The caveat and the signal on the News Bargaining Incentive
It’s taken nearly a year but the government has finally revealed how it plans to help local media companies take on the platforms. In this article for Mumbrella Pro members, we explore what it means.
Waiting for the drop: Some outlets received details about the NBI before others
If you’re looking for a signal of where the government’s priorities lie with the media, then look no further than the way it handled today’s press drop that it is finally making moves on its proposed News Bargaining Incentive.
It’s relevant, by the way, to point out that I have a number of dogs in this race. I write about media. I co-own Mumbrella which is a publishing business. We organise the Publish conference. And through Unmade, we’re on the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) register as a core news provider.
I’d love to be writing this having digested the content of the discussion paper which is finally due to be announced today, after spending nearly a year locked in a Treasury filing cabinet, somewhere in a Canberra basement deep below Lake Burley Griffin.
Yet, what I know is based only on what I’ve read in the Nine newspapers, in The Australian, and in The Guardian. In other words, the big end of News Town. As I write, there’s nothing yet on the Treasury website. So that’s the caveat, the declaration of interest and the signal.
