The government can finally gloat about getting its media reforms through the Senate. On Thursday night the deal was done, and to get the reforms through, the government agreed to measures negotiated by South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon. He says the measures will help save journalism jobs and revive a struggling industry.
“I’ve done my level best to try and redress the crisis that journalism is facing in this country. This is the best package to ensure that we can actually get more journalists being employed, not fewer,” he told reporters at at press conference.
The measures for small and regional publishers include a $60 million jobs and innovation fund, and subsidies for 200 journalism cadetships over two years, the majority of which will be for regional outlets. In exchange, Xenophon’s bloc of three senators voted for the government’s reforms that will clear the way for mergers between the big media companies — something they’ve been begging for.
But will Xenophon’s measures actually make a difference to the industry?
Since 2011, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (the journalists’ union) estimates 3000 journalist jobs in Australia have been cut, mostly through redundancy, but also through attrition. Just this year, Fairfax cut 125 jobs — including very senior and long-serving journalists — in a cost-saving measure. News Corp razed its picture and production desks this year, too. The ABC has also made more job cuts this year as a hangover from the 2014 budget cuts.
In MEAA’s submission to the Senate Committee on the Future of Public Interest Journalism earlier this year, it said there had been “precipitous falls” in journalist numbers at regional newspapers, including “long-serving, experienced and well-connected journalists”.
Cadets won’t be replacing those journalists, and there’s no plan for what would happen to those newly trained journalists once the government subsidy — $40,000 per cadet for one year — runs out.
Deakin University communications professor Matthew Ricketson said there should have been more to help the industry in the overall package that Xenophon negotiated.
“The funding of cadetships is a good thing, except what happens when the cadetships finish?” he said. “Are there likely to be full-time paid jobs at the end of them? If this package doesn’t increase the likelihood of that, it doesn’t really help.”
Speaking on the ABC’s AM Friday morning, Communications Minister Mitch Fifield couldn’t say what would happen to projects or cadetships after the allocated periods were up.
Ricketson says it is good Xenophon negotiated some measures, but they wouldn’t balance out the risks of removing some ownership restrictions.
“I don’t think they go far enough to outweigh the potential damage to media diversity that could be caused by the removal of the two out of three restriction, in particular,” he said.
The Country Press Association of Victoria agreed that the package didn’t go far enough to protect regional media. President Ben Taylor said negotiations started at a 40% tax concession or rebate for regional publishers, which he said would have been simpler and more effective.
“Disappointingly, there was no direct contact or consultation from Senator [Mitch] Fifield’s office … which if there had been, may have ensured a stronger and more robust package, which understood the needs of smaller regional publishers,” he said.
Taylor also said one of the key issues for regional newspapers was that they get missed out of government advertising campaigns.
“It is vital that the federal government continues to communicate to regional Australians. Too often our member newspapers are left off advertising campaigns, meaning regional Australians often miss important government communications. This package should have included guaranteed messaging through our medium,” he said.
Xenaphon’s package will amount to S.F.A. in the overall scheme of things. I hope he doesn’t think Murdoch will look after him when News owns all the media and the government gags the ABC for them.
And what will it mean for small publishers like Crikey?
And what will it mean for small publishers like Crikey?
It seems to me Crikey has seriously compromised itself by being involved in Xenophon’s ridiculous reactionary deal.
I’m waiting for the “cash for comments” story.
Journalists seem to have confused our society for a different one. In ours you have a job as long as it produces a profit or someone is prepared to pay for it regardless. It doesn’t matter how useful what you do is, if the above conditions aren’t met you do not have a job.
Considering not every publication can be Crikey and attract paying subscribers, or the ABC and produce news because you were allocated public funds to do so, and there are only so many donators and wealthy benefactors around, most of them sell ad space. So is it surprising at all that the outcome was to allow advertising platforms to consolidate, driving down costs? What is shocking about a capitalist society choosing to allow capitals to grow?
How can journalists expect there to be jobs for every competent, trained, professional journalist? No competition for labour, including competing with exploited unpaid labour? No one else gets this. Many journalists are happy to point this out when an industry becomes no longer viable, consolidates, sheds jobs and attacks worker’s wages. They seem to have supposed themselves immune, the one capitalist industry that will never change, jobs that never end.
There is no way to bring all these journalist jobs back, no matter what there will be shakeout, consolidation and so, so many job losses. Do they expect us to turn back history?
Exactly. What’s happening now to journalism is what’s been happening to the rest of the workforce for the last 30 years.
So we get to pay for Crikey twice; though our subscriptions and via our taxes.
After Crikey’s recent denouncement of ‘Cash for Comment’ deals, I’d expect a vocal refusal to offers of government assistance.
After all, if you take their money, you are in their debt.
The fact that Crikey possibly gets some extra assistance is truly the only tiny positive to come out of this deal.