Unravelling the Real Birth of the Northern Miner

The Northern Miner, Charters Towers, is one of those newspapers whose early files did not survive and so there has been confusion over the years about its date of birth. This article sets out to tell the story of how that newspaper really began

Eureka and the Editor: A Reappraisal 150 Years On

Editors of colonial newspapers in the Australian provinces in the 1850s were foolish if they did not keep one eye on the cash flow while the other focused on the copy flow. Survival was the priority. Many country papers in the 1850s and 1860s were as short-lived as the rushes for gold to the districts where some papers were established. Rare was the country newspaper that did not engage vigorously in promoting the material and social advancement of its town and district. This boosterism tended to dilute editorial vigour in other directions, such as attacking the Establishment when appropriate. This paper deals with an exceptional editor in exceptional circumstances: an editor confronted with an increasingly explosive situation on goldfields several days from the seat of government. The developing crisis was fuelled by a belligerent and arrogant authority and an increasingly resistant mining community that saw no hint of a fair go in how its members were being treated. This paper reappraises, 150 years on, the performance of the local editor in the events that led to and followed what is known simply as "Eureka", a bloody battle provoked by an arrogant and uncaring administration

Diploma to degree: 75 years of tertiary journalism studies

When journalism studies began at the University of Queensland 75 years ago, they comprised the first certificated tertiary course in Australia. Initially, journalism studies focused, however, on anything but journalism. They were for journalists rather than about journalism, despite the fact that they resulted from an initiative of journalists. The evolution of journalism studies from diploma to degree at the University of Queensland is traced in this paper

Murray Bridge Took its Time to Cross Publishing Barriers

Murray Bridge in South Australia has had a newspaper for only 70 years

How a Communist Rag in Darwin Became a Newspaper for Mount Isa

A continuing presence in Mount Isa is the North West Star, which will be 40 years old next year, but there were two earlier Mount Isa newspapers, and before that a string of Cloncurry newspapers tried to cover the wider district. The first newspaper for Cloncurry, an hour's drive to the east of Mount Isa, was the Cloncurry Advocate and Flinders Pastoral and Mining Register, established in 1889. In later years, the Advocate had competition at various times: from the Mining News for a few years at the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, the Western Mail from about 1915-18, and the Cloncurry News and Mount Isa Record from 1921 until January 29, 1933. The first newspaper specifically directed at a Mount Isa readership was the Mount Isa Standard, printed in Brisbane at the Coronation Printery. H.B. Waldegrave published this weekly paper from January 22, 1948, until August 19, 1949

Out on the Barcoo Where Newspapers Are Few and Reporters and Printers Are Scanty

Blackall - population 1,730, or 47 per cent down on the 1961 Census - has been served by a newspaper for all except three years since 1879. And so on March 29 this year when publication of the Blackall Leader ceased, three months short of its 18th birthday, it was a black day for the town. Perhaps none watched the paper's demise more sadly than Sally Cripps, as will be shown

The Darwen Dictum: Get Out and Get Involved in the Community

In the shadow of the Australian press bicentenary next year will be the centenaries of such papers as the Border Morning Mail, established at Albury, New South Wales, on October 24, 1903, and the Bowen Independent, established in north Queensland on June 13, 1903. It says something about the significance of dynastic succession as an influence on newspaper survival that both newspapers still have the founding family involved

Newspapers Faded Away as the Amalgamation Disease Hit

Laura (South Australia) and Minyip (Victoria) belong to the category of newspaper ghost towns, Laura for 55 years and Minyip for 42, yet the offices formerly occupied by the Laura Standard and the Minyip Guardian still stand and still bear the old newspaper titles

News Media Chronicle, July 1999 to June 2000

A chronicle of events in the Australian news media industry from mid-1999 to mid-2000

Purposely parochial: three provincial dailies, 1930-1990

In the capital cities, the trend over the past 40 years has been that newspaper circulations have declined as populations have increased. In the provinces, the story is often different, as this case study of three daily newspapers which the Dunn family published in separate cities in provincial Queensland shows. Why? To a large extent, the Dunn newspaper ethos of localism and integrity reflected the desires of their communities and won the loyalty of subscribers to their newspapers