A study of news media coverage of nine Victorian councils before and during the 2024 Victorian local government elections. 

Key findings

• There were high levels of coverage in local newspapers, but more than half of these stories were press releases prepared by council and republished by outlets with few or no changes.
• In these cases, stories were presented as news copy and the source of the material was not disclosed.
• The tendency to misuse public relations (PR) material fell considerably during the caretaker period imposed by the election while the overall number of stories increased, suggesting that the editorial interest in and capacity to produce independent coverage of council remains high.