The Daily Townsville Newsroom
How we report, verify and publish.
Our approach to local news
The Daily Townsville is an independent local news service for Townsville. We publish daily coverage of local government, business, community life, property, sport, weather and courts, built for readers who live and work here. Every article is written to be accurate, attributed and useful.
AI-assisted journalism with human oversight
Our newsroom uses AI to research, draft and screen articles at speed. For each story, the system draws on named, publicly available sources that we link directly in the piece, and synthesises facts rather than copying any single source. Before anything publishes, every article passes an automated editorial screen.
The screen holds back anything that names a person or organisation in connection with crime, courts, allegations, misconduct or insolvency. Those pieces cannot go live until a person has reviewed them. Lower-risk coverage, such as community roundups, guides and general local news, publishes automatically once it clears the screen.
The publisher sets editorial policy, maintains the allow-list of sources, designs the guardrails and is accountable for everything that appears under the masthead. For a full explanation of our standards, see our editorial standards page.
Sourcing and verification
We only draw from an allow-list of public sources, and we always link them so you can check our work against the originals. We do not reproduce or rewrite a single source article. We synthesise facts from several sources and attribute them clearly.
Court and judgment items are link-out only. We point you to the official record and do not reproduce judgment text. For our guides and how-to content, we tell you plainly to confirm current figures with the official sources we link, because rates, fees, dates and rules change and the live source is always the authority.
Corrections and accountability
We correct errors quickly and transparently. When we fix a piece, we append a visible "Updated" or "Corrected" note to the article so the change is on the record rather than quietly edited away. Questions, corrections and concerns can be raised through our contact page.
Bylines and authorship
Automated pieces are bylined to the publication or desk, for example "The Daily Townsville", never to an invented human author. We do not use fake personas, AI-generated author photos or fabricated bios. If a name is not on a story, that is because no single person wrote it, and we would rather be straight with you than dress the work up as something it is not.
Contact the newsroom
News tips, corrections and general enquiries: contact page.
Built by locals, for locals
Founder — Shane Anderson
The Daily Townsville is published by Shane Anderson, founder of the Daily Network. Shane started the network with a simple thesis: every Australian city deserves an independent local news service, written daily, free to read, and accountable to the people who live there.
Built by locals, for locals. The newsroom covers Townsville from the ground up — council decisions, court lists, business openings, weather, sport and community life — not as a regional bureau of a national title, but as a masthead with its own standards, sources and editorial voice.
Shane sets the editorial policy, maintains the source allow-list, designs the guardrails around our AI-assisted workflow, and is personally accountable for everything that appears under the masthead. Contact: shane@dailytownsville.com.au.