Skint LINA asks members to write to minister
The Local and Independent News Association (LINA) is about to run out of funding and has called on its members to write to Communications Minister Anika Wells to intervene.
LINA executive director Claire Stuchbery has written to members saying “the end-of-financial-year cliff is fast approaching” and that the association could “go under”.
Claire Stuchbery
Stuchbery asked members to directly appeal to Wells to intervene with bridging funding. The association will be able to apply for money under the government’s $153 million News Media Assistance Program (News MAP), but that prospect will only open up well into FY26.
LINA currently has 99 publisher members, who pay fees of $20-$25 per month (soon to rise to $28/month). There are seven staff members and running costs are around $60,000 a month.
Seed funding was provided by the Judith Neilson Institute in 2021, with two Commonwealth government grants providing the bulk of the funding from 2023. The second of these runs out on June 30.
Stuchbery told Mumbrella the organisation had “been deliberately lean in not taking huge service fees”. She said the median income for members was $120,000 and that such operations could not support big fees. It would be seeking the equivalent of around a year’s bridging funding, $720k.
A spokesperson for Minister Wells told Mumbrella that “the Minister’s office has met with LINA and will continue to engage with them.”
“The Government values the work of organisations like LINA in supporting quality of journalism from Australia’s diverse media industry.”
LINA provides support to newsrooms through training, business and operations assistance, and distribution of grants among other activities. Unmade, the sister publication of Mumbrella, is a member. Membership is limited to publishers that provide public interest journalism, that employ journalists “of and from the community they serve”, and is designed to foster community reporting.
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