The Public Interest Journalism Initiative (PIJI) has released new research that shows tax rebates for investment in public interest journalism would have wide support and would be an efficient and effective way to boost the amount of democratically important information available to the public.

PIJI has released three separate pieces of research that show:

• Public willingness to pay for improved public interest journalism through the tax system
• Supporting journalism through tax rebates is likely to be effective and efficient
• Newsroom leaders would use any extra resources to do more public interest journalism –including reporting courts and other civic forums, and investigative journalism

“This research is extremely robust,” said PIJI Chair, Professor Allan Fels. “It shows that tax concessions are a legitimate avenue for the support of public interest journalism, which is declining rapidly and is a critical foundation for our democracy.”

The research follows the ACCC Digital Platforms Inquiry report, released earlier this year, which stated that public interest journalism was a public good that deserved government support. The ACCC found the amount of quality journalism available to the public had declined sharply due to the collapse of commercial media business models. However, the ACCC  dismissed the idea of tax rebates without conducting a detailed investigation or analysis.

The research released today was conducted for PIJI by Essential Media with Applied Economics P/L, the Centre for International Economics and PIJI itself.

Together the three reports show that tax concessions similar to those provided for research and development in Australia could boost investment in public interest journalism and provide considerable public benefit, as additional resources would be used to fill existing gaps in public information.

Such an approach would also be in accord with the international research on the issue.

The survey conducted by Essential Media with Applied Economics shows that 89 per cent of Australians want their media to inform and educate and 46 per cent of Australians would be willing to support increased taxes of $6 a year to support this.

The CIE research commissioned by PIJI estimated that Australians have an average willingness to pay for increased public interest journalism of between $1.51 and $2.94 per month, which translates to between $380m and $740m a year in total support for the sector. This is a conservative estimate based on statistical analysis and is the first time research has quantified this benefit. Comparing the benefits with the potential costs of a tax concession scheme (using benefit cost analysis) suggests the tax incentive is a policy worth considering seriously.

A third piece of research conducted by PIJI involved interviews with news editors across Australia to determine the nature of the coverage they undertake, how this is changing and the deficits that have emerged due to declining resources. It found this decline is seriously undermining the quantity and quality of the information available to Australians, that reporting lacks the breadth and depth editors desire, particularly in the areas of courts and local government. It found that investigative journalism is now out of reach of smaller and local publications and that local outlets are more likely to have their news agenda driven by advertising considerations.

Previous research conducted by PIJI earlier this year showed 68 per cent of metropolitan suburbs and 45 per cent of regional areas were experiencing a very sharp decline in journalism.

Professor Fels added “PIJI would like to see more work done on the provision of tax incentives for producers of public interest journalism. Not only does our research show tax incentives to be effective, they are also a way of protecting press freedom by providing funding at arm’s length from the government of the day.”

The complete research, as well as PIJI’s response to the ACCC report, can be found here.