Business
24 September, 2024
'Ghost newspapers' hurting North West Weekly: editor
Matt Nicholls says phantom mastheads like The North West Star are making it hard for new publishers.
NORTH West Weekly editor and publisher Matt Nicholls says that the prevalence of “ghost newspapers”, such as The North West Star, is hurting independent media outlets across the country.
The issue was highlighted on ABC’s Media Watch, where it was pointed out that media giant Australian Community Media (ACM) was operating a number of mastheads that didn’t print a newspaper or have journalists based locally.
“The fact that they are charging people for content that is written by people located hundreds of kilometres away is a disgrace,” Mr Nicholls said.
“And I say ‘written’, but most of the content is re-hashed from what has been supplied to them, usually via press release.
“Meanwhile, we are a locally operated newspaper that pays journalists to be on the ground at great expense.
“Just our weekly printing bill would be more than what The North West Star spends on ‘journalism’ in a month.”
Mr Nicholls said the continued online presence of the legacy masthead had caused some confusion in the community.
“We’ve missed out on advertising because people have accidentally booked with the Star, rather than us,” he said.
“It caused one company quite a bit of distress, especially when the invoice to advertise in the Star’s online edition cost double what we would have charged.
“My understanding is that there are fewer than 200 subscribers to The North West Star, which means that this person paid a premium price for an ad that hardly anyone would have seen.
“What’s worse, the Queensland government has also booked ads with The North West Star since we’ve been up and running.
“That’s because they use an agency that couldn’t tell you the difference between Cloncurry and Caloundra.”
Mr Nicholls said he had made an approach to Australian Community Media about saving the region’s most iconic masthead.
“It was actually my preference to save The North West Star, rather than start up a new masthead from scratch,” he said.
“I spoke with ACM about a deal that would save the Star as a local publication and offered them the use of our editorial content to use on their other platforms, including Queensland Country Life and the North Queensland Register.
“Unfortunately, they showed no interest, most likely because they still have a group of people who haven’t rung up to cancel their subscription – you can’t do it online – and that they are still getting advertising from the government agencies.
“It’s extremely frustrating, which is why I was happy to speak about the issue on Media Watch on Monday night.
“Sadly, we aren’t the only town in Australia that is impacted by ACM running these phantom mastheads.”
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Ring up and unsubscribe from The North West Star;
Make sure that if you do need to advertise, you do it in the North West Weekly, which has around 10,000 readers per week;
Stop sending news and press releases to The North West Star;
Support the businesses who support your local paper. Without them, the region wouldn’t have a printed masthead in circulation.