Andrew Bolt demands 2,000 government part-paid journalists declare the money in every article

Sky News host Andrew Bolt has taken the story One News Australia broke on Labor's $67.6 million Journalism Assistance Fund to a national television audience, demanding the 2,000 journalists whose wages taxpayers now part pay declare the money at the bottom of every article they write.

The numbers Bolt put to air on The Bolt Report on Tuesday night, $16.1 million to Nine, $11.3 million to Seven and its new Southern Cross group, and grants to Crikey, The Conversation, The Saturday Paper and Mamamia, are the same numbers we published in full on Monday, 20 July, drawn from the Commonwealth's own grant records.

If you missed that investigation, here's the short version. The fund, opened by Communications Minister Anika Wells in November 2025, pays 184 private newsrooms roughly $39,000 for every full time journalist over three years, with payments running until March 2028. Grants were handed out in order of application with no merit ranking, and the whole pool was spoken for within 28 days.

"I'm not saying all these journalists toe the Labor line as a result of the money, but shouldn't they at least declare this government money at the bottom of every one of their articles?" Bolt asked.

Bolt says the money is a corrupting influence

Bolt states "the time has come for more media transparency", and he went further than asking for a disclosure line.

"I think it's a corrupting influence, because it makes journalists and media outlets look to the government and not want to offend the government," Bolt said. "It's natural, and it's wrong, and they should declare themselves."

The outlets taking the money, he noted, are often the loudest critics of the ones that can't. News Corp's Australian mastheads, Sky News Australia, The Guardian and Daily Mail Australia are all barred from the scheme as foreign controlled, and Bolt argued several of the subsidised outlets would struggle to exist at all without government support.

Anika Wells' rules mean readers never have to be told

Nothing in the grant guidelines requires a funded newsroom to tell its readers it's drawing a taxpayer wage subsidy. And if an outlet chooses to mention it, the guidelines even supply government approved wording: the grant "covers part of the cost of employing journalists, but does not influence the production of specific content".

So the disclosure Bolt wants isn't just optional. Where it happens at all, the government has already written the script.

Hollie Hughes says they're not journalists anymore

Bolt put the transparency question to a panel of One Nation senator Hollie Hughes and former Labor MP Michael Danby, and Hughes didn't bother with the diplomatic version.

"The reality is, they're not journalists anymore. They're all some form of opinion writer or commentator on what their personal beliefs are," Hughes said. "My undergraduate degree was in broadcast journalism, and I can tell you, we were taught to report the news. Our opinions didn't matter. I could not believe this when I read it. I think it's disgusting," she said.

One News takes no government money and won't name its people

Since that investigation went up, One News Australia has been contacted by numerous outlets wanting to dig into who our staff and contributors are. The answer is no. We publish things most outlets won't, and people who write here have faced threats for it, so their names stay private.

Those threats aren't hypothetical in this corner of Australian politics. Death threats now engulf the Hanson family while their protection arrangements stall, and "Die Pauline" was the chant outside a One Nation dinner in Melbourne.

The transparency readers are owed is a different thing. This masthead takes no government money, and every claim we print links to the public record.

Every one of the 184 newsrooms, every grant amount and every string attached is in One News Australia's original investigation, drawn from the government's own GrantConnect records. Bolt's demand is a simple one. If the government part pays the person writing your news, you deserve to be told.