03 08 2023 OIA Response PIJF Queries.pdf

Level 2
119 Ghuznee Street
P O Box 9744
Wellington 6141
New Zealand
[NZ On Air request email]
www.nzonair.govt.nz
Tel: 04 382 9524
Fax: 04 382 9546
3 August 2023
Adam
[FYI request #23444 email]
Tēnā koe Adam
Official Information request and response
Thank you for your request under the Official Information Act (“OIA”) dated 9 July 2023.
You have requested:
1. A funding breakdown of all organisations that have received funding from the Public Interest
Journalism Fund (PIJF) to date.
2. A list of all online news articles that have received funding from the PIJF, how much funding
was applied for, and how much funding each specific article has received.
3. A list of all projects that have received funding from the PIJF, how much funding was applied
for, and how much each specific project has received.
4. A list of all organisations who have applied for, but were denied funding under the PIJF.
Please also provide the funding sought.
5. A list of all organisations who have applied for, and successfully received funding under the
PIJF. Please also provide the funding granted.
6. Please release all successful funding applications made by organisations to the PIJF, and their
reasons for why their nominated projects fulfil a public interest service that would otherwise
have been at risk.
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Please find our response below:

1.  Al  PIJF funding decisions are made public and can be found via our website.

Funding decisions were made public at the completion of each round and the media releases for
each include the fol owing:

o  PIJF Round 1 Media Release
o  PIJF Round 2 Media Release
o  PJF Round 3 Media Release
o  PIJF Round 4 Media Release
o  PIJF Round 5 Media Release
o  PIJF Round 6 Media Release
o  PIJF Round 7 Media Release
o  PIJF Emergency Resiliency Funding Media Release

We decline this part of your request under Section 18(d) of the OIA as the information you have
requested is publicly available.

2.  Funding is for public interest journalism roles and projects, as opposed to specific articles and as
such there is no document containing all online news articles and how much funding a specific
article has received or how much a specific article cost.

This is also in part due to our data set not being complete for a number of reasons:
•  Data measurement of digital content was initiated in August 2021 and tracking
progressively came online as individual applicants gradually joined.
•  It took almost a year for the majority of publishers to join the system.
•  Google Universal Analytics was phased out by Google after the PIJF data tracking began
necessitating a switch to the Google Analytics 4 system.
We decline this part of your request based on Section 18(e)  of the OIA, as the document al eged
to contain the information requested does not exist.

However, while we are unable to meet your request in ful  due to this data set not being
complete, we can provide:
•  a spreadsheet that details online PIJF-funded articles that have been tracked as part
of our monitoring system from the first date an article was tracked up until 30 June
2023.

This spreadsheet details the title of each tracked online article and its respective host website. As
noted above, this is an incomplete data set and does not currently capture al  online content
funded under the PIJF. It should also be noted this spreadsheet does not cover print, app, social
media, linear television, and radio content and therefore does not give a ful  picture of the
amount of content produced by funded roles and projects. We decline to release information
regarding readership figures as they relate to each article under the Section 9(2)(b)(i) of the OIA.

Further to this, we can also provide the fol owing attached document:
•  A spreadsheet detailing each successful PIJ funding application, their contracted
content outcomes and respective publishing platform (where applicable).

Please note that al  funded content is also required to fol ow our accreditation guidelines.
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3.  Please refer to the answer at Paragraph 1.

4.  NZ On Air does not release detail on declined applications due to the intellectual property
contained and the commercial sensitivity of projects. This is for several reasons, such as enabling
applicants to continue to develop and ‘shop’ their project, preventing projects from being copied,
and enabling projects to apply for funding to other organisations without the stigma of a decline
from NZ On Air. We decline this part of your request under Section 9(2)(b)(i) of the OIA.

5.  Please refer to the answer above in Paragraph 1.

6.  You have requested copies of “al  successful funding applica�ons made by organisa�ons to the
PIJF, and their reasons for why their nominated projects fulﬁl a public interest service that would
otherwise have been at risk”.
The documenta�on that fal s under this part of your request is the applica�ons themselves (of
which there are approximately 180) and the funding recommenda�on papers submited to the NZ
On Air Staﬀ Investment Commitee and Board in respect of these applica�ons (of which there are
25).
In the interests of mee�ng the aims of your request in a �mely manner, we believe the key
informa�on from each applica�on is dis�l ed in these funding recommenda�on papers and
outlines the reasons as to why applica�ons were considered and funded by NZ On Air.
Considering this and the further informa�on we have outlined below, you wil  note that we have
asked you to conﬁrm whether you would accept receiving copies of these funding papers in lieu
of the full proposals for successful PIJF applica�ons.
Should you narrow your request to this level of documenta�on, we wil  aim to provide copies of
these papers (with any necessary redac�ons made as per the OIA) to you within 30 working days
of the response of this date. The reason for this delay is to compile this informa�on, review it and
consult with (or atempt to consult with) al  aﬀected third par�es who have been successful in
obtaining funding through the PIJF.

Charging
As noted above, there have been numerous successful PIJF funding applica�ons (approximately
180 applica�ons) and should you wish to access this level of documenta�on we intend to charge
for this work as per the Oﬃcial Charging Guidelines for the OIA.
We have made the decision to charge for this work due to the amount of documenta�on that has
been requested. There are approximately 180 applica�ons of various sizes/pages that you have
requested and for each proposal, we wil  be required to locate each applica�on, read and review
it, and prepare it for release. Such prepara�on wil  include assessing whether any informa�on in
individual applica�ons may be subject to the withholding grounds under the OIA.
We es�mate that such labour wil  take 15 minutes per successful applica�on, which means a total
of 45 hours of work.
As per the guidelines above of charging $38 per chargeable half hour (a�er a ﬁrst hour of no
cost), the maximum amount we an�cipate charging is $3,344 for this level for work. Due to the
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level of labour required, we wil  require a 10% deposit of $344 to be paid to NZ On Air before this
work is undertaken.
Any unused component of this charge wil  be refunded to you.

Considering the amount we an�cipate charging for this work, we propose the fol owing op�ons
and seek your conﬁrma�on on which op�on you choose to pursue:
1.  Conﬁrma�on and agreement from you that you wil  accept this charge and pay payment
of the deposit, with the balance of $3,000 to be paid on release of the informa�on.
Should you accept this op�on by 5pm Friday 4th August we wil  endeavour to provide this
informa�on to you by 29 September 2023. Should you provide this conﬁrma�on a�er this
prescribed �meframe, we may reasonably extend our delivery date for this
documenta�on.

We wil  provide you with the relevant banking details should you notify us you wish to
pursue this option.

2.  Conﬁrma�on that you accept receiving a representa�ve sample of successful PIJF
applica�ons (10) within the 30-working day�me period speciﬁed above in rela�on to the
release of Staﬀ Investment Commitee or Board papers. This wil  incur a maximum charge
of $114  which we wil  require you to pay on release of this informa�on.

We wil  provide you with the relevant banking details should you notify us you wish to
pursue this option.

3.  Limi�ng your request to the funding recommenda�on papers as discussed above. This
will not incur a charge.

If you wish to discuss this decision with us or provide confirmation of which above option you
seek to pursue, please contact Conall Aird ([email address]), who wil  be able to assist
you should you wish to change or refine your request in order to reduce or remove the need to
charge.

For your information, funding provided by NZ On Air for all successful projects is searchable on our
website. You can also sign up to receive our regular industry newsletter via our website.

You have the right to refer this response, or our decision to charge, to the Ombudsman if you are
dissatisfied with it. More information on how to do this is here. NZ On Air proactively releases
information in accordance with the Government’s commitment to the Open Government Partnership
National Action Plan.  This includes publishing responses to requests for information under the OIA.
Please note that this response (with your name removed) wil  be published on the NZ On Air website
shortly and will remain on our website for 12 months.

Thank you for your interest in our work.

Yours sincerely

Sharon Kerry
HEAD OF CORPORATE SERVICES

Connecting and reflecting Aotearoa