The devil in the detail: The deals the government made to get media reforms across the line
The government’s success in the Senate last night in abolishing broadcasting restrictions came at a cost, with over $70m in concessions to One Nation and the Nick Xenophon Team.
A $10m scheme for cadet journalists, a $50m media innovation fund and $12m to support community radio stations are the main ticket items agreed to by the government along with an ACCC inquiry into Facebook and Google’s powers and changes to the ABC’s charter.
Nick Xenophon Team campaign picture
The Nick Xenophon Team’s deal will see the government create two schemes – a $10m program for 200 cadet journalist positions and a regional and small publishers innovation fund that will give out $16.7m a year over three years.
“This will make a real difference for journalism in this country, if we value journalism and our democracy,” Xenophon concluded. How can that be when there is a real risk that media ownership will eventually be dominated by News Corp, thanks Nick for selling us out.
I think this is devastating. The last thing we need is less media diversity in this country. And, what a surprise, this has allowed Murdoch to launch a fresh bid for Channel Ten. Just in time. How convenient, and what a disaster.
do love the sentiment but let’s just do a little math on that cadet journo thing:
* $10m, 200 cadets
* Fairfax,News regionals can apply – so that’s about 150 small regionals which are actually owned by giant pubishlers – WTF.
* Oversight by ACMA with help from APC, Walkley, CPA and so forth…cost of oversight, admin, travel, bureacracy? Let’s just take 20% away straight up
* No salaries for innovation fund? That’s reallly going to help journo’s a lot. I’ve got a giant computer here with a big fat AI program on it that writes most of my stories. Can I get some that pie now?
Pretty sure this is a cluster f&*k.
Pretty sure now that News and Fairfax can actually access all this money, no real small publisher who runs journos (Mumbrella for eg? but more particularly country based small independents) is going to see one red cent of this money. If indeed any of it makes it to the light of day after ACMA get through with setting things up.
I don’t like being cynical but seriously.
Supporting small publishers, innovation and journalism? Bull fucking shit.
How is a small country town publisher going to compete with the resources and back up of News, Fairfax etc in applying for and running these cadetships?
How did they even get on the list. Lobbying I guess. I hate fairfax even more than I did yesterday. News we always hated. At least though they’re up front about taking every cent they can off the table for themselves. Fairfax are snakes.
I thought Xenophon was OK. But he’s an idiot.