First published before the town had a radio station, the Esperance Express newspaper looks set to succumb permanently to publisher ACM’s COVID-19 closures.
It was 1965 and Bob Dunwoodie had just arrived on Western Australia’s white-sand southern coast to work as editor of Esperance’s new newspaper.
The Esperance Advertiser, his bosses promised, would be the first paper printed locally.
Then a town of around 5,000 farmers, Esperance sat on lonely coast a day’s drive from Perth.
It took newspapers two days to arrive from the capital. There was no local radio. Esperance hadn’t had a local newspaper for 40 years.
But the promised printing press never started running.
The Esperance Advertiser was instead printed 500 kilometres away in the considerably larger town of Albany – the state’s oldest colonial settlement, and a place three times the size of Esperance today.
For six years, Dunwoodie received deliveries of his own paper.
Until one day, he had enough.
“They hadn’t kept their promise,” he told the City Journal.
He would start his own paper. And it would be printed in town.
In January 1973, the first edition of the Esperance Express hit shelves.
Over 47 years it would grow to a peak of twice-weekly printing, a team of 30, and runs nearing 5,000 copies – breaking stories from corporate cover-ups to space junk falling from the sky.
But in April 2020, with no notice to the local shire or newsagencies, Express publisher Australian Community Media (ACM) closed the newspaper.
ACM’s announcement said it was temporarily ceasing publication of its non-daily newspapers, which number close to 100.
ACM owns approximately 160 titles, including 14 daily newspapers and six weekly agricultural magazines unaffected by the shutdown.
But Esperance locals fear the Express is gone for good.
Shire of Esperance president Ian Mickel said ACM had good reason not to resume publishing.
“They took the opportunity to rationalise their papers supposedly because of COVID but there’s a good reason not to go on,” he said.
“They made an economic decision to blame COVID-19 and we won’t see it come back again.”
The first edition of the Esperance Express. Photo: supplied.
‘A true local paper’
Local voices and local stories: that was the Esperance Express mandate.
“The community loved it,” said Mr Dunwoodie. “It was a true local paper.”
Every local football game. Church and council news. Death notices, 21st birthday parties, engagements.
But it covered more than local goings-on.
In 1979, the Express documented the US space station Skylab crashing to earth just outside Esperance.
It was there in 1991 when the Japanese cargo ship Sanko Harvest wrecked, carrying 30,000 tonnes of fertiliser, on an archipelago off the town’s southern coast.
And in 2008, its series of stories about convulsing birds triggered a state government inquiry that found Magellan Metals responsible for lead contamination, leading to changes in safety standards for dangerous goods handling in Western Australia.
University of Notre Dame Australia’s senior lecturer in journalism, Dr Mignon Shardlow said regional newspapers like the Express hold power to account in under-reported areas.
“Strong democracy requires journalists sitting in courtrooms and local government council meetings and investigating why birds fall out of the sky,” she said.
“The Esperance Express provided accurate reporting of the lead poisoning that caused the bird deaths in Esperance at a time when theories were abundant on social media.
“The closure of the Esperance Express is a tragic loss for the community.”
But, according to Mr Dunwoodie, the closure was always on the horizon.
“It’s a heartbeat,” he said. “But it’s been gone for years, that real heartbeat.”
Sudden closure
In 1993 the Express was sold to Rural Press Limited – a Fairfax Media group that would later trade as ACM.
Esperance newsagent Corrina Rawlinson – who found out about the newspaper’s closure when her delivery failed to arrive – said the shutdown was “disgustingly handled” by ACM.
“They don’t care, they don’t make any money off it,” she said. “To them, it’s purely a business decision.”
Mr Mickel said there was “no commitment” to the community from ACM.
“It’s no different to the banking sector in the 90s and early 00s where they just pulled pins off maps and closed branches down for their own convenience,” he said.
Ms Rawlinson said the Express had been dying a “slow, painful” death for a long time.
But she said the paper still offered the community a way to connect.
Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance WA director Tiffany Venning described a “vicious cycle” of falling advertising revenue, fewer and less-experienced reporters, and a decline in the quality of news.
“They have one reporter for a whole paper, with only a couple of years under their belt,” she said.
“They haven’t been given the opportunity to be mentored and hone their craft and produce quality work. And [businesses] say, ‘the paper’s crap, I’m not going to advertise there anyway.’ That’s where you see this vicious cycle.”
‘Local in name only’
Deakin University’s Associate Professor of Communications Dr Kristy Hess, a community media expert, said some media companies centralise production in cities, which elevates state and national news at the expense of local stories.
“This is hugely problematic because audiences are quick to know when a local paper doesn’t feel local,” she said.
All but two of the 155 articles published on the Esperance Express’s website since its closure have come from other ACM titles, including the Canberra Times and the Mandurah Mail.
Mandurah is 683 kilometres away from Esperance.
Esperance has an ABC bureau with two local reporters producing radio and online content.
Dr Hess said Esperance was “lucky” to have the ABC, but urged the broadcaster to pay attention to local news.
“It’s really important that the ABC steps up at a time like this and makes sure it adequately covers council meetings and local politics comprehensively,” she said.
“Printed news needs to be considered an essential service, especially in areas where a considerable part of the population is elderly.”
Mr Mickel estimated 40 per cent of Esperance’s population is over the age of 65, and said the group relied on the Express for news.
An uncertain future
Bob Dunwoodie believes the Express‘s survival is unlikely.
He said he couldn’t see anyone investing knowing that the traditional advertising base – previously supermarkets and more recently real estate agencies – is “no longer there”.
“The guts of it have moved and they don’t advertise in the papers anymore,” he said. “There was no other way before. It was the paper or you didn’t get to people. That’s all changed now.”
Brett Thorp, from Thorpe Realty and Paul Blackham from Professionals Realty, confirmed they had reduced or cancelled their advertising in the Express in the past year due to low distribution.
“We found that advertising in the local paper was losing effectiveness,” said Mr Thorp. “It wasn’t worth it in the end.”
Both agencies said they had paid for full-page advertisements in the Express once a week for many years.
‘You live in hope’
In 2013 the Express published a 44-page-long 40th anniversary edition.
In a front-page article then managing editor Paul Goldie assured readers of the Express’s future.
“…No matter what the future holds for newspapers… readers can be assured that the Esperance Express will continue to be their old friend, delivering all the local news and advocating and advancing the needs and interests of the local community,” he wrote.
Ms Venning said the recent resurrection of local newspapers in Broken Hill and Naracoorte showed how communities could act to save local news.
“That clearly indicates there is a need and a want in these communities to have their own local news,” she said. “You live in hope.”
Esperance was named in 1792 by French sailors, who sheltered by an island off the town’s coast during a storm.
In both French and English, the word ‘express’ has the same meaning.
Esperance in French means ‘hope’.
