"So it is very clear to me that government needs to be able to communicate more directly with Canberrans through a diverse range of channels and reflecting the different consumer habits of our very diverse city."

Mr Barr said he wanted to be "blunt and frank" in delivering the same message to "everyone within the communications area of government".

"It is a very clear and deliberate strategy for change, it has the backing of my government, my administration," he said in the recording.

"And if the word of the chief minister is anything in this context, let me be absolutely crystal clear about our intention to both resource this and to deliver this change. It has to happen. We're going to make it happen," he said.

Re-elected in late 2016, Mr Barr's Labor government is supported by two Greens members.

He replaced former chief minister Katy Gallagher when she moved to federal Parliament in 2014.

"We need to completely overhaul the way we communicate as a government and that's exactly what we're doing," he said. "My challenge to everyone in this room is to be at the cutting edge of communication, to put up contentious, risky and interesting ideas about how we can communicate.

"No idea should be too crazy ... We won't accept every single one of them but we definitely have to change how we engage."


Mr Barr said the average ABC TV news viewer was in their mid-60s and The Canberra Times print edition had fewer than 15,000 subscribers.

He has previously boasted about cancelling his subscription to the newspaper, owned by Fairfax Media, which he told a parliamentary hearing was "the daily rag".

In the speech, he said the government wanted to hear directly from voters and speak directly in response, "not through the filter of journalists, and particularly through the filter of print journalists, which is a dying industry".

Mr Barr said video and creative content was needed to "completely sweep aside the reputation that Canberra has for being bureaucratic and dull".

ACT Opposition Leader Alistair Coe said Mr Barr would rather not have scrutiny from the media.

"Even today when there's reports of Andrew Barr saying he hates journalists and traditional media, the government keeps putting out media releases, and who are media releases for if not for traditional media?"

"So I think when you have a head of government, such as Andrew Barr, albeit a little dictator, come out and say something like this, I think it's right that it does get attention," he told Sky News.

In a statement on Monday, Mr Barr said the ACT government wanted to reach targeted audiences.


"The government wants to embrace new technologies and more direct ways of communicating with our community," he said.

"Our communications will be concise, engaging and delivered using the most appropriate channels to reach our intended audiences."

A Fairfax Media spokesman said Canberra was well served by independent media, including the company's publications.

"Those held to account by the media often find it not to their linking. It is worth remembering the profound words of the United States Supreme Court in its landmark decision on media freedom to report - for the protection of 'the governed not the governors'."