Cost of Bundaberg Now news page comes down to transparency |Opinion

Claims the council-owned Bundaberg Now page is costing ratepayers nothing extra skate around the real concerns about a government-owned news outfit spruiking the talents of those controlling the purse strings.

Claims Bundaberg Now costs ratepayers only $5000 to run skirt the main issue that ratepayers have a right to know what it is costing to run anews service which only highlights the council’s good side.

“Show me the money.”

The iconic catchphrase from Jerry Maguire feels relevant for Bundaberg Now as the true cost of what the Rum City’s news service costs to run continues to elude those footing the bill.

The claim has been made repeatedly, again on Friday morning on social media by an account apparently belonging to the Mayor’s Chief of Staff Michael Gorey, that Bundaberg Now only costs $5000 a year to run.

Mr Gorey, in a separate comment, suggested the $5000 related to software.

This can mean only two things: either Bundaberg Now is generated by high level Artificial Intelligence or the dozen council staff who edit, design and publish articles on the page and its Facebook and Twitter affiliates work for free.

Questions about the true cost of running the service continue to elude ratepayers.

If the former is true then the council should start using this AI in other departments and save ratepayers some real money.

If it’s the latter, those staff really should unionise – they’re making Nike factory workers feel rich.

Of course, there’s a third option: staff already drawing a wage use “some” of their time on Bundaberg Now.

This sounds more plausible.

The question then: how much time?

The council’s website says 13 communications staff help produce the online website while juggling all the council’s internal and external communications.

Recent Facebook posts have repeatedly claimed the news service costs nothing more than $5000 per year.

Now, let’s say each staff member spends 10 per cent of their time on the outlet. And let’s be conservative and assume all of them are on $60,000 per year.

That’s $78,000 right off the bat.

That’s just a little bit higher than $5000 in software cost, isn’t it?

We haven’t even gotten to advertising costs, either, with at least $20,000 spent promoting it at launch in 2019.

How much has been spent in the past two years?

More? Less? Either way it’s still money on top.

Or maybe the council spontaneously stopped promoting its shiny new toy and redirected its $1.4 million communications budget elsewhere?

So again: what is the actual cost to ratepayers for the council to run what looks to me like a PR exercise for the council.

Sure, the Bundaberg Now homepage says it is council-owned – if you scroll to the bottom and squint hard at the fine print.

You need to go digging to find that same declaration on its Facebook page.

Strangely the Twitter page contains no such declaration, which is either an “oopsie” or a convenience.

The Bundaberg Now Twitter page does not promote the website as owned by the council.

Mr Gorey is quick to take aim at the “Murdoch narrative” in defence of the page and its cost, apparently overlooking the fact the Federal Minister for communications, the ABC, community newspaper Bundaberg Today, the Country Press Association, and several noted academics have also raised questions about the page’s true cost, its transparency and the ethics around providing a news service which reports on itself.

Speaking of narratives, what of the one touted by Bundaberg Now promoting the council and councillors as unable to do wrong?

Someone planning to run at the next election would be well justified to consider it a gross unfairness to have a news outlet relentlessly spruiking the incumbents for four straight years and competing with media outlets for space at the top of Google searches.

The NewsMail is now part of a reinvigorated Wide Bay news team which is dedicated to informing and keeping watch on the community. The survival of our business depends on subscriptions but whether you are prepared to pay for the service remains your choice.

That’s not an option with Bundaberg Now; not paying that bill could cost you your house.