Yanchep News Online gave evidence at the Inquiry into Australia’s regional newspapers on Tuesday, March 1 speaking as a regional representative from the Public Interest Publishers Alliance.

During the video conference Perth MHR Patrick Gorman, who is a member of the standing committee on communications and the arts, which is conducting the inquiry asked about working conditions for journalists and where the Public Interest Publishers Alliance (PIPA) saw that heading over the next five to 10 years.

Mr Gorman said there had been a lot of talk about the welfare of media organisations.

“One of the things that struck me from the evidence we heard earlier was people leaving the profession of journalism because of costs or other factors,’’ he said.

“I’d be interested in your thoughts on this: under current policy settings, where do you see the working conditions and the quality of journalism jobs being now, in five years’ time and in a decade?’’

PIPA chairman Lawrence Gibbons said members were all small businesses.

“As such we don’t have the luxury of hiring full-time staff in many instances,’’ he said.

“We rely on citizen journalism, on student contributions and on our own sweat and blood.’’

Then Mr Gibbons asked me to share my story.

I told the inquiry I cover two local government areas and have enough work to employ a full-time journalist as well as someone part time.’’

But financially Yanchep News Online gets very little advertising support from the three levels of government.

“I’ve had no federal government advertising, no state government advertising and a little bit of local government advertising from one local government but none from the other,’’ I said.

“Increasingly local governments and businesses are all going on social media.

“It’s extremely difficult.’’

I said it was going to be very hard for most media businesses to offer journalism jobs and it was going to be really hard to find journalism jobs, in the future.

“Yesterday The West Australian editor was talking about the impact on their rural and regional publications,’’ I said.

“I’ve worked at a couple of those and it was tough back then, but I think it’s going to get even tougher.

“They were one of the few offering journalism (graduates) a chance.

“Right now the only thing I can do is offer Curtin students an industry placement, which goes for about 10 weeks, and I don’t have to pay them anything; the university pays for their insurance.

“All I have to do is try to have the time to go with them, if they haven’t been to council meetings, or give them some sort of start and then help them sub the work and all those kinds of things.

“But I can’t give them a job, even if I really want to give them a job.’’

Mr Gibbons said that was the way our industry was trending – less and less for niche publishers who are basically forced to do it off of their own sweat and equity and on the contributions of people who were, quite frankly, underpaid.

“That’s the lifeblood of democracy,’’ he said.

Earlier in the video conference the committee’s deputy chairwoman Emma McBride said in February the Communications Minister Paul Fletcher had announced $10 million for a cadetship program, with the eligibility criteria to be released in April.

Ms McBride asked Mr Gibbons what newspapers should be able to access the funding and should outer-metro and independent publishers get that kind of initiative.

Because Yanchep News Online is a regional and rural publisher – covering the Shire of Gingin and the outer-metro City of Wanneroo – Mr Gibbons asked me to respond.

I said I thought all regional publishers would really like to have more access to any funding to help employ more journalists.

“In my situation, I can’t even apply for some grants or anything, because I don’t have the required number of journalists,’’ I said.

“As a small business, I’m still struggling to support myself, let alone all the extras I would need for another journalist, even getting a grant.’’

PIPA was formed to help small Australian news publishers be able to engage with Google and Facebook in relation to the Morrison Government’s News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code.

Members of PIPA, including Yanchep News Online, have only been able to get a seat at the negotiation table to collectively bargain with the support of the Minderoo Foundation.

On February 18 – one year after Facebook’s news ban – the senior policy adviser at Minderoo Foundation’s Frontier Technology initiative Emma McDonald had an an opinion piece published in The Sydney Morning Herald.

In it she said it was true that under the media bargaining code most major Australian media outlets had secured lucrative deals from Google and Facebook and if they were using those funds to sustain public interest journalism that was a positive.

“However, many other Australian news publishers – mainly small businesses – who make valuable and meaningful contributions to their communities and to media diversity in Australia are yet to be remunerated,” she said.

“For small publishers managing day-to-day operations it can be hard to find the time – let alone a contact name – to progress opportunities with the digital platforms.’’

“If after 12 months, Facebook and Google still won’t deal meaningfully with small publishers – including those in PIPA through Frontier Technology’s collective bargaining efforts, or with direct deals – then it would be fair to say that the code has not done its job. Yet.”

The legislation governing the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code requires that it be reviewed within 12 months of operation.

In a joint statement on February 28 Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Mr Fletcher announced the review of the code, which is separate to the Inquiry into Australia’s regional newspapers, saying it would be conducted by Treasury in consultation with relevant agencies.

They said the code was intended to ensure that digital platforms fairly remunerated news businesses for the content they generated, thereby helping to sustain public interest journalism in Australia.

“A key focus for the review will be assessing the extent to which commercial agreements between the digital platforms and Australian news businesses have contributed to this objective,’’ they said.

“The Morrison Government has been pleased to see progress by both Google and Facebook in reaching commercial agreements with Australian news media businesses.

“Since February 2021 Google and Facebook have, between them, reportedly entered into around 30 commercial agreements.

“The Morrison Government notes that some news organisations, including smaller and independent publishers, have expressed concerns they have been unable to reach a commercial deal.

“We urge the digital platforms to continue negotiating in good faith to ensure that the review is able to consider the full extent of progress made under the code.’’

• Some readers may question why an online news publisher such as Yanchep News Online was giving evidence at an inquiry into regional newspapers when I don’t publish a newspaper. When I was looking into setting up Yanchep News Online my number cruncher said I could not afford a print edition. Unfortunately I think the disappearance of local papers in the area in recent years supports that advice.

This article appeared on Yanchep News Online on 6 March 2022.

Related story: Public-interest publishers band together to seek deal with Google and Facebook