Journalists in Australia

If you want press coverage in Australia, you need Australian journalists on your list and a story that matters to their readers. The JournalistHunt database has 4,000+ journalists in Australia, from national mastheads and broadcasters to state papers and trade titles. This guide covers how Australian media is organized, how to build a list that fits your story, and how to pitch it so you get a reply. The advice works whether you use a database or build your list by hand.

How many journalists are in Australia?

There are 4,000+ journalists in Australia in the JournalistHunt database as of September 2026. That's out of 200,000+ journalists worldwide. Australia is a smaller media market than the United States or the United Kingdom, and that changes how you should pitch it. With fewer outlets and fewer reporters on each beat, every contact counts more.

Sydney is the biggest hub we can count. 1,000+ journalists in the database list Sydney as their location. A sample of Australian profiles pulled in September 2026 also shows journalists in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, listed at outlets such as Sky News Australia, 7News, the ABC, Australian Associated Press (AAP), Crikey, the Brisbane Times and The Sunday Age. The ABC's news division alone has 500+ journalists in the database.

So this isn't only a Sydney list. It reaches the state capitals, the public broadcaster, the newswire and the independents, which is what you need if your story has a local angle outside New South Wales.

How Australian media is organized

Australian media is concentrated. A handful of companies own most of the big names, and knowing who owns what stops you from pitching the same story to the same newsroom twice.

The big commercial groups

• News Corp Australia publishes The Australian, the national broadsheet, plus the big state tabloids: The Daily Telegraph in Sydney, the Herald Sun in Melbourne, The Courier-Mail in Brisbane and The Advertiser in Adelaide. It also runs news.com.au and Sky News Australia.
• Nine owns the Nine Network, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian Financial Review, the Brisbane Times and WAtoday.
• Southern Cross Media Group owns the Seven Network and The West Australian. It took them on when it merged with Seven West Media in January 2026, so older media lists may still show the old company name.

Public broadcasters

The ABC and SBS are publicly funded. The ABC doesn't carry advertising, and its reporters are careful about anything that looks like a product plug. If you pitch the ABC, lead with the public-interest angle: what your story means for people, not what your product does.

Independents and the newswire

Guardian Australia, Crikey, The Conversation and The Saturday Paper sit outside the big groups and often run stories the majors pass on. AAP is the national newswire. A story that AAP runs can be picked up by many outlets at once, which makes wire reporters some of the most valuable contacts on a small list.

Trade and niche press

For most small brands, trade press is where coverage starts. Mumbrella, AdNews and B&T cover marketing and media. SmartCompany and Startup Daily cover small business and startups. iTnews covers enterprise technology, Inside Retail covers retail, and Broadsheet covers food, culture and city life. These outlets have smaller audiences, but the readers are the exact people you want, and the journalists are easier to reach.

National, state or trade: where should you pitch first?

Australia's news is more state-based than outsiders expect. Each capital city has its own daily paper, its own TV news bulletins and its own talk radio. A story about a Melbourne business belongs with Melbourne reporters first, not with a national desk in Sydney.

Use this rule of thumb:

• National outlets want stories that matter in every state: national data, federal policy, big funding rounds, or a trend you can prove with numbers.
• State and city outlets want a local person, a local place or a local number. For a Brisbane editor, "Brisbane cafe owner" beats "Australian business owner" every time.
• Trade outlets want news that's useful to their industry: launches, hires, partnerships, results and how-to insight.

Most small campaigns do best by starting with trade and city outlets, then taking the results to national reporters. A national journalist is more likely to bite once your story has already run somewhere credible.

One thing to watch: sister mastheads share stories. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age are both owned by Nine and run some of the same articles, so treat them as one pitch, not two. The News Corp state papers share work across their network too.

Who to pitch: reporters, editors, freelancers and producers

The job title tells you what a person can do with your story.

• Reporters write the stories. If a reporter covers your beat, they're your first contact.
• Editors decide what runs. At a small trade title the editor is often the only person to pitch. At a big masthead, go to the section editor only when you can't find the right reporter.
• Freelancers write for several outlets at once, so one good relationship can lead to coverage in more than one place. Freelance is the largest single employer group in the database worldwide, with 36,000+ journalists, and Australia has plenty of them writing for food, travel and lifestyle titles.
• Producers and presenters book guests for TV, radio and podcasts. They don't want a press release. They want a person who can talk well, on a topic their audience cares about, at short notice.

Radio matters more in Australia than many overseas PR people assume. Every capital has talk stations that fill hours of airtime each day, and a good local guest is always welcome.

Build your Australian media list by beat

Country is only the first filter. A list of every journalist in Australia is about as useful as a phone book. What you need is the short list of people who cover your topic. Start with the beat, then narrow to Australia.

• Business. Business journalists cover company news, small business, retail and the economy. In Australia, The Australian Financial Review and the business desks of the metro papers lead this beat.
• Technology. Technology journalists cover startups, software, gadgets and cybersecurity. Australian tech reporters want to know if your product is available locally and who's using it here.
• Finance. Finance journalists write about property, interest rates, investing and superannuation, which is Australia's retirement savings system. Learn the local terms before you pitch this beat.
• Health. Health journalists cover medical research, public health, wellness and the health system. Be careful with claims. Reporters will ask for evidence, and Australia has strict rules on advertising health products.
• Lifestyle. Lifestyle journalists cover food, travel, fashion, home and parenting. This is the beat for consumer brands, and it runs on seasons, so remember that Australia's are flipped.

Those beat lists cover journalists in every country. Inside the database you can combine a beat with the Australia filter to see only the local people.

Before you add anyone to your list, read two or three of their recent stories. Beats change, people move outlets, and any dataset can be out of date. A quick check tells you whether they still cover your topic, and it gives you something real to mention in your pitch.

How to write a pitch an Australian journalist will answer

Lead with the Australian angle

The first question every Australian editor asks is "why does this matter here?" Answer it in your subject line and your first sentence. Good local angles include Australian customers, an Australian launch date, local pricing, a local spokesperson, or data broken out for Australia or for a single state.

If you don't have a local angle, build one before you pitch. Survey your Australian users. Pull your Australian sales figures. Find a customer in Perth or Hobart who'll talk to a reporter. A global press release with "Australia" pasted into the headline won't get you covered.

Write it the Australian way

• Use Australian spelling: "colour", "organise", "centre".
• Quote prices in Australian dollars, and say so.
• Use metric units and day-month-year dates.
• Swap US references for local ones. Nobody in Sydney plans around Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July.

Keep it short and plain

Hype doesn't travel well. Skip words like "revolutionary" and "world-leading". Say what happened, why it matters to their readers, and what you can offer: an interview, data, images or a customer to speak to. Put the whole pitch in the email body, not in an attachment. Four or five short paragraphs is plenty.

Offer an exclusive when it counts

In a small market, exclusives carry weight. If your story is strong, offer it to one outlet first and give them a clear deadline to say yes or no. If they pass, move to the next. Don't offer the same "exclusive" to two outlets at once. Newsrooms talk, and in a market this size you'll run into the same people again.

Follow up once

One polite follow-up after a few working days is fine. More than that does damage. If there's still no reply, take it as a no and come back when you have a new story.

Timing: time zones and the Australian news calendar

Time zones

Australia runs well ahead of North America and Europe, and it isn't one time zone. Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra share a clock. Brisbane matches them in winter but doesn't use daylight saving. Adelaide is half an hour behind Sydney. Perth is two hours behind, or three when the east coast is on daylight saving.

Sydney is 14 to 16 hours ahead of New York, depending on the time of year, and 9 to 11 hours ahead of London. An email sent at 10 am in New York lands in the middle of the night in Sydney. Schedule your send instead. Late afternoon in New York is early the next morning in Sydney. From London, a late-evening send reaches Sydney at the start of the working day.

The date changes too. Your Monday afternoon is already Tuesday morning in Australia, so a Friday afternoon send from the US arrives on Saturday.

The news calendar

• Summer slowdown. From mid-December to late January, many Australians are on summer holidays and newsrooms run with fewer staff. Big launches can wait until February. The flip side is that lighter stories sometimes get a run because news is thin.
• End of financial year. Australia's financial year ends on 30 June. June is full of tax, sales and small business stories, which is a natural hook for finance and retail pitches.
• Reversed seasons. Christmas falls in summer. Winter stories run in June and July. Back-to-school coverage runs in late January.
• Sport and big events. The AFL and NRL grand finals in late September and early October, and the Melbourne Cup in early November, take over the news for days. Pitch around them, or find a way to tie in.
• Public holidays. Australia Day on 26 January and Anzac Day on 25 April are national holidays, and each state has extra dates of its own. Check before you schedule.

Pitching Australia from overseas

Plenty of companies pitch Australian media from somewhere else, and it works if you do the local homework. Three things help most:

1. Prove you're really there. Local availability, local pricing, local shipping, local customers. If Australians can't buy it yet, say when they can.
2. Offer someone in a workable time zone. A spokesperson who'll take a call at 8 am Sydney time is worth more than a perfect quote sent by email.
3. Don't lump Australia in with anyone else. New Zealand is a separate country with its own media, and it has its own 600+ journalists in the database. "APAC" isn't an audience. Pitch Australia as Australia.

If you're running one campaign across several English-speaking markets, build a separate list for each. You can do the same for journalists in Canada, and if US coverage is the goal, start with journalists in New York, the largest city in the database with 16,000+ journalists.

The rules for emailing journalists in Australia

Australia's Spam Act 2003 covers commercial emails, and it's built on consent. The regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), says senders need consent, must identify themselves, and must make it easy to unsubscribe. The ACMA guidance on avoiding spam takes a few minutes to read.

What does that mean for pitching? ACMA notes that people who make their work email public can be sent messages that are relevant to their role. A story pitch that fits a journalist's beat, sent to their published work address, is a very different thing from a bulk sales blast. Keep it that way:

• Pitch only people whose beat matches your story.
• Say who you are and who you represent in every email.
• If a journalist asks you to stop, stop, and take them off your list right away.
• Don't add journalists to your marketing newsletter because they replied to a pitch once.

This is general information, not legal advice. If you're sending at volume, check the rules for your own situation.

Common mistakes when pitching Australian media

• No local angle. It's the most common reason an Australian journalist passes.
• Wrong clock. Emails that land at 2 am are buried by morning.
• US framing. Dollar signs with no currency, US holidays, US spelling.
• Pitching the whole newsroom. The same email to five people at one outlet looks careless. Pick the one person whose beat fits.
• Skipping trade press. A story in the right trade title often reaches more buyers than a short mention in a national paper.
• Stale contacts. Journalists change jobs often. Check the outlet and beat before you send.

Getting covered in Australia comes down to a short, well-researched list and a story with a real local angle. Pick the right beat, pick the right city, check each journalist's recent work, and send your pitch on Australian time. If you'd rather not build that list by hand, JournalistHunt has 4,000+ journalists in Australia and 200,000+ worldwide, searchable by beat, city and outlet. You can try it free for 3 days, and plans start at $49 per month after that.