Guardian Australia is appointing journalists to two new specialist roles – Indigenous affairs and political accountability – after receiving its first philanthropic grants.
Two additional jobs might not sound like much. But in the current media environment it’s something to be celebrated.
Like most media organisations, Guardian Australia has had to adjust quickly as Google and Facebook swallow digital advertising revenue and eat away at the business model that has always supported journalism.
On best estimates, around 3,000 journalism jobs have been lost in Australia over the past five years. That coincides exactly with the time Guardian Australia has existed. Established in 2013, we remain a relatively small operation. We need to get bigger but in the current climate that’s an often exhausting swim against the tide.
We’ve turned to our readers for voluntary contributions – as the Guardian has done in the UK and the US – and they’ve responded in their tens of thousands, overwhelming our initial expectations.
But unlike other countries, Australia doesn’t have much of a tradition of philanthropic support for journalism – another potential way to finance what we do. To tap into philanthropy as a new revenue source, we had to find a means to receive tax-exempt donations and we needed to make the case to foundations that the crisis in public interest journalism justified their support.
We solved the first problem with the help of the University of Melbourne.
The Guardian Australia Civic Journalism Trust, established through the university, is receiving grants that allow us to do more investigative reporting on subjects we care about the most. In return, we are helping the university educate the next generation of journalists via internships, mentoring and guest lectures.
The second problem was trickier. Many Australian philanthropists and foundations agreed with the proposition that civic journalism was fundamental to a functioning democracy, and that the crisis in journalism posed a real threat. But funding reporting didn’t always fit with the way they had traditionally thought about their giving.
Our first grant came from the Balnaves Foundation, a private philanthropic organisation established by former media executive and businessman Neil Balnaves. The foundation is giving a three-year grant for in-depth reporting on Indigenous affairs. This has allowed us to hire one of the most experienced and well-regarded Indigenous journalists in Australia, Lorena Allam, as our Indigenous editor. Lorena starts in April and will oversee investigations, some of which she will report herself and some that she will commission from other writers.
The Balnaves Foundation’s general manager, Hamish Balnaves, explained why his organisation was supporting Guardian Australia. “Media has the power to reinforce or perpetuate stereotypes of Indigenous Australians. We hope this grant will contribute to more balanced reporting of Indigenous issues in Australia through in-depth and quality journalism,” he said.
Our second grant, also for three years, is from the Susan McKinnon Foundation for reporting on government transparency and political accountability. We are in the process of hiring a journalist to lead the project. “Effective government” is a focus for the foundation. It says that “rather than focusing on a specific or single policy area, the foundation’s objective is to help Australia achieve a more fit-for-purpose, effective political and policy system overall.”
We hope our reporting on the political process can assist with that aim.
As journalism academic Margaret Simons recently wrote in Guardian Australia, just a few years ago the idea that not-for-profit public interest journalism enterprises should be able to receive tax-deductible philanthropic donations was ridiculed by some in Australia. But in a recent senate inquiry it received broad bipartisan support.
“This may seem like small beer,” she wrote, “but in the US, not-for-profit philanthropically supported journalism outlets have become some of the best sources of investigative journalism, which is then often co-published in mainstream media outlets. Over time, tax deductibility for gifts to journalism could mean a significant change to our own news ecologies.”
At Guardian Australia, the changing Australian attitudes towards philanthropic support for journalism mean we are able to dedicate reporters to two important subjects.
They are subjects that fit squarely with the journalistic purpose outlined by our editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, in her recent essay, where she wrote: “If people long to understand the world, then news organisations must provide them with clarity: facts they can trust, information that they need, reported and written and edited with care and precision.
“If people long to create a better world, then we must use our platform to nurture imagination – hopeful ideas, fresh alternatives, belief that the way things are isn’t the way things need to be. We cannot merely criticise the status quo; we must also explore the new ideas that might displace it. We must build hope.”
Two new reporting jobs are important in their own right, and we hope they set a precedent for funding more of the journalism we want to do, and we believe Australia needs.
