Local life matters, and people should not have to rely only on social feeds to understand the place they call home.
There is a lot of noise in social media. Strong algorithms decide what people see, what gets rewarded and what gets missed. We think local news should work differently.
We are building a sustainable local media and news operation that puts real people back into the real world, paying attention to what is happening around them and sharing useful local information in a simple, accessible way.
That might be a council decision, a road closure, a development application, a new business, an open home, a school achievement, a local event, a sports result, a community fundraiser or someone doing something good.
There is no story too small if it matters to locals.
Our preference is to build in underserved regional areas, where communities often have fewer local news options but still need reliable local information.
The aim is to keep essential local news freely available while building a commercial model that pays people properly, supports local contributors and gives each community a stronger sense of what is happening around it.
Bottom line: More useful local info. Less algorithm noise. Real people, real places, real life.
Worthview is a Queensland company founded in 2020 and based in South East Queensland. We publish six local mastheads. The Gold Coast Minute, The Redland City Minute, The Toowoomba Minute, The Mackay Minute, The Townsville Times and Rockhampton News.
We are a small, real team. A managing director and editor, an editorial and digital operations lead, paid journalists and content contributors based in the communities we cover, and publishing, partnerships and administration support. Our contributors are paid for their work, properly briefed, and supported by structured templates, training, and editorial review.
We built our own publishing technology, data and advertising systems in-house, which keeps our costs low and our independence intact.
That technology is what lets a small team deliver consistent, quality coverage across six markets, and it is the foundation we use to launch coverage in new communities.
We are members of the communities we serve. Our contributors live where they report, our partnerships are with local organisations, and our advertisers are often local businesses.
Worthview is independent and funded by the communities and businesses we serve. No platform dependence, no outside owners.
Free where it matters: Our weekly newsletters are completely free, and always have been. Every special edition we have ever sent has been free too. New articles are free to read on our websites when published, with full access moving behind reader support after 24 to 48 hours.
Local advertising: Local and regional businesses advertise across our websites and newsletters, including display placements, sponsored features and category-exclusive packages. This is our main revenue source and we are proud of it. Local advertising keeps local money in local media.
Sponsorships: Organisations can sponsor useful sections of our coverage, such as weather, property, events or sport. Sponsored and paid content is always clearly labelled so readers can tell the difference at a glance.
Reader support: Paid subscribers get full access to our article archives and help fund more local coverage for everyone. The weekly newsletter stays free for the whole community either way.
Data and technology: We build our own publishing, audience and advertising technology, and we offer digital services and licensing, including Viewstock, our visual content library. This keeps our costs low and our independence intact.
The rules: Advertisers and sponsors have no say in our journalism, and organisations seeking promotion are directed to our clearly labelled paid options, never to free editorial. Our editorial decisions are made by our team, based on what matters to locals.
Bottom line: Fresh local news free for everyone, funded by local businesses and the readers who choose to back it.
AI is changing how information is gathered, organised and shared. Used badly, it can create noise, errors and fake local knowledge. Used carefully, it can help small local teams do more useful work.
Worthview uses AI to support local news, media and content, not replace it.
Why it matters: Our goal is to put more real people into the real world, paying attention to what is happening locally. AI helps us reduce repetitive production work so our team can spend more time talking to people, checking information, attending events, building local tools and sharing useful news.
What AI may help us do: We may use AI to 👇
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summarise public documents, council papers and development applications
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organise notes, interview transcripts and public information
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draft headlines, newsletter subject lines, social posts and formatting options in line with the designed content flow for better reader experiences
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analyse audience trends, subscriber growth and campaign performance
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support the development and maintenance of the local utility tools we provide for our readers
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assist with translation, accessibility, alt text and plain-English summaries
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help build, test and maintain digital workflows and internal tools
What AI does not do: AI does not replace our responsibility for what we publish.
We do not use AI as a substitute for critical human tasks such as picking up the phone to speak to someone, locally focused or content-specific judgment, community knowledge, human content creation, reporting, or editorial accountability.
We do not knowingly publish AI-generated claims as fact without human review. We do not use AI-generated material in a way that misleads readers about real events, people or places.
Human responsibility: To the best of our ability, given that we operate in such a lean way as we scale, a person remains responsible for editorial direction, decisions, corrections, sponsored content labels and final publication.
When AI helps us process or produce information, we aim to use it carefully, check important details and keep readers’ trust at the centre of the work.
The bottom line: We use technology to reduce the busywork, so our people can spend more time making the local news and tools that thousands of you read and use every day.
Accuracy: We work to get things right before we publish. Our team uses structured editorial templates, style guides and review processes, and we name and link our sources wherever possible, including official documents, data and the organisations we report on. Where information comes from a single source, we treat it with appropriate care.
Corrections: No publisher gets everything right, and we do not pretend otherwise. When we get something wrong, we correct it quickly and visibly, with the correction noted on the article. Anyone can request a correction through the contact page of any of our mastheads, and every request is reviewed.
Independence: Our journalism is not for sale. Sponsored and paid content is clearly labelled, commercial relationships are disclosed, and advertisers have no influence over editorial decisions.
Fairness: We give the subjects of our reporting a fair opportunity to respond, and we report on our communities as members of them.
Attribution: We credit the work of others. Where our reporting draws on another outlet's journalism or on supplied material, we say so.
Community voice: Locals can submit stories, photos and tips through every masthead. Community contributions are edited and reviewed to the same standards as our own work.
Bottom line: Clear sourcing, honest labels, and fast, visible corrections when we fall short.
