The Courier-Mail
The Courier-Mail is an Australian newspaper published in Brisbane. Owned by News Corp Australia, it is published daily from Monday to Saturday in tabloid format. Its editorial offices are located at Bowen Hills, in Brisbane's inner northern suburbs, and it is printed at Murarrie, in Brisbane's eastern suburbs. It is available for purchase both online and in paper form throughout Queensland, most regions of Northern New South Wales and parts of the Northern Territory.
Type
Chris Jones
1846
English
Brisbane, Australia
41 Campbell St
Bowen Hills QLD 4006
172,801 Monday–Friday
228,650 Saturday
History[edit]
19th century origins[edit]
The history of The Courier-Mail is through four mastheads. The Moreton Bay Courier later became The Courier, then the Brisbane Courier and, since a merger with the Daily Mail in 1933,[1] The Courier-Mail.
The Moreton Bay Courier was established as a weekly paper in June 1846. Issue frequency increased steadily to bi-weekly in January 1858, tri-weekly in December 1859, then daily under the editorship of Theophilus Parsons Pugh from 14 May 1861. The recognised founder and first editor was Arthur Sidney Lyon (1817–1861) who was assisted by its printer, James Swan (1811–1891), the later mayor of Brisbane and member of Queensland Legislative Council. Lyon, also referred to as the "father of the Press" in the colony of Queensland, had previously served as a writer and journalist in Melbourne, and later moved on to found and edit journals such as Moreton Bay Free Press, North Australian and Darling Downs Gazette.[2] Lyon was encouraged to emigrate by John Dunmore Lang and arrived in Brisbane from Sydney in early 1846 to establish a newspaper. He persuaded James Swan, a printer of Lang's Sydney newspaper The Colonialist to join him. Lyon and Swan established themselves on the corner of Queen Street and Albert Street, Brisbane, in a garret of a building later known as the North Star Hotel. The first issue of the Moreton Bay Courier, consisting of 4 pages, appeared weekly on Saturday 20 June 1846, with Lyon as editor and Swan as publisher.
After some 18 months, Lyon and Swan disagreed on many aspects of editorial policy, including transportation of convicts and squatting. Lyon took over sole control in late 1847, but had money problems, and gave sole control to Swan. Swan sold out to Thomas Blacket Stephens in about November 1859.[3][4][5]The Moreton Bay Courier became The Courier, and then the Brisbane Courier in 1864. In June–July 1868, Stephens floated a new company, and transferred the plant and copyright of the Brisbane Courier to "The Brisbane Newspaper Company".[6] He was the managing director until retired in November 1873, when the paper was auctioned.[7][8]
The journal was, from November 1873 to December 1880, managed by one of the new part-owners, the Tasmanian-born former public servant Gresley Lukin (1840–1916). Although called "managing editor", actual writing and editing was by William Augustine O'Carroll (1831–1885). Most prominent of the various editors and sub-editors of The Queenslander literary staff were William Henry Traill (1842–1902), later NSW politician and editor of the famed Sydney journal 'The Bulletin', and Carl Adolph Feilberg (1844–1887). Feilberg followed William Henry Trail in the role of political commentator and the de facto editor of The Queenslander until January 1881. He succeeded William O'Carroll as Courier editor-in-chief from September 1883 to his death in October 1887. Lukin's roles as part owner-editor changed on 21 December 1880. Charles Hardie Buzacott, former Postmaster General in the first McIlwraith government, had been a staff journalist.
20th century[edit]
John James Knight was editor-in-chief of The Brisbane Courier from 1906 to 1916, later managing director, then chairman of all of the company's publications.[9]
The first edition of The Courier-Mail was published on 28 August 1933, after Keith Murdoch's Herald and Weekly Times acquired and merged The Brisbane Courier and the Daily Mail (first published on 3 October 1903). In 1987, Rupert Murdoch's News Limited acquired newspaper control, and outstanding shares of Queensland Newspapers Pty Ltd.[10]
Recognition[edit]
The Courier-Mail was inducted into the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame in 2015.[12][13]
Political position[edit]
The Courier-Mail is a right-leaning newspaper, with four editorial endorsements for the Coalition to one for Labor in the period 1996–2007.[14] The Courier-Mail generally supports free market economic policies and the process of globalisation. It supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[15]
In 2007, Crikey described it as "...to the right, as the sleepier Murdoch tabloids always are – but it's more lazy populism than ideological fervour".[15]
Criticism and legal issues[edit]
The Courier-Mail is not well-regarded for its journalism; for instance Crikey described it as "one of the contestants in a close run field for worst paper in Australia... mostly predictable and dull, with occasional honourable exceptions...".[15]
In August 2011, police and the parents of a murder victim criticised the paper for falsely accusing their son of a child sex crime.[16]
On 24 March 2014 Queensland Newspapers, the News Corp Australia subsidiary responsible for publishing the Courier-Mail, was found guilty by a District Court of breaching restrictions on publishing Family Court proceedings on four occasions, and fined a total of $120,000. The breaches occurred in 2012 when the Courier-Mail published on its front page the names and photos of a mother and her children involved in a Family Court dispute. District Court Justice Terence Martin said: "It seems to me that the newspaper seized upon what it regarded as a sensational story, which would be attractive to readers, and put the story ahead of its legal obligations".[17]
On 7 October 2014, the paper published a transphobic headline related to the gruesome murder of Mayang Prasetyo.[18]
The paper raised controversy for depicting Indonesian president Joko Widodo with a doctored photo of bloody hands to protest against the country's decision to execute two Australian convicted drug smugglers known as part of the Bali Nine in 2015.[19]
Circulation and readership[edit]
In 2013, The Courier-Mail had the fourth-highest circulation of any daily newspaper in Australia. Its average Monday-Friday net paid print sales were 172,801 between January and March 2013, having fallen 8.0 per cent compared to the previous year. Its average Saturday net paid print sales were 228,650 between January and March 2013, down 10.5 per cent compared to the previous year.[20] The paper's Monday-Friday readership was 488,000 in March 2013, having fallen 11.6 per cent compared to the previous year. Its Saturday readership was 616,000 in March 2013, down 13.8 per cent compared to the previous year.[20] Around three-quarters of the paper's readership is located in the Brisbane metropolitan area.[21]
Although often claimed to be Brisbane's only daily newspaper since the demise of Queensland Newspapers' own afternoon newspaper The Telegraph in 1988, it arguably has had two competitors since 2007. News Corp itself published mX, a free afternoon newspaper, from 2007, but mX had a relatively low news content, and was discontinued in mid-2015.[22] Fairfax Media has published the online only Brisbane Times since 2007.
As of August 2015, according to third-party web analytics providers Alexa and SimilarWeb, Courier-Mail's website was the 141st and 273rd most visited in Australia respectively.[23][24] At the same time, SimilarWeb rated the site as the 25th most visited news website in Australia, attracting almost 2.6 million visitors per month.[24][25]
The Courier-Mail has co-sponsored two sets of literary awards.
The Courier-Mail Book of the Year Award, co-sponsored by Queensland Government and worth A$30,000, was established in 1999,[26] and covered a range of writing genres. The inaugural prize was awarded in 2001, and the last one in 2005. The winners of this award were:[27]
From 2012 and as of 2023, The Courier-Mail People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year has been awarded as part of the Queensland Literary Awards. Again co-sponsored by The Courier-Mail and the Queensland Government, this prize is awarded "to an outstanding book by a Queensland author, taken from eligible books entered in the Fiction and Non-Fiction categories".[28]
Digitisation[edit]
Pre-1955 issues of the newspaper have been digitised as part of the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program of the National Library of Australia.[29][30]
