An increasing number of researchers are investigating the growth of independent, alternative, community, and radical media globally _ at a time when both the academy and practitioners are concerned about the changing nature of news, independent media outlets seems to be offering a return to a time when journalists were connected to their communities and less influenced by the powerful 'spin doctors' as is the trend in mainstream news rooms (Australian Press Council, 2006; Project for Excellence in Journalism USA 2006, 2007). As in the UK and the USA, we can also detect in Australia that local communities and organisations have been taking charge of their own forms of communication and delivering news and information to a growing audience. This paper is drawn from 10 years of research into the independent and community media sectors of the Australian media landscape, focusing specifically on definitions of journalism and the journalistic practises that operate within the independent newspaper and newsmagazine sector. This paper suggests a political economy model, proposed by McChesney (2003), for evaluating journalism and proposes a range of journalistic practises which mainstream news organisations need to adapt, at least in part, if the current rapid, and negative, trends in news content are to be addressed.