Myllylahti, MerjaMeese, James2024-09-242024-09-2420/09/2024Journal of Media Business Studies, ISSN: 1652-2354 (Print); 2376-2977 (Online), Informa UK Limited, 1-18. doi: 10.1080/16522354.2024.24043001652-23542376-2977http://hdl.handle.net/10292/18039This paper identifies various issues associated with the increase in direct public funding of news media across Australasia. We conduct a comparative analysis of outcomes from two Trans-Tasman public interest journalism funds: the Public Interest Journalism Fund (PIJF) in New Zealand and the Public Interest News Gathering Fund in Australia (PING). By investigating the allocation of funding, the paper identifies risks and unintended consequences arising from the direct public funding of private media. It also raises issues that policymakers need to address when drafting media policies in the future as government support can lead to negative outcomes. While a substantial proportion of the public money of the two funds was aimed at retaining newsroom roles, redundancies and newsroom closures have continued, highlighting the limitations of these specific government interventions.© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/1503 Business and Management1902 Film, Television and Digital Media2001 Communication and Media Studies3507 Strategy, management and organisational behaviour4701 Communication and media studiesJournal ArticleOpenAccess10.1080/16522354.2024.2404300