Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson says his new bill, which should eventually force multinationals such as Google and Meta to pay for news, will cover the funding shortfall left as the Public Interest Journalism Fund dries up.
Jackson said he would introduce his Digital Bargaining Bill next week, as Parliament resumes for its stretch of lawmaking ahead of the election. But that means the bill won’t come into force until after the election – that is, assuming the future Government continues with this project.
The $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund, administered by NZ On Air, closed at the end of June.
The fund was created to support media through the Covid-19 downturn, but it ended up funding a range of new journalism efforts. Many of these projects focused on increasing the number of community journalists, training cadets, and funding Pasifika and Māori journalism.
There’s now great uncertainty about what will happen to the journalists working in roles that were created through the Public Interest Journalism Fund.
At a news media wānanga this week, Jackson said the bargaining bill would be focused on making sure “the little person” could be compensated for their journalism.
“These big digital entities, the Google, the Metas, the Facebooks, you know – they take news, and they pay nothing back to news publishers,” he said.
He said the social media and search engine giants had protested at having to pay for the news they use, but Jackson said he stood by the plan – which he first discussed in December.
“Our government is very clear that we will deliver something for our communities, this funding and pūtea that they will put forward will cover the gap that the $55 million journalism project was covering. We are looking for $40m to $50m from these entities. I think they can cover it.”
But even if they can “cover it”, such funding wasn’t expected to eventuate for quite some time given the Parliament will adjourn at the end of August.
Jackson said it wasn’t his decision to end the Public Interest Journalism Fund this year.
“It wasn’t my decision. It wasn’t my decision and ah, the other side of it is we got a huge amount of criticism for that [fund],” he said, when asked why it wasn’t extended until the news bargaining bill came into force.
“The reality is that was a decision that was made before I took on the broadcasting portfolio.”
Jackson became broadcasting minister in June 2022, taking over from Kris Faafoi.
The National Party has not said if it would support the bill.
Broadcasting spokesperson Melissa Lee told Stuff she didn’t see what good would come from “forcing people to negotiate”.
The Pacific Media Network (PMN) was one of the organisations which was able to bolster its journalism thanks to Public Interest Journalism funding. Chief executive Don Mann said it had been transformational.
“The PIJF has enabled us to transform our newsroom from a small, niche player to become a globally significant Pacific newsroom,” he said.
He said public funding should continue, to protect the public interest journalism that had flourished at the PMN.
Big media players, including Stuff Group, also benefited from the funding. It paid for a variety of roles, including local journalism at the Marlborough Express and specialist reporting through Pou Tiaki.
A spokesperson for Stuff said PIJF-funded roles would be “absorbed into the wider editorial workforce”.
“PIJF funding represents just a fraction of what we invest in creating high quality, original journalism,” they said.