Remember that fund to help small and regional publishers, which was definitely not for the big media players?
Well, now that the virus has hit and everything’s going belly up, it looks like big companies like News Corp and Nine might be able to get their hands on some of it.
On April 1, News Corp announced it would suspend printing of 60 community newspapers across Australia. Soon, Australian Community Media followed suit.
Last week, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher announced the $50 million public interest news gathering (PING) program would support “public interest journalism delivered by commercial television, newspaper, and radio businesses in regional Australia”.
The program is funded with $13.4 million in new money as well as “repurposed unallocated funds from the government’s regional and small publishers jobs and innovation package”.
But here’s the thing — the new program makes no mention of the original fund’s key criteria: the $30 million turnover cap that locked big foreign-owned companies like News Corp out of getting their hands on it. Further, the requirement that the recipient produce public interest journalism “as the primary purpose” has been subtly downgraded to remove the “primary purpose” test.
Country Press Australia (CPA) president Bruce Ellen is worried that the expansion of the fund could potentially hand money intended for small regional publishers to News Corp, as well as big commercial TV and radio networks to the detriment of those for whom the money was initially intended.
“The original fund came about because [then-senator] Nick Xenophon was very concerned about the affect the government’s changes to media ownership rules would have on small and regional media,” he told Crikey.
“So the fund was concocted to secure his vote, and push through those changes through. That’s why it was important that companies like News Corp couldn’t access the fund — because it was brought in to ensure the passage of laws that were a massive benefit to them and other media conglomerates.
“If this was new money, that would be one thing — but this fund already had a specific aim, and if big companies were allowed to access it, it would effectively be double dipping.”
The CPA has been lobbying regional MPs regarding the changes, and Crikey understands that Deputy Prime Minister (and former newspaper man) Michael McCormack was a strong supporter of the original package.
Fletcher’s announcement of the fund notes that the program “implements the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) recommendation in the digital platforms inquiry to enhance the [regional small publishers jobs and innovation package] to better support high quality news, particularly in regional and remote Australia”.
I mean, if we want to look at exactly what the ACCC suggested, it was slightly more money (see page 33):
The regional and small publishers jobs and innovation package should be replaced with a targeted grants program that supports the production of original local and regional journalism, including that related to local government and local courts.
The program should be platform-neutral and administered at arm’s length from government, with eligibility criteria designed by an independent expert committee. Due to its broader scope than the regional and small publishers jobs and innovation package, which provided AU$20 million per year, the program should provide a greater amount of funding — totalling in the order of AU$50 million per year.
Crikey and its parent company Private Media were among those who previously picked up funding from the program.
Many regional publications were unsuccessful, and complained about inaccurate and inconsistent grounds for refusal.
Update: A spokesperson for the Minister’s office told Crikey the program “enhanced” the Regional and Small Publishers Jobs and Innovation package to “better support high quality news, particularly in regional and remote Australia” across “commercial television, newspaper and radio businesses in regional Australia”.
“Separately, the Government has brought forward $5 million in funding to support high quality public interest journalism during COVID-19 from the Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund.”
They added that the grant guidelines for both programs will be released shortly.
It would be a total rort if old scrotum-face got his filthy fingers on money intended to promote “public interest journalism . . . in regional Australia”. Our local (Murdoch owned) weekly newspaper in suburban Adelaide contains no news that hasn’t already appeared in the (also Murdoch owned) daily, the (Adelaide) Advertiser. Even the letters to the editor have all previously appeared in the state-wide daily. If you’re lucky, the local paper might have an extra photo in the occasional local story. It might be employing a part-time layout person, but no journalists.
It irritates me that it seems everything written about the media in Australia inevitably includes some News Corpse perversion. Having said that, it greatly concerns me that regional media is in such a dire state that these poorly targeted government handouts, with or without News Corpse getting its putrid snout in the trough, will not fix this serious problem. And I am a resident of a metropolitan area.
I have suggested here before that the federal government must do something actually effective for a change rather than finding more inventive ways to funnel money to corporate rent-seekers. Something like:
– Buy AAP and create an independent ABC department to run it.
– Provide a scaled level of subsidies to community news organisations (regardless of platform) on the basis of population within the organisation’s footprint and numbers actually employed by the organisation on condition that the relevant regional news organisation produce a minus level and standard of public interest reporting under principles of media independence. Multiple news organisations in one footprint could be eligible.
– Finance the subsidies with licence fees charged to rate payers and businesses within the footprint.
– Revenue generated by each subsidised regional news organisation would be the property of the proprietor up to a cap at which point part of the subsidy is reduced or paid back.
Excellent suggestions. I’d back them.
And not just because I live 300kms+ from the Great Wen of Sydney.
I think predictive text snuck into your line “..the relevant regional news organisation produce a MINIMUM level and standard of public interest ..”
So they’ll be indebted to us tax-payers? … So we’ll be able to bully them over their content too?
… The same way Rupert’s Muppet Army gets to bully the ABC? And wins.
Spot on klewso!
The big worry surely with the ABC, apart from suffering “a death by a thousands cuts” to its funding , is –
To what extent will Murdoch be allowed to further extend his antagonistic relationship and increase his parasitical influence over the ABC?
I dread the thought, for example, of Paul Barry and “Media Watch” replaced by some Murdoch clone or being scuttled !
Where are you Ita & David when your ABC needs you?
It’s Ita’s ABC, and by “David”, you don’t mean Spivsy do you? That “what a great job the Morrison government’s” snow job he did from 4 Corners the other night?
No mention of the bungle of the Ruby Princess by Dutton’s Duffers, no mention of “let’s all go to the footie this weekend”, no mention of the Centrelink crash and what went on around that, when all those people were tossed out of work a coup[le of weeks ago?
And no reflection on “how in touch with the electorate Fraudberg is” when it was left to Soli Lew, going to tears, brought home “how all these sackings were impacting”?
They’re behind all this tabloidization – Murdoch’s inoculation.
David Anderson, the Managing Director!
Hopefully Bret Walker SC & his assistant Beasley will sort Dutton out, with or without the cooperation of the feds, especially if their success with the SA Royal Commission into the Murray-Darling is anything to go by?