Newcastle Herald
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Tabloid |
| Owner(s) | Fairfax Media |
| Editor | Heath Harrison |
| Founded | 1858 |
| Headquarters | 28–30 Bolton Street (PO Box 510), Newcastle 2300 Also has offices in Maitland, Erina, Raymond Terrace and Nelson Bay |
| Website | The Herald.com.au |
The Newcastle Herald (branded as The Herald) is a local tabloid newspaper published daily, Monday to Saturday, in Newcastle, New South Wales, the largest non-capital city in Australia. It is the only local newspaper that serves the greater Hunter Region and Central Coast region six days a week. It is owned by Fairfax Media.
The Herald is the largest local media organisation, and enjoys a long affinity and reader involvement with the region's residents. It is also well read in Sydney (with readership figures showing a 20% increase in Sydney readership on Saturdays) and interstate, and is usually seen as an accurate record of business and local data for those looking to relocate to the region.
The paper features the only classifieds section published six days a week across the region.
The Herald, along with its sister free weekly The Star, employs more than 310 full-time staff, and injects $17 million into the local economy each year.
In mid-2008, the paper was forced to sell its free weekly Post publication to Newcastle Jets owner Con Constantine following the merger between Fairfax and Rural Press. Rural Press owned the competing Star newspaper and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ruled that the conglomerate was not allowed to own two such similar publications.
The Herald had its origins in two early newspapers, The Newcastle Chronicle and Hunter River District News and The Miners Advocate and Northumberland Recorder.
Established in 1858, the Chronicle began as a weekly journal carrying mining, shipping, court and some small items of local news. It cost just sixpence. In the years that followed it took on more of the appearance of a newspaper, became a bi-weekly and then tri-weekly, and by 1876 its last edition was priced at two pence.
Some of the paper's first articles document the Newcastle Earthquake of 1868, riots, severe storms and the Sinking of the Cawarra, the worst shipwreck in Newcastle's history that claimed the lives of sixty passengers on the Brisbane-bound passenger ship. It was also during the paper's infant years that the Newcastle rail line was extended to Watt Street (1858), Newcastle became a municipality (1859), the Miners' Federation was formed (1860) and gas lighting was introduced to the city (1875).
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