Herald Sun
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Template:Infobox Newspaper The Herald Sun is a newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that is published by The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd, a subsidiary of News Corporation.
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Origins
The Herald Sun was formed in 1990 from a merger of the morning tabloid paper The Sun News-Pictorial with its afternoon broadsheet sister paper The Herald. It was first published on October 8, 1990 as The Herald-Sun. The hyphen in its title was later dropped; the last hyphenated masthead appeared on May 1 1993. The Herald Sun is the most popular newspaper in Australia, and with a weekday circulation of 551,100 (and readership of 1,500,000) it even outsells its Sydney counterpart, The Daily Telegraph.[1]
History
The Herald was founded on January 3, 1840, by George Cavanaugh as The Port Phillip Herald. In 1855 it became The Melbourne Herald for all of one week before settling on The Herald.
In its heyday, The Herald had a circulation of almost 600,000, but by the time of its 150th anniversary in 1990, with the impact of evening television news and more people using cars as a means for transport rather than trains or trams, The Herald's circulation had fallen to just under 200,000.
Image:Hwtbuild.jpg The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd was faced with the choice of either closing The Herald which would have meant a massive lay off of employees or merging it with its morning sister paper The Sun News-Pictorial and combining the best journalists and features from both papers in a new newspaper. The HWT decided to merge the two and so The Herald was published for the last time as a separate newspaper on October 5, 1990, after one hundred and fifty years, ten months and two days of publication. The next day, October 6, The Sun News-Pictorial published its last edition.
The Sun News-Pictorial was founded on September 11, 1922, and was bought by the HWT in 1925.
Content
The Herald Sun strengths are its clear writing style, relevance to its readership, extensive sports reporting and a general lack of pretension. Criticisms are often made, however, that there its news and opinion content has less depth, is more sensationalistic and is comprised of a larger proportion of 'soft' reporting compared to competing broadsheets. Left-wing critics say that it is biased to the right-wing, with some arguing that it reflects the view of one-time socialist, now conservative Rupert Murdoch who is the chief executive officer of the Herald Sun's parent company.
Regular Herald Sun columnists include Andrew Bolt, Neil Mitchell, Jill Singer and Terry McCrann.
Acclaim
In 2005, the Herald Sun received an award from the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers Association for its "How Things Work" series.
It was also awarded the Newspaper of the Year award from PANPA for being "Passionate, committed and totally involved in its city and state. Consistent in content and presentation, the paper has six consecutive positive circulation audit periods under its belt." The judges said of the newspaper:
- Pages are impactful with sound story balance and professional picture usage. Content flows comfortably through the newspaper; an excellent package.
The Sunday Herald Sun was also honourably mentioned in the same ceremony, with judges saying:
- This newspaper has been one of the greatest success stories of the Australian newspaper industry in recent years. It has a close affinity with its readers, is pro-active and positive across a range of interests and its campaigns draw amazing response from the community. [...] For a relatively young newspaper it has been Australia’s fastest growing metropolitan newspaper since the year 2000. [2]
Criticisms
2004 Election
Shortly before the 2004 election, the Herald-Sun published an article entitled "Greens back illegal drugs" (Herald-Sun, 31/8/2004) written by Gerard McManus which made a number of claims about the Australian Greens. The Greens complained to the Australian Press Council. The text of their adjudication reads:
- In the context of an approaching election, the potential damage was considerable. The actual electoral impact cannot be known but readers were seriously misled. [...] The claims made in the original article were seriously inaccurate and breached the Council's guiding principles of checking the accuracy of what is reported, taking prompt measures to counter the effects of harmfully inaccurate reporting, ensuring that the facts are not distorted, and being fair and balanced in reports on matters of public concern.
The newspaper published what the Greens saw as an unenthusiastic apology.
Current Journalists
- Andrew Bolt
- Neil Mitchell
- Jill Singer
- Terry McCrann.
- Gerard McManus
Cultural Contributions
The old Herald and Weekly Times building located in Flinders Street is currently undergoing redevelopment. A 36 floor office tower is being built above the old building, which, being heritage listed, cannot be fully demolished. Its exterior, including the neon HERALD SUN sign and the former radio antennas on the roof for radio station 3DB, that was also housed in the building for many years, cannot be removed. The interior of the building was gutted after the HWT moved out in 1995 after seventy-two years in the building. Apartments will be built inside the old structure.
The Herald Sun is the major sponsor of the Herald Sun Tour, a multi-stage road bicycle race held annually in Victoria since 1952 (when it was The Sun Tour).
See also
External links
- The Herald Sun website
- The Port Phillip Herald and The Herald archive 1840 - 1880
- Herald Living Apartments