FOR the first time in 35 years we are unable to bring you a print copy of the newspaper you choose. 

Why? In a week of high drama our printer, West Australian Newspapers, slammed the door in our face, and yours, refusing to put the Herald on its print press.

And all because there’s a new printer in town. 

On Monday we got a short, but not sweet email saying they had “… removed both products from our [print] schedule”.

Over four weeks of discussions, we’d told this then-monopoly WA printer we did not want to be forced to sign any lock-in, two-year contract; albeit with a faint sweetener of print costs held to current levels. 

We much preferred the more casual business-building approach – you win some, you lose some – of this important industry over many years. 

Lock-in contract

In other words, West Australian Newspapers was trying to lock us into a contract, not for our benefit or our readers, but to prevent us from dealing with any other printer in WA or beyond. 

And all this under the threat, and now the reality, of refusing to print our paper when we stood our ground. 

New printer

The reason for The West’s hard-knuckle approach was to put up a blocker for any clients who might be tempted to shift allegiance to the new printer cranking up in Perth this week. 

This monopoly-busting initiative was triggered by the extreme concern of Post Newspapers owner, publisher and editor Bret Christian.  

Dire threat

Like many, he saw The West’s monopoly as a dire threat to the continued independence of local news publishing. The final straw was The West’s treatment of Nine’s Financial Review, which was forced to stop printing in WA in May 2024 when its printing costs were doubled. 

So Mr Christian and a consortium of three other business folk set about to inject some healthy competition into the print market. 

Already, the two other independent newspapers in Perth have switched to the new printer, Fair Maiden.

Brute monopolies

After 35 years working with many printers and their usual friendly, can-do way (including The West), we have now had a box seat experience of the sheer commercial brutality a monopoly in any industry can play. 

The West rejected our print job and our money and cast us out despite a long standing commercial heritage in the industry for tackling any work ‘where there’s a buck to be made’.

In our view The West’s compulsory ‘lock-in offer’, with the lethal ‘no-print’ sting in its tail, was very unfair and extremely rude to boot.

Online saviour

Without the huge growth of the Herald.Voice online E-news over the last two years, the much-loved Chook could well have been a dead duck today. 

Or worse, a much diminished newsroom media company if we’d been forced to our knees to sign a prejudicial contract which would have prevented us from testing the print market for two years. 

A lot can happen in two years.

And of course, most important in all this, is the huge inconvenience to all our readers who much prefer the warm comfort and tangible touch of the trusted and independent local newsroom media they love.

It’s such an integral part of their lives. 

So please readers and advertisers, bear with us, stay true and we surely will have things back to normal in a week or two.

by ANDREW SMITH
PUBLISHER