The “Quality Journalism Promotion Act” (QJF-G) must first be approved by the European Commission. It provides for the allocation of 20 million euros for print and online media.
15 million euros are allocated to journalism funding, journalistic jobs are rewarded. For the first 30 journalists in a company, there are 8,000 euros per capita, after which there are gradations. EUR 10,000 each is provided for foreign correspondents. Additional funds of ten percent each flow if there is an existing editorial statute, a quality assurance system and plans for the advancement of women.
There is a total of 2.5 million euros for diverse content. In addition, an online medium must publish at least 30 million characters of editorial content per year and have 300,000 unique users per month.
The media authority KommAustria is responsible for awarding the funding. It is advised by an advisory board, which also draws up and updates funding guidelines. It consists of five honorary members who are appointed by the Federal Government for a period of three years.
Together with the new media funding, changes to the Media Cooperation and Transparency Act were examined. The allocation of advertisements by public legal entities is to be presented in full in the future. With the new law, advertisements placed or media cooperations are to be reported to the media authority RTR and published from the first euro.
In the future, a transparency report must be submitted for every campaign with a volume of more than 150,000 euros; if the campaign exceeds 750,000 euros, the results of an impact analysis must be published on the company’s own website. The penalties for non-reporting or false reporting will be increased. In the event of a recurrence, 100,000 euros are due. There is no upper limit for placing advertisements.
criticism of the design
Criticism of the fact that there is no upper limit for advertisements in the draft comes from NEOS media spokeswoman Henrike Brandstötter. “As long as this government continues to keep the media dependent through advertisements, their credibility will be called into question,” she says.
The journalists’ union gpa also sees an important point left out, namely that the funding of the media must also be linked to recognition by the press council in future. “The incidents in the chat affairs show just how important that is,” says Chairman Eike-Clemens Kullmann.
Source: Nachrichten
