News Media Relief Program

The News Media Relief Program (the program) will support the sustainability of Australian news publishers in the face of significant disruption to the media sector.

The objectives of the program are:

• support the sustainability of Australian news publishers in the face of significant disruption to the media sector
• support the creation of news content distributed online
• encourage the continued employment of journalists who primarily produce news that is in the Australian public interest
• building and maintaining social cohesion in Australia, including for Cultural and Linguistically Diverse CALD communities, First Nations communities and the wider Australian community.

The intended outcomes of the program are:

• support and safeguard news coverage in Australia
• mitigate the significant risk to the financial sustainability of news publications in regional and outer metropolitan areas of Australia, and publications providing news for CALD and First Nations communities.

Organisations with a primary purpose of producing core news content will be eligible for funding to support a proportion of the salary costs of journalists producing core news content that is distributed digitally.

The grant amount is $13,000 per eligible journalist full time equivalent (FTE).

If the journalist is not employed full time with the applicant, the grant amount requested should be based on a pro-rata amount of the FTE.

The program will run over 1 year from 2024-25.