Sydney Morning Herald

The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the Herald is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia and "the most widely-read masthead in the country".[1] The newspaper is published in compact print form from Monday to Saturday as The Sydney Morning Herald and on Sunday as its sister newspaper, The Sun-Herald and digitally as an online site and app, seven days a week.[2] Contents 1 Overview 2 History 3 Political viewpoint 4 Notable contributors 4.1 Notable illustrators 5 Ownership 6 Content 6.1 Column 8 6.2 Opinion 6.3 Good Weekend 7 Digitisation 8 See also 9 References 10 Further reading 11 External links Overview The Sydney Morning Herald includes a variety of supplements, including the magazines Good Weekend (which is included in the Saturday edition of The Sydney Morning Herald); and Sunday Life. There are a variety of lift-outs, some of them co-branded with online classified advertising sites: The Guide (television) on Monday Good Food (food) and Domain (real estate) on Tuesday Money (personal finance) on Wednesday Drive (motor), Shortlist (entertainment) on Friday News Review, Spectrum (arts and entertainment guide), Domain (real estate), Drive (motoring) and MyCareer (employment) on Saturday The executive editor is James Chessell and the editor is Lisa Davies. Tory Maguire is national editor, Monique Farmer life editor and the publisher is chief digital and publishing officer Chris Janz. Former editors include Darren Goodsir, Judith Whelan, Sean Aylmer, Peter Fray, Meryl Constance, Amanda Wilson (the first female editor, appointed in 2011),[3] William Curnow,[4] Andrew Garran, Frederick William Ward, Charles Brunsdon Fletcher, Colin Bingham, Max Prisk, John Alexander, Paul McGeough, Alan Revell, and Alan Oakley. History The cover of the newspaper's first edition, on 18 April 1831 Sydney Morning Herald building on the corner of Pitt and Hunter Streets, built 1856, demolished in the 1920s for a larger building In 1831 three employees of the now-defunct Sydney Gazette, Ward Stephens, Frederick Stokes and William McGarvie, founded The Sydney Herald. In 1931 a Centenary Supplement (since digitised) was published.[5] The original four-page weekly had a print run of 750. In 1840, the newspaper began to publish daily. In 1841, an Englishman named John Fairfax purchased the operation, renaming it The Sydney Morning Herald the following year.[6] Fairfax, whose family were to control the newspaper for almost 150 years, based his editorial policies "upon principles of candour, honesty and honour. We have no wish to mislead; no interest to gratify by unsparing abuse or indiscriminate approbation." During the 1890s Donald Murray, who invented a predecessor of the teleprinter, worked there.[7] The SMH was late to the trend of printing news rather than just advertising on the front page, doing so from 15 April 1944. Of the country's metropolitan dailies, only The West Australian was later in making the switch. In 1949, the newspaper launched a Sunday edition, The Sunday Herald. Four years later, this was merged with the newly acquired Sun newspaper to create The Sun-Herald, which continues to this day. By the mid-1960s a new competitor had appeared in Rupert Murdoch's national daily The Australian, which was first published on 15 July 1964. In 1995, the company launched the newspaper's web edition smh.com.au.[8] The site has since grown to include interactive and multimedia features beyond the content in the print edition. Around the same time, the organisation moved from Jones Street to new offices at Darling Park and built a new printing press at Chullora, in the city's west. The SMH later moved with other Sydney Fairfax divisions to a building at Darling Island. In May 2007, Fairfax Media announced it would be moving from a broadsheet format to the smaller compact or tabloid-size, in the footsteps of The Times, for both The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.[9] Fairfax Media dumped these plans later in the year. However, in June 2012, Fairfax Media again announced it planned to shift both broadsheet newspapers to tabloid size, in March 2013.[10] Fairfax also announced it would cut staff across the entire group by 1,900 over three years and erect paywalls around the papers' websites.[11] The subscription type is to be a freemium model, limiting readers to a number of free stories per month, with a payment required for further access.[12] The announcement was part of an overall "digital first" strategy of increasingly digital or on-line content over printed delivery, to "increase sharing of editorial content", and to assist the management's wish for "full integration of its online, print and mobile platforms".[11] In July 2013 it was announced that the SMH 's news director, Darren Goodsir, would become Editor-in-Chief, replacing Sean Aylmer.[13] On 22 February 2014, the final Saturday edition was produced in broadsheet format with this too converted to compact format on 1 March 2014,[14] ahead of the decommissioning of the printing plant at Chullora in June 2014.[15] Political viewpoint According to Irial Glynn, the newspaper's editorial stance is generally centrist.[16] According to one commentator it is seen as the most centrist among the three major Australian non-tabloids (the other two being the Australian and the Age).[17] In 2004, the newspaper's editorial page stated: "market libertarianism and social liberalism" were the two "broad themes" that guided the Herald's editorial stance.[18] During the 1999 referendum on whether Australia should become a republic, the Herald (like the other two major papers) strongly supported a "yes" vote.[19] The newspaper did not endorse the Labor Party for federal office in the first six decades of Federation, but did endorse the party in 1961, 1984, and 1987. During the 2004 Australian federal election, the Herald announced it would "no longer endorse one party or another at election time" but that this policy might yet be revised in the future: "A truly awful government of any colour, for example, would bring reappraisal."[18] The Herald subsequently endorsed the centre-right[20][21] Coalition at the 2007 New South Wales state election,[22] but endorsed centre-left Labor at the 2007 and 2010 federal elections,[23] before endorsing the Coalition at the 2013 federal elections.[24] The Herald endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the run-up for the 2016 U.S. presidential election.[25] During the 2019 election, the Herald endorsed Bill Shorten and the centre-left Australian Labor Party for the sixth time since federation.[26] Notable contributors Waleed Aly Eliza Ashton (1851/1852 – 15 July 1900) wrote a series of articles under the pseudonym Faustine in the late 1880s and early 1890s.[27] Julia Baird Lucian Boz Mike Carlton Anne Davies Elizabeth Farrelly Peter FitzSimons Ross Gittins Richard Glover Peter Hartcher Amanda Hooton Adele Horin H. G. Kippax Roy Masters Anne Summers Kate McClymont Notable illustrators Simon Letch, named as one of the year's best illustrators on four consecutive occasions.[28][29][30][31] Ownership Main article: Nine Entertainment Co. Fairfax went public in 1957 and grew to acquire interests in magazines, radio and television. The group collapsed spectacularly on 11 December 1990 when Warwick Fairfax, great-great-grandson of John Fairfax, attempted to privatise the group by borrowing $1.8 billion. The group was bought by Conrad Black before being re-listed in 1992. In 2006, Fairfax announced a merger with Rural Press, which brought in a Fairfax family member, John B. Fairfax, as a significant player in the company.[32] From 10 December 2018 Nine and Fairfax Media merged into one business known as Nine. Nine Entertainment Co. owns The Sydney Morning Herald.