14 April 2022 |  From the friendly caves of Pixie Hollow.

 

In 19875, Andrew F. Laurie and John Watson founded the Herald as an offshoot of the Border Watch.

After a number of years, John Mather (who ran the paper) purchased it with another fella, Archibald Caldwell. 

In 1889, they were successfully sued by a Justice of the Peace, William Hutchison, for libel. They'd accused a wealthy squatter of dummying (buying land in such a way as to conceal the purpose of the purchase). 

The court case ran for 10 days and Mather and Ash lost all they had. The paper was closed in August 1889.

In October that year, Caldwell bought it and ran it with his brother Dugald until his death. Dugald then took over the business.

In 1912, the Herald acquired the Tatiara and Lawloit News. Then Dugald sold the business to a long-serving employee James L Thomson. Later, the Herald collaborated with the Border Watch and Bordertown's Border Chronicle.

Harry and Margaret Peake bought the paper in 1958, and their son took it over in 1979. 

Fairfax Media came later - running it from 2010 until 2019. 

In March 2020, amid the 'rona and the shutting down of an immense number of regional papers, the Herald ceased.

But if you believe Wikipedia, that cessation was temporary. (It wasn't going to be.)

Into the void stepped an entrepreneur who'd moved away from Naracoorte. During the 'rona, he moved back home. He funded the launch of a community-owned newspaper, titled The Naracoorte Community News. 

It began printing and offering subscriptions such as family memberships. It's paired with a digital paper. Its staff members were co-owners.

And it was immensely successful.

So successful, in fact, that the Herald restarted in May 2020.

 

Now Naracoorte has two papers, not just one!

The moral in this story is that even when the big guns believe that a format or location is dead, creating the right model for the right reasons will always succeed.

So how are you doing that today?

xx Leticia 'challenge everything' Mooney

 

Please let me know what I can do for you.
 
Leticia Mooney is a consultant with decades of experience writing with and for people like you. Her company Brutal Pixie casts the kind of spells your customers love. Its services are oracles (communication strategy, CCX, audits, investigations, quality assurance), metamorphoses (training, mentoring, coaching, wargaming), and your stories in magick hands (ghostwriting, content writing, editorial support). Leticia is also the mother of an intelligent, engaging, and curious boy, who is named after a character created by J.R.R Tolkien.

 

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