Coalition's media package to benefit 'selected' unis but doubts over fund's future
Selected universities will be able to benefit from the government’s $60m media innovation fund but there is no guarantee of the fund’s future beyond its slated three years.
Details on the fund, which was established in exchange for Nick Xenophon’s support for the Turnbull government’s media changes, including scrapping the two-out-of-three ownership rule, have been scant, with equipment, scholarships and cadetships making up the package’s skeleton.
But it is still to be fleshed out, with a spokeswoman for the communications minister, Mitch Fifield, confirming the $60.4m over three years will be in addition to the Australian Communications and Media Authority budget – but the government is yet to confirm where the money will come from.
“Selected universities” will work in partnership with the government to award the regional journalism scholarships, which will make up about $2.4m of the total package.
Fifield’s department will handle the cadetships, worth $8m, with the help of a to-be-established advisory committee, while ACMA will administer the $50m regional and small publishers innovation fund, with the help of an advisory committee.
That fund is limited to small media companies with a turnover between $300,000 and $30m and will be capped at $1m per publisher. It cannot be used to employ journalists and excludes a list of companies, including Guardian Australia, due to restrictions on publishers with foreign parent companies.
Xenophon said he aimed for the fund to be as “fair and wide reaching as possible” and would be talking to eligible publishers about how it could work in the near future.
The hows and whens of how companies and universities can apply for a slice of the $60m is due to be released in the coming months.
Labor is already looking into the future and wants to know what will happen in three years time when the fund agreement expires.
“The future of public interest journalism inquiry shows that Nick Xenophon barely knows what problem he is trying to solve, let alone what the solution is,” the shadow communications minister, Michelle Rowland, said. “The danger is that, in three years, all we may have is a number of unemployed cadets and some obsolete equipment, with even higher concentration in what is already one of the most concentrated media markets in the world.
“The Turnbull government barely admits it – they only talk in euphemisms about ‘dance partners’ – but the whole point of repealing the two out of three rule is to let dominant companies consolidate and cut costs.
“This spells job losses, fewer journalists, less diversity in our news media voices and a disincentive to smaller players entering the market.”
But that doesn’t mean Labor will commit to keeping the fund going beyond its stated lifespan.
“Proposals of this nature need to be modelled, costed and impacts assessed before Labor would consider their merit,” Rowlands said.
Administering the fund will form part of the incoming ACMA chair Nerida O’Loughlin’s job, who Fifield announced would serve a five-year-term.
Richard Bean, who had been filling the chair since February last year, has been wished “the very best in his future endeavours” by the minister and was thanked for “successfully [leading] the ACMA through a sustained period of change”.