The Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) is a daily tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the Herald is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia and claims to be the most widely-read masthead in the country.[3] 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.[4] It is considered a newspaper of record for Australia.[5][6] The print edition of The Sydney Morning Herald is available for purchase from many retail outlets throughout the Sydney metropolitan area, most parts of regional New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and South East Queensland.
"Theherald.com.au" redirects here. For the Newcastle newspaper formerly branded as "The Herald", see The Newcastle Herald.Type
Daily newspaper
Nine Entertainment Co.
(since 2018)
- William McGarvie
- Alfred Ward Stephens
- Frederick Stokes
Nine Entertainment Co.
Bevan Shields[1]
Liam Phelan
Deborah Snow
Monique Farmer
Ben Coady
Mags King
700+
April 1831
Centre to centre-left
English
1 Denison Street, North Sydney, Australia
808,000 (weekly)[3]
The Sydney Morning Herald publishes a variety of supplements, including the magazines Good Weekend (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 executive editor is James Chessell and the editor is Bevan Shields. Tory Maguire is national editor, Monique Farmer is 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),[7] William Curnow,[8] Andrew Garran, Frederick William Ward (editor from 1884 to 1890), Charles Brunsdon Fletcher, Colin Bingham, Max Prisk, John Alexander, Paul McGeough, Alan Revell, Alan Oakley, and Lisa Davies.
Content[edit]
Column 8[edit]
Column 8 is a short column to which Herald readers send their observations of interesting happenings. It was first published on 11 January 1947.[52] The name comes from the fact that it originally occupied the final (8th) column of the broadsheet newspaper's front page. In a front-page redesign in the lead-up to the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, Column 8 moved to the back page of the first section from 31 July 2000.[53] As at February 2024, the column is the final column on the Opinion (editorial and letters) pages.
The content tends to the quirky, typically involving strange urban occurrences, instances of confusing signs (often in Engrish), word play, and discussion of more or less esoteric topics.[54]
The column is also sometimes affectionately known as Granny's Column, after a fictional grandmother who supposedly edited it.[52] The column's original logo was a caricature of Sydney Deamer, originator of the column and its author for 14 years.[53][55]
It was edited for 15 years by George Richards, who retired on 31 January 2004.[52][56] Other editors besides Deamer and Richards have been Duncan Thompson, Bill Fitter, Col Allison, Jim Cunningham, Pat Sheil, and briefly, Peter Bowers and Lenore Nicklin.[56] The column is, as of March 2017, edited by Herald journalist Tim Barlass, who frequently appends reader contributions with puns; and who made the decision to reduce the column's publication from its traditional six days a week, down to just weekdays.[57]
Opinion[edit]
The Opinion section is a regular of the daily newspaper, containing opinion on a wide range of issues. Mostly concerned with relevant political, legal and cultural issues, the section presents work by regular columnists, including Herald political editor Peter Hartcher, Ross Gittins, as well as occasional reader-submitted content. Iconoclastic Sydney barrister Charles C. Waterstreet, upon whose life the television workplace comedy Rake is loosely based, had a regular humour column in this section.
Good Weekend[edit]
Good Weekend was launched in May 1978, as a Saturday magazine appearing in both SMH and The Canberra Times.[58] The editor was Valerie Lawson, and Cyprian Fernandes was founding chief sub-editor.[59][60]
It is now distributed with both The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in Saturday editions. It contains, on average, four feature articles written by its stable of writers and others syndicated from overseas as well as sections on food, wine, and fashion. Writers include Stephanie Wood, Jane Cadzow, Melissa Fyfe, Tim Elliott, Konrad Marshall, and Amanda Hooton.
Other sections include "Modern Guru", which features humorous columnists including Danny Katz responding to the everyday dilemmas of readers; a Samurai Sudoku; and "The Two of Us", containing interviews with a pair of close friends, relatives or colleagues.
Good Weekend is edited by Katrina Strickland. Previous editors include Ben Naparstek, Judith Whelan and Fenella Souter.
Digitisation[edit]
The paper has been partially digitised as part of the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program project of the National Library of Australia.[61][62][63]