Last week, the recipients of $74 million (US$51.7 million) in taxpayer-backed grants was revealed with nearly 200 Australian news outlets benefitting.
The Labor government’s Journalism Assistance Fund is part of the $180.5 million News Media Assistance Program (NMAP), and is aimed at supporting public interest journalism as the private media sector struggles to stay afloat
The fund provides successful applicants with a grant of $39,000 plus GST for each eligible full-time equivalent journalist they employ over the 2025–26 to 2027–28 grant period.
The minimum grant amount is $39,000 plus GST, while the maximum is $7.5 million plus GST.
Major Media Organisations Take Lion’s Share
As the grant amount is based on the number of full-time journalists each organisation has, large media companies benefited significantly.
While the list includes more than 180 media organisations, the top 15 received about $43.1 million, or 58.2 percent of the total funding.
Nine Entertainment Co. and Fairfax media together received $16.1 million. Nine is the television arm, and Fairfax covers newspapers titles like the Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Age.
It’s major competitor, Southern Cross Media Group, which owns the Seven Network and the West Australian newspaper, together received $9.7 million.
Regional media publisher SA Today, which is part of the Today News Group, was granted $2.7 million and Regional Publishers (Western Victoria) got nearly $2.3 million.
The WIN Network, Australia’s largest regional television network, secured a grant of $1.67 million.
Other regional media organisations also received funding, like Australian Community Media’s Tasmanian operations was allocated almost $1.2 million and Newcastle Newspapers awarded $1.08 million.
Meanwhile, The Conversation Media Group, which is headquartered in Melbourne and publishes academically-driven news websites across several countries, received $1.03 million.
Foreign-owned media entities were not eligible for funding, like News Corporation Australia and The Guardian, while publicly-funded companies like the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the multilingual Special Broadcasting Corporation, were not included.
Funding for Ethnic, Niche Media
A wide array of ethnic media also received funding.
Chinese Herald Australia Pty Ltd, which owns print newspapers across Australian capital cities, as well as the news website 1688, was granted $601,000. The Epoch Times’ Chinese edition also received $328,185.
Foreign Language Press Pty Ltd, which owns The Greek Herald and Ellinis Magazine, was awarded $592,000, while Ethnic Publications Pty Ltd, another Greek publisher, received $386,000.
Meanwhile, 23 small media organisations, including two Korean-language and several Indigenous newspapers, were awarded the minimum grant of $39,000 plus GST.
The release of the funding recipients comes amid a decline in news consumption in Australia.
According to a 2025 report (pdf) by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the proportion of Australians who accessed no news at all rose from 5 percent in 2023 to 9 percent in 2025 of those surveyed.
Among Australians who accessed news, the number of platforms they used also declined to 2.9, down from 3.1 in 2023.
Young Australians aged between 18 and 34 were the most likely to have accessed no news (15 percent), while women were more likely than men to have done the same (10 percent).
