National Radio News turns 25!

This week community radio's daily news service, National Radio News (NRN), celebrates 25 years of delivering community-produced and focused news. 

NRN has had it's biggest year yet as it covered its second Federal Budget and its first Federal Election, which saw NRN's political correspondent Amanda joining major party candidates on their campaign buses. Most notedly, she was able to ask the then Prime Minister Scott Morrison about his government's potential support of the Uluru Statement from the Heart and an Indigenous Voice to parliament in the constitution. He was obviously surprised by the question and declared he would not as it was not his government's policy. This question and answer made headlines in other media outlets in the mainstream media. She was also the only reporter on the Barnaby Joyce campaign bus and was able to speak to him at length about issues related not only to his leadership of the National Party, but also policies that directly affect communities.

It was only two years ago that NRN decided to establish the Canberra bureau and added Amanda to the fold. This decision has put community radio stations on the front foot, delivering the news firsthand from our nations' capital directly to communities across the country through an unbiased lens. It has also given communities a voice to question our political leaders, and to ask the questions that are important and resonate with community groups across the country. The Canberra bureau has also impacted other programs on community radio, with Amanda regularly contributing to The Wire, appearing on programs such as Fourth Estate produced by 2SER, and creating her own show, Bubble Pop.

Amanda is clearly building a name for herself. She was chosen to co-host The Judith Neilson Institute weekly podcast Inside the Media Scrum during the 2022 Federal Election. She hosted the series with veteran journalist Malcolm Farr, who has covered every election since 1993 and has written on federal politics for publications across the media landscape including The Australian, news.com.au, Crikey, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and more, to analyse the media and the way they covered the election that week. Amanda provided her perspective as a journalist travelling with the candidates.

The NRN team includes employed, experienced reporters, but the service also gives student journalists an opportunity to gain valuable experience as they learn about producing news bulletins in a live broadcast environment, working to tight deadlines to deliver their news service to stations across the country.

We believe it is vital to have a strong, dedicated and independent news service for the community radio sector so that our stations can provide their community with up-to-date, professional, national news. It compliments the creation of stations' own localized news services, with support for creating stories, and implementing infrastructure that allows stations to create their own news bulletins and share stories within the sector. 

National Radio News is produced in partnership between the CBAA and Charles Sturt University, broadcast from the 2MCE studios in Bathurst and connected to the myriad of Community Radio Newsrooms across Australia, and colleagues internationally. The service provides timely, relevant News from across the country and across the world, with a dedication to being a counterpoint to the commercial news services. Built on the community broadcasting sector’s principles of democracy, independence and access, NRN has no commercial ties or political agenda, and covers stories often overlooked by commercial services.

NRN bulletins are broadcast seven days a week from 6:00am to 7:00pm on weekdays 6:00am to 12:00pm on weekends and some public holidays. Each week, NRN produces 84 bulletins and can be heard around Australia on more than 95 community radio stations, from Kununurra, across the Top End and down to Tasmania.

It's hard to believe it's only been 25 years that NRN have been making news content for community radio and we look forward to seeing what the next 25 years brings. 

CRN subscribers can hear a special episode of Fourth Estate this Monday 18 July at 13:04 AEST celebrating the 25-year anniversary of National Radio News. 

Interested in getting NRN? Contact CRN here.