Fremantle Herald

The "Fremantle Herald" is the banner of a periodical published in the city of Fremantle, Western Australia. It was founded in February 1867 by James Pearce, published again from 1913-1915 and relaunched in November 1989 from a weatherboard house in the Town of East Fremantle (since demolished). In 1992 the Fremantle Herald moved to the corner of Cliff and Croke Streets in West End Fremantle, just down the road from where its 19th century forebear was published.

Founder Pearce was joined by ex-clergy and fellow ex-convicts, James Beresford and James Elphinstone Roe and was pitched to a general audience, contrasting other 'establishment' newspapers and periodicals of the day. The "Herald" printed verse, short stories and serials to an audience of working men. It supported social reform and opposed the convict system of the time. Beresford wrote a weekly column, "Chips by a Sandalwood Cutter", which used a fictional character to challenge the morality of the 'privileged' class of the colony.

Excepting a short period in the early twentieth century, the "Fremantle Herald" remained in hiatus until 1989 when Andrew Smith, a local resident who had expressed disquiet with the lack of bite in the existing corporate-owned free weekly newspaper, sank his superannuation and savings into starting up the Herald. He employed young editor Sian Martin and a small team of journalists, production staff and advertising salespeople who all worked cheek by jowl from the corner of King and George Streets, East Fremantle. The first summer in the small house (with no airconditioning) was fierce and led to plenty of frayed tempers.

The Fremantle Herald was immediately popular with readers but faced fierce competition to attract sufficient advertising. Smith went further into debt and slashed staff and wages to remain afloat. The risk has paid off and the Herald is reportedly now Fremantle's leading newspaper in terms of readership, revenues and profits.

Smith's company now also publishes three other titles, the Melville City Herald, the Cockburn City Herald, and the Perth Voice, which are all letterbox-distributed every week. A two-year trial of a paid-for version of the Fremantle Herald failed to gain support from readers and was abandoned in 2005.

[cite web | url = http://perthsuburbannews.com.au/newspapers/herald.cms;jsessionid=193157A5753E9293CD11507C792C0956 | title = HERALD NEWSPAPERS, "People Trust Independents" | accessdate = 2007-04-21 | author = | last = | first = | work = PERTH SUBURBAN NEWSPAPERS | publisher = | pages = | language = | archiveurl = | archivedate = | quote = ... extract from the survey results show: "The Fremantle Herald has the highest unprompted (73%) and prompted (80%) readership levels of any competing free suburban newspaper indicating strong brand awareness and readership preference of the newspaper. ... Readers of the Fremantle Herald are more likely to read the entire newspaper than any other free suburban newspaper."]

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