LINA MEDIA RELEASE
Tensions between tech platforms, government and the news industry have exposed risks to news publications if they remain too reliant on third-party platform priorities and algorithms. Local and independent publishers must build direct relationships with readers and newsletters are providing a useful way for audiences to get information relevant to their lives direct to their email inboxes.
To assist, the Local and Independent News Association (LINA) has launched a free Newsletter Growth Kit, encouraging newsrooms to grow their audiences beyond social media.
“The danger with Facebook is if they decide to pull the plug on me, I’m screwed … I need to build my own networks that I control,” said Susanna Freymark, editor of NSW local publication IndyNR.
LINA’s 2025 annual survey report found 74% of local news publishers produced a newsletter.
The Newsletter Growth Kit includes eight practical chapters for newsrooms, guiding publishers through the end-to-end process of launching and growing a newsletter, from templates and sign-up forms to analytics, audience strategy and monetisation.
LINA’s Executive Director Claire Stuchbery said the resource was developed in response to growing concern among member newsrooms about platform dependence.
“We created this kit so newsrooms can learn from others who have already done the work,” Stuchbery said.
“Like most of LINA services, we’re trying to help journalists and publishers at independent news publications draw on the sorts of shared knowledge and resources that normally only larger media organisations can provide internally.”
LINA is a not-for-profit industry body representing over 170 local and independent newsrooms across Australia.
Ashlynne McGhee from LINA member newsroom The Conversation said “people are reading news either laying in bed or while having their coffee in the morning… if we want to be in their diet, then we’ve got to send our newsletter to be there then”.
The launch of this kit follows years of disruption between platforms and publishers. While the News Media Bargaining Code was introduced in 2021 to return some advertising revenue to newsrooms, Meta’s temporary removal of Australian news highlighted the fragility of platform access.
The Australian government is attempting to address this through the News Bargaining Incentive, now in design. But for smaller, independent publishers in particular, these shifts have reinforced the need to diversity distribution and build direct, owned ways to reach readers.
