ANTHONY DE SELLI: In the age of social media, quality news is more important than ever. But we’re being taxed to death

Every night across Australia the No. 1 and No. 2 program on television is the 6:00 pm news bulletin.

Combined, 7NEWS and 9NEWS reach an average of 3.6 million people every night.

In fact, there are only two events in the year where the mass audience reach of those two 6pm news bulletins combined is superior – the AFL and NRL grand finals.

Channels 7 and 9 are primarily news companies.

It seeps from our pores into Australian living rooms.

We are a bright light on the hill in an increasingly dystopian world of conspiracy theorists, hoaxes and anti-vax cooks.

Elon Musk doesn’t care about the truth.

He revels in spreading lies and boasts that he used his website to influence the US election.

Mark Zuckerberg seems happy that Meta is benefiting from the page impressions that child sex offenders create when they regularly use his site to prey on their next victim.

Even parents of dead children are not enough for Facebook to take seriously the harm it causes to society.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the Metas as arrogant bullies who must own up to the damage they have caused.

NSW Premier Chris Minns has spoken many times about how social media platforms cynically use algorithms to push dangerous conspiracy theories onto impressionable people, creating a vicious spiral down the rabbit hole he calls the “dark corners of the internet”.

Against these evil forces – and this is not an exaggeration – there is only one true antidote.

In a world where the spread of misinformation has never been greater, our role as journalists has never been more important.

We are the only antidote.

But we can’t do this alone.

And the government, which so often tells voters about its concerns about social media, needs to recognize this and help us.

If the Prime Minister is sincerely concerned about the toxicity of Facebook, Meta, X and TikTok, then lend a helping hand to journalism that fights for the facts.

The government needs to stop treating Australia’s news stations with disdain.

Channel 7 proudly produces around 26 hours of journalism every day across our country.

But we can’t promise that we can keep doing this forever.

The government acts as if editors are still swimming in rivers of profits.

This comes at great cost and great risk to journalism and Australian democracy.

Free-to-air networks such as Channel 7 still pay an archaic “broadcast tax” that was developed 60 years ago in an era of windfall profits that simply no longer exist.

While viewers can access 10 hours of news on free-to-air Channel Seven on any given day, the so-called commercial broadcast tax is really just a tax on journalism.

Moreover, it is a tax on truth and a tax on facts.

And this tax is the only antidote to the rise and rise of malicious online platforms.

The cost of commercial broadcasting tax this financial year for stations such as Seven, Nine and 10 will be a total of $45 million.

I ask the Albana government how many journalism jobs they think there should be.

How many TV news newsroom shifts will disappear before we can pay for it?

How many regional journalists will be fired?

How many more cuts will be made because of a meaningless tax from a bygone era that is nothing more than a rounding error?

No other comparable jurisdiction in the world imposes such a tax burden on broadcasters.

The license fees paid by Australian broadcasters are currently the highest in the world, 52 times the equivalent per capita fee of our US counterparts.

I call on the Albana government and opposition to pledge to immediately scrap the commercial broadcast tax in the name of journalism.

The future of news and the future of truth in our democracy depends on it.

The government should also immediately investigate the issue of cost recovery for news and current affairs production.

They already have production discounts on Australian dramas such as Home and Away, as well as Australian documentaries.

The government has already decided that local content is so important to our national psyche that it should be subsidized.

I would argue that it is even more important for our residents to protect the future of Australian news.

In other industries, there are all kinds of discounts.

And we journalists are very good at helping other industries, like small businesses, lobby for change.

It’s time to do it for yourself.

Our democracy literally depends on the strength of our journalism.

Journalism is the greatest job and greatest privilege in the world.

And we need it right now.

Anthony De Ceglie is Seven’s director of news and current affairs. This is an edited extract from a speech he gave at the Melbourne Press Club.