Chief information officers advocate for greater public support for journalism, but lack a unified solution

This Saturday, information directors called for greater government support for journalism, but did not find a common solution, believing that any support should be blind and cross-cutting to avoid the risk of interference.

At the Congress of Journalists taking place in Lisbon this Saturday, there were several panels on funding issues, while there was much discussion about the crisis of the business model – given the fall in advertising revenues (which have moved mainly to large platforms) and newspaper sales – and there are serious problems in the Global Media group (owner of JN, DN and TSF, among others). Workers in this group continue to receive wage arrears and there is a threat of dismissal of up to 200 people.

For Jornal de Notícias, Ines Cardoso (outgoing director) said that managers often “pass the responsibility for finding sources of funding to directors” and that “it is neither fair nor appropriate for the answers to management problems to be shifted to editorial directors.”

Despite this, he defended support for hiring journalists, a measure that several directors have defended, especially for young journalists, as well as more specific support for correspondents, believing it is important when there is so much talk of media deserts in the country.

The journalist also defended the government’s efforts to protect newspapers from news exploitation by big tech platforms.

Ines Cardoso also recalled that Jornal de Notícias makes a profit (50% supported by newspaper distribution and 50% by advertising), but even this did not prevent JN from receiving delayed salaries and threats of dismissal.

Regarding direct support for journalistic publications from the state, both SIC director Ricardo Costa and TVI director Nuno Santos said that they are not against such support if it is well organized, transversal, criticizing the way it was done during the covid-19 crisis (using institutional advertising).

Regarding the IRS’s extension (each year the taxpayer can contribute 0.5% of this establishment tax) to news organizations, Ricardo Costa was against it, believing that there would be no significant funding from it and that journalism should not even compete with organizations such as associations that support sick people.

The director of Rádio Renascença, Pedro Leal, acknowledged the distribution by the IRS, but on the condition that it is of a transversal nature and that this funding is controlled. Leal also believed that “besides the financial crisis, there is another crisis – the editorial crisis” when the organs are “far from the audience”.

Even during the debate, the creation of a newspaper check was discussed, under which the state would allocate money to citizens that they could spend on news agencies, for example, on buying newspapers or subscriptions.

SIC spokesman Ricardo Costa also said that while the era of advertising-supported journalism is over, “the idea that advertising should be abandoned is collective suicide.”

Regarding the issue of transparency and ownership of journalistic organizations, highlighted in the case of Global Media (owned by the foreign World Opportunity Fund), Ricardo Costa said that he has come a long way (remembered Alvaro Sobrinho, owner of SOL, the case Current and problems in Global Media (left Joaquim Oliveira) and considered the mechanisms necessary to ensure these principles.

From the RTP group, RTP director António José Teixeira and RDP director Mario Gallego criticized the state’s insufficient funding of the public audiovisual service due to the lack of renewal of the Audiovisual Fee (the fee that finances this public broadcasting). and broadcasting services), television and which are paid by electricity consumers).

Regarding free communications, a message signed by 17 journalists from so-called non-traditional journalistic organizations and presented by Sofia Craveiro (from Guerador) criticized the “lack of voice” of these media in discussion groups on funding issues, given that the funding of journalism “cannot be attributed to private sector” and defended the existence of a tripartite mechanism (reader donations, charitable grants and government funding), as well as the state creating public models of editorial funding that guarantee information pluralism.