media reform, page-5

August 3 2017 - 5:57PM
Not-for-profit journalism push could help Australian media changes over

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http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...ia-changes-over-the-line-20170803-gxolo4.html

The creation of a new category of not-for-profit journalism in Australia could be enough to convince crossbenchers to pass the government's changes to media laws.

The idea of giving public interest journalism the same tax deductions as think tanks and educational organisations is already supported within some corners of the Liberal Party as well as by senator Nick Xenophon, who is in favour of tax incentives encouraging local and independent news.

Mr Xenophon has spent the winter parliamentary break attempting to broker a compromise and believes safeguarding regional media – a key concern of the One Nation party – and media diversity is key to getting the changes across the line.

"You do need to safeguard regional media."

Protections to local content screened in regional areas remain part of the government's agenda, with an increase from the amount of local content screened in regional areas increasing from 720 minutes every six weeks to 900 minutes (about 21 minutes a day).

The changes give a higher weighting to locally filmed news, making it a more attractive proposition.
A survey by the media regulator earlier this year found 86 per cent of people living in regional Australia consider local news important, and 87 per cent are satisfied with the overall quality of local news available in their local area.

"Traditional media sources (particularly TV and print) are the principal way that regional Australians access local content and local news, despite an overall decline in free-to-air audience ratings and print newspaper circulation, and the closure of several local newspapers and TV news services," the Australian Communications and Media Authority stated.

Meanwhile, chief executive of Southern Cross Austereo Grant Blackley said regional broadcasting "is already heavily regulated by dictating the minutes of content that must be broadcast in each market".

"The answer to encouraging more local regional news is not imposing more regulation but reform of the media ownership rules to give media companies the ability to gain scale to employ more people and make more local content," he told Fairfax Media.

"Larger media companies are able to make more local content."

In November Southern Cross and Nine announced plans to create local bulletins in 15 new areas, which included hiring 80 new journalists.