‘I want my town back’: exploring community efforts to resurrect a local newspaper in Alice Springs

This article documents and examines the re-establishment of a local newspaper in Alice Springs, central Australia, after the region's long-standing masthead the Centralian Advocate ceased printing in 2020. The town had attracted constant negative media coverage, with national news outlets and social media pages spotlighting social disorder and crime. This led to increasing concern among residents about a lack of relevant local news coverage about the diverse communities of Alice Springs. A new newspaper, the Centralian Today , was launched in 2023 in a novel partnership between a newly formed community foundation and an established independent commercial news company. This study adopts narrative and thematic analysis to examine data gathered in 47 interviews with community members, indigenous leaders and news producers to document the re-establishment of the newspaper and explore community perceptions of the social, civic and democratic health of the region before and after the arrival of the new newspaper.