Small publishers and independent multicultural media like Neos Kosmos, Australian Jewish News, and the Australian Chinese Daily will secure funding from Google as part of a deal negotiated by Andrew Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation.

Minderoo negotiated on behalf of 24 Australian multicultural and other independent publishers to secure funding for use of their news content on Google’s platforms.

David Redman CEO of the Australian Jewish News was pleased with the outcome.

“We are happy to see that Google is continuing to work with publishers on finding ways to support quality public interest journalism and we call on Facebook to do the same,” said Mr Redman to Neos Kosmos.

Christopher Gogos, publisher and managing director of Neos Kosmos echoed Mr Redman’s views.

“The arrangement, although more than a year after deals were done with the major media players in Australia, is welcome, Google have acknowledged the value of the content we produce in the public interest, especially for our community,” said Mr Gogos.

He said that small publishers, have encountered huge challenges over the past decade, and “this is a first step in acknowledging the value of our content by big tech.”

“Facebook also needs to acknowledge the value of our content on their platform and come to the negotiating table,” Mr Gogos said.

Mr Gogos wants to work with Google to continue to enhance multicultural media’s “digital storytelling for the benefit of the community.”

Fotis Kapetopoulos, Secretary of Independent Multicultural Media Australia, welcomed the deal, and emphasised the importance of Facebook “coming to the party.”

“Independent multicultural media are essential to public interest journalism, now Facebook must commit to the program, Facebook stand in sharp contrast to Google,” Mr Kapetopoulos said to Neos Kosmos.

Emma McDonald, senior policy advisor at Minderoo’s frontier technology initiative, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, said the deals would protect local journalism.

“This deal has been negotiated in good faith over the past six months, culminating in a landmark agreement for independent journalism,” McDonald said to the Sydney Morning Herald.

“These publishers are working hard to produce important public interest journalism, including in rural and outer urban areas, and with multicultural and LGBTQI+ communities.”

Google’s deals were struck after the introduction of landmark news media bargaining laws which, if implemented, would force Google and Facebook to pay eligible large and small news publishers to display articles in the search engine and “newsfeed”.

The laws set the benchmark for private agreements to be made between media houses and big tech, with the threat of being forced to make deals or “designated” if they don’t. Treasury is currently assessing the effectiveness of these laws and working out whether more needs to be done to ensure news outlets are remunerated for their journalism.

Google last year struck deals with Nine Entertainment Co, which includes Channel Nine and mastheads The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, News Corp Australia, publisher of The Australian, The Herald Sun and The Daily Telegraph as well as smaller outlets.

Former ACCC boss Rod Sims, said last week Facebook (a subsidiary of Meta) should be designated for failing to strike deals with outlets such as The Conversation and multicultural broadcaster SBS.

Facebook has not struck a commercial deal with the publishers represented by Minderoo or negotiated with the organisation, but five publications did receive grants from the Australian News Fund.

“It seems to me now that Google has done a deal with just about 100 per cent of the people who qualify,” Sims said.

“That stands in stark contrast to Facebook, who stopped doing deals a long time ago and inexplicably didn’t do a deal with SBS or The Conversation.”

The Minderoo Foundation is one of several organisations negotiating with the tech giants on behalf of outlets. Country Press Australia, representing 70 local newspapers, collectively bargained to receive a deal from Google.

Google’s gross revenue in Australia grew 38 per cent to $7.2 billion in 2021, a major increase and a fresh high. However, net revenue, which excludes certain costs of sales, was $1.7 billion.

As a result, Google made a pre-tax profit of $404 million in 2021 and paid tax of $85 million.