The Sydney Morning Herald marks 190 years of publishing
The Sydney Morning Herald celebrates 190 years since its first publication in 1831 making it one of the oldest continuously printed newspapers in the world.
In last week’s Mumbrellacast, editor Lisa Davies said: “it’s a pretty big deal worth celebrating, so we plan to.”
The Sydney masthead, first published on 18 April 1831, will commemorate the anniversary with a souvenir wrap around on today’s edition, showing how the Herald has ‘forged a lifelong trust with generations of Sydneysiders with its quality journalism and unique lens on reporting the life and times of the Emerald City’.
With the business now primarily driven by a growing subscription base, Davies said: “I don’t feel like we’ve been in a stronger position in the last few years. We’ve got an incredibly strong subscriber business, we’ve never been read by more people in our history, more than nine million readers each month and the Herald has the largest readership across print and online in the country.”
The COVID pandemic saw an accelerated transformation for the Herald, with subscription numbers steadily increasing. “We just saw many many thousands of people decide that at a time like that you’ve got to turn to a source of information you trust, and that showed up in the numbers very quickly.” Dave Eisman, head of subscribers and growth told Mumbrella.
Lisa Davies, editor of The Sydney Morning Herald
While a few years ago the future of the paper was up in the air, Davies committed to the print format for the foreseeable future: “I can’t see a time when there won’t be a print product.”
The Herald was part of the Fairfax Media stable which moved across to Nine Entertainment Co in 2018.
Davies added in a statement: “As we celebrate the Herald’s rich heritage; its vital role in shaping Sydney and our voice in the most important national conversations, we want to draw on this history as we look forward. We must continue to drive and inform the future of our city, the direction of our nation and our place on the world’s stage.”
There will be a number of features published in the publication this week to celebrate the milestone, in addition to an event held at the Sydney Opera House.
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Calum Jaspan was news editor at Mumbrella, based in Melbourne. He was also the producer and host of the Mumbrellacast. He left Mumbrella in May 2023.
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