Australia’s media establishment has a problem and it’s not just about declining revenues or shrinking newsrooms. It’s about a fundamental failure to understand where we live and what’s at stake in our own neighbourhood.

Bruce Dover

While authoritarian regimes weaponise information across the broader Indo-Pacific, Australian news outlets continue to treat our nearest neighbours as if they no longer existed. Certainly, the Middle East crisis and our daily obsession with Donald Trump’s latest pronouncements have added to our myopia, but have we forgotten where we live?

This isn’t merely an editorial blind spot. It’s a strategic failure that undermines Australia’s security, prosperity and democratic values at precisely the moment when the battle for hearts and minds in our region has never been more critical.

I have argued here previously that the essence of Australia’s media problem was that, “Asia was a place you flew over on the way to Europe or, additionally, Washington in our case.” Remarkably, little has changed in the four years since I made those observations. Australian newsrooms still exhibit a white man’s media mentality – privileging stories from London, New York, and Washington, while treating not just Jakarta, Bangkok, and Manila as peripheral afterthoughts, but the likes of Tokyo and New Delhi as well.

This editorial hierarchy isn’t accidental. It reflects deep-seated cultural assumptions about which stories matter and which audiences count. When major Australian outlets do cover the region, be it Chinese expansion, the AUKUS defence pact, climate change or the evolving geo-political world, our mainstream media typically recycle opinion from so-called eminent experts writing in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Washington Post, London Telegraph or on television, the BBC, CNN, or worse, Fox News. Predominantly Anglo-Saxon voices interpreting events through Western frameworks.

The result is coverage that’s not just inadequate, but actively misleading, filtering complex regional dynamics through inappropriate cultural lenses.

The digital age has only worsened this tendency. In newsrooms driven by click-through rates and social media engagement, editors naturally gravitate toward content that generates immediate buzz: celebrity gossip, viral footage from Western highways or disaster pornography. Hard-earned context about Indo-Pacific politics, social change, or climate impacts rarely clears the editorial bar for “high engagement".

Behind this editorial bias lies a more fundamental problem: the systematic dismantling of Australia’s capacity for serious regional journalism. Over the past decade, newsrooms have shuttered foreign bureaux across Asia and the Pacific, leaving skeleton crews of understaffed correspondents to cover vast, complex territories. Bureau chiefs and local stringers, who once served as crucial bridges between Australian audiences and Indo-Pacific realities, now struggle to file even a handful of stories each month. Worse still, they file stories which are blithely ignored and rejected by their editors, in favour of lightweight tabloid fodder from the West .

Peruse your daily newspaper or watch your favourite television news broadcast — even our ABC — and see, in any given week, how seldom issues in our own backyard are mentioned – let alone discussed with any nuance or depth. And yes, the ABC — once revered for its comprehensive coverage of the region— not least through its Radio Australia shortwave service, now diminishes its presence in our own backyard, to bolster bureaux in London and Washington.

This isn’t just about budget constraints, though those are real. It’s about a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of journalism in a democratic society. Effective Indo-Pacific coverage demands cultural fluency, trusted local networks and legal expertise to navigate press restrictions. When newsrooms lack these capabilities — or refuse to invest in developing them — they default to “safe” regions where English is primary and legal frameworks are familiar. The result is a vicious cycle of parochialism that reinforces itself with each editorial decision.

The consequences extend far beyond newsroom politics. When Australian audiences lack reliable information about their region, they develop skewed perceptions that undermine both policymaking and business decisions.

Readers are surprised when military coups rock Myanmar, underestimate the scale of Indonesian deforestation or miss the nuanced dynamics of Thailand’s pro-democracy movements. An Australia that “ignores” its neighbours in the region forfeits both strategic insight and economic opportunity in one of the world’s fastest-growing markets.

This media myopia isn’t merely embarrassing – it’s dangerous. While Australian newsrooms debate click-through rates, authoritarian regimes have quietly weaponised information across the Indo-Pacific. China has seized 80 new radio frequencies abandoned by the US, filling the void left by America’s retreat from international media engagement. In this new cold war of narratives, Australia’s silence amounts to surrender by default.

The stakes could not be higher. We’re witnessing what experts call “information anarchy” – a digital environment where truth and falsehood collide at the speed of light, where AI-powered disinformation campaigns blur the lines between reality and manipulation. Authoritarian actors understand that controlling information flows means controlling political outcomes. They’re investing billions in sophisticated “grey-zone attacks” designed to erode trust in democratic institutions across our region.

Meanwhile, many potential audiences — particularly younger demographics — have become disengaged from mainstream media channels, making them more susceptible to manipulation by hostile actors who understand how to exploit digital platforms and psychological vulnerabilities. When local media ecosystems collapse, authoritarianism fills the vacuum.

The digital revolution has transformed this landscape in ways that most Australian media executives barely comprehend. Generative AI tools now offer unprecedented capabilities for both democratic engagement and authoritarian manipulation. These technologies are “cultural artifacts,” shaped by the worldviews of their creators – many of whom operate far from Australia’s neighbourhood and may be actively hostile to our interests.

Australia’s media establishment has effectively created an editorial apartheid – a hierarchy of attention that privileges white, Western voices while marginalising the very neighbours whose futures are inextricably linked with our own. This isn’t just culturally offensive; it’s strategically suicidal.

Consider the absurdity: Australia shares maritime borders with Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country and largest Muslim-majority democracy. Yet most Australians know more about political developments in Wyoming than in Jakarta. We’re geographically positioned at the heart of the Indo-Pacific, the world’s most dynamic economic region, yet our media treats ASEAN summits as footnotes while breathlessly covering every twist in American politics.

This editorial blindness has real consequences for Australia’s “reputational security” – our ability to project influence and protect interests through soft power. When we fail to tell authentic stories about our region, others fill the narrative vacuum with their own agendas. When we don’t invest in understanding our neighbours, we can’t effectively engage with them as partners or competitors.

Australian media must reclaim its sense of regional belonging. Editors should reward long-form features that unpack Indo-Pacific issues with the same attention they give to European politics. Newsrooms must rehabilitate or establish bureaux in key regional capitals. Journalism schools need to re-emphasise language skills and cultural training as core professional competencies.

This transformation requires more than good intentions. It demands systematic investment in the infrastructure of understanding: cultural fluency, local networks and institutional relationships that take years to develop. It means swapping “fly over” shorthand for sustained, empathetic storytelling that helps Australian audiences grasp the full importance of their vibrant — and rapidly evolving — neighbours.

In an era where information is power and platforms are battlefields, Australia cannot afford to fight with yesterday’s assumptions about which stories matter.

More than ever, our media need to re-focus on the region, our closest neighbours and the nations, most integral to our future. It’s our geography, our future and our responsibility. Our media — old and new — need to re-engage with the Indo-Pacific. The question is whether we can afford not to – and whether we’ll act before it’s too late.

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/06/australias-media-myopia/

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