actions have been repeated across regional Australia with the closure of newsrooms and the broadcasting of news bulletins or news updates from other regional centres hundreds of kilometres away and with no connections or affiliations to the centre for which they are supposed to serve.  

Before they start blaming anyone else for “silencing of voices in regional Australia,” the regional television networks need to look in the mirror at their own actions and the negative impacts they are having on the content and delivery of news, information and current affairs in regional Australia and the communities they claim to serve.

Darryl Johnston, Canberra ACT