Re-birth, deaths and marriages: SA council looks to revive local paper with ad spend

One Eyre Peninsula town in South Australia is bucking the trend of local regional newspapers closing by underwriting a new paper for its region.

The Cleve District Council has committed $90,000 to advertise in a newspaper to be based in Cleve and Ceduna.

Council corporate services manager Meisha Quinn said the council wanted to investigate re-starting a newspaper after receiving complaints when the town’s 110-year-old Eyre Peninsula Tribune stopped being printed.

Offices for the Ceduna-based West Coast Sentinel and the Eyre Peninsula Tribune, both owned by Australian Community Media, closed during the COVID lockdown in early 2020.

Ms Quinn said the community needed a local paper.

“There’s a lot of elderly people in our community that are feeling very isolated and not up to speed with information going on around the town and the news,” Ms Quinn said.

“A lot of them are not up with technology [they] don’t have computers or ipads or iphones so they’re missing out on receiving any news about their local community.”

Community demand

Ms Quinn said the Kimba council had also committed funds and three other councils were considering supporting the venture.

Balaklava-based Papers & Publications Pty Ltd (P&P) which publishes the Plains Producer and the Two Wells Echo will produce the new as-yet not named paper.

Managing director Andrew Manuel was involved with three other publishers in relaunching the Border Watch at Mount Gambier after it closed in August, 2020.

“We are currently looking to employ four full-time equivalents on the EP, and one from our Balaklava office where production of the paper will happen,” Mr Manuel said.

He expects the first edition will be published in September.

“News media is the fabric which binds regional communities together,” he said.

“Sports stories and photos are also very important, and so are the first day of school photos et cetera. These are the things which are cut out and kept forever.

“Even the basic elements of a newspaper are really important, like birth and death notices.

University of South Australia journalism and professional writing program director Dr Bonita Mason said newspapers had a function to keep powerful bodies in the community accountable as well as connecting people with each other.

“What happens when we lose a community newspaper, and this is happening across rural areas in Australia … we lose that social glue, that way of keeping in touch with each other,” Dr Mason said.

She said country papers had a role in community building by taking an international or national issue and translating it into local conditions and local needs.

“It connects local people to the world at the same time as connecting them to each other through that information function,” Dr Mason said.

“For some people too having that ritual every morning of going and getting the newspaper, or once a week going and getting the newspaper, allows them just to see people and say hello.”

She said newspapers would continue in the digital era.

“Right from the beginning of Australia’s settlement people needed newspapers and there was even a printing press on the first fleet,” Dr Mason said.

“I think the hard copy will continue because it’s actually a different kind of experience, sitting down in front of a newspaper.

“There’s a thriving developing small magazine sector in Australia that is in print and these are being started by young people who like the aesthetics and the feel of the thing, so I think it’s about the experience too.”

Dr Mason said key issues were “actual independence” and whether a newspaper was able to freely investigate and cover council activities, and perceived independence and how much trust the community would invest in a newspaper with such a financial reliance.

“These are often problems for publications that are closer to their communities, and a clear commitment to editorial independence is important,” she said.

For Cleve local Peter duBois, it’s about the ritual and keeping up with local news.

“People rely on it, they certainly buy the local paper for the local news content,” he said.

Mr Manuel said the council would remain at arm’s length.

“While they have promised to advertise in the paper, they also understand the paper may also ask hard questions of them – but they are ok with this,” he said.