Archived Grant Opportunity View - GO1384

The Regional and Small Publishers Cadetships Program (the Program) will run over two years from 2018?19 to 2019-20. The Program was announced as part of the Regional and Small Publishers Jobs and Innovation Package.

This grant opportunity is open to small metropolitan and regional publishers, who are able to apply for grant funding to assist with the costs of hiring journalism cadets to work in their organisation in journalism related roles. In total, funding for up to 200 cadetships will be made available to small metropolitan and regional publishers over a two-year period.

The Program targets regional and small metropolitan publishers as these groups have less size and scale to enable them to respond to market and technological developments, particularly the growth of Internet based media, which continues to impact both markets and advertising revenue across traditional media sectors. Conversely, larger metropolitan publishers are not targeted by the Program due to their generally greater capacity to adapt to these conditions, including access to greater skilled labour and capital than in regional areas of Australia. Without intervention, there is a heightened risk that publishers will no longer be able to support quality public interest journalism in regional Australia, to the detriment of these communities.

To be eligible for funding:

•  regional publishers must meet all of the eligibility criteria, except for the turnover threshold and the control test (criteria 3 and 7).

• small metropolitan publishers must meet all of the eligibility criteria, except the requirement to be a regional publisher (criterion 2).

 The eligibility criteria are as follows:

1.  Be an incorporated company

2. Be a regional publisher

3. Have an annual turnover between $150,000 and $30,000,000.

4. Produce public interest journalism with an Australian perspective

5. Have their central management and control in Australia.

6. Be independent from any political party, union, financial institution, Non-Government Organisation or policy lobby group

7. Be a company in which Australian residents or entities, either alone or in aggregate, hold a majority interest.

8. Have a robust and transparent complaints program.

The above criteria are just a guide. Full details of the eligibility critirea can be found in the Grant Opportunity Guidelines.

The expected commencement date for the granting activities is October 2018, and the grant activity is expected to continue for no more than 12 months from the day the journalism cadet is formally engaged by the grantee.

Applications must be lodged through SmartyGrants, which can be accessed through the link provided on this webpage. Applications will not be accepted through any other format.