More than eighty years of daily newspaper publishing in Torquay came to an end today as the last daily copy of the Herald Express rolled off the press.
Around 16 jobs are being lost at the South Devon title as it prepared to switch to weekly publication from next Thursday.
In an upbeat front page message to readers, the paper promised a “new dawn” for the title and insisted it would remain “at the very heart of the South Devon community.”
Its final daily edition came as publisher Northcliffe Media announced that a second daily title, the Scunthorpe Telegraph, will also switch to weekly publication next month.
The front page leader read: “This will be our last edition as a daily newspaper and the hard work and passion that has made the Herald Express such a resounding success over the many decades should not be forgotten.
“But the end of an era heralds the dawn of a new beginning and now the aim is to make our new weekly publication even more successful and secure for the years to come.
“Our ethos is the same. We want to be — and we will be — at the very heart of the South Devon community.
“It will be very much business as usual as we deliver readers all the news, views, sport, comment and photographs from across the area as well as jobs, property, cars and classified advertising for our customers.”
“The reason for this move has been well documented. The market place has changed for newspapers like the Herald Express. To not respond to those changes is not an option.
“The business community understand that position and are on side. We are confident our readers are, too.
“Our circulation success has made the Herald Express one of the best-performing daily newspapers in the country over many years. For the future, we want to make it one of the country’s flagship weeklies.
“In the past, our readers and advertisers have always set the agenda. It has been about them, not us. In the future, that will not change.”
Editor Andy Phelan added: “In many ways, today is a very sad day. We have had to say goodbye and good luck to some of our friends and colleagues, the people who have made the Herald Express so special to so many people over such a long time.
“But we still have a fantastic team of people who are ready to go forward with the new weekly newspaper.
“Our challenge now is to put together a newspaper which is fit for our tremendously loyal readers and advertisers, and that’s a challenge my team and I relish.
“We are all looking forward to seeing our first edition on the news stands next Thursday, and hearing what you think about it.”
Sign up for our free daily email bulletin
Follow HTFP on Twitter
Got a story? Email the Editor at
A somewhat disingenuous obituary to a daily newspaper felled, largely, by short-sighted management and a series of editors lacking the necessary professional expertise and preoccupied by self-serving considerations which left their paper and staff a poor second and third. Unfortunately this is unlikely to change in the future and forebodes a real sense of inevitability as to the outcome.
Report this comment
I think the editors are the poor monkeys here, not the organ grinders – for that, blame higher management. I fear for the future of my former colleagues on Northcliffe’s remaining dailies, some with lower circulations than the Herald Express, who must be dreading the next ‘resounding success’ announcement from their bosses.
Report this comment
With regard to the above it is far too easy to denude the various editors of the Herald Express of accountability – as far as I am concerned it always has, and should, come with the title. The fundamental role of an editor is not only to be responsible for what appears in the newspaper but also to be accountable for its consequences.
Report this comment
Northcliffe and DMGT may be many things, but an organisation with the undeniably brilliant (though not necessarily loveable) Paul Dacre as its leading editor is unlikely to have appointed any editor if they lacked the requisite “professional expertise”, never mind judgement and character. Still, some journos in my recollection, spent much of their day being fascinated by horoscopes and trawling for “brides” in Tallinn, Riga and Minsk and so forth. Whatever pings your dongle, I suppose. The dailies are going weekly because there isn’t the cash around that there once was. In the region, the future, print wise, is weeklies, especially those which have good websites, updated properly on a daily basis. There will be fewer jobs, but not as disastrous as some people fear, I suspect. If editors can be criticised for anything, it’s that some became too close to certain political and business interests when editors should remain fiercely independent, critical and, to a degree, aloof – as long as they know their patch and staff inside out and the numbers are good. Also the move among some to avoid covering inquests and crashes because “they upset people” is well-meaning but self-defeating and weak. They’re news, cover them sensntiviely and well – no other judgment required. I regard “upsetting people” as one of my raison d’etres being a jounralist.
“It’s the numbers, stupid” and it doesn’t matter if the prose is better than Jane Austen’s any more, the numbers will still win.
Report this comment
Regions, even. And sensitively, not the drivel above.
Report this comment
I stand by my original comment which was considered and thoughtful, its veracity compunded by my name and not hidden behind a pseudonym!
Report this comment
We need realists in the business now. Advertising income has dwindled and some companies have exploited staff goodwill for years bringing out papers by most staff working extra unpaid hours. The more golden years are over for print journalism though. More readers going online or TV/radio for news, fewer families wanting a daily or weekly paper and a general tightening of spending. More freesheets in many towns prompt families from buying their usual local paid for. Strikes used to have some merit but now it means loss of another day or week’s pay and little or nothing achieved.
Report this comment
The Bath Chronicle has been hailed as having made the successful transition from daily to weekly, but Torquay is surely a very different patch with nowhere near the same numbers of potential readers?
A weekly Herald will surely have to compete with assorted dailies and weeklies – I fear for the future of the feisty little tabloid I remember…
Report this comment
“Cut out all those exclamation marks. An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own jokes.” (F Scott Fitzgerald). Some of us still hold posts that require if not demand anonymity if we are to comment on some things. !
Report this comment
I am an editor. Enough said, I think!
Report this comment
Guys – quit the bickering. 16 of us are now out of jobs, with more to follow up and down the Northcliffe empire very soon.
Nuff said methinks think.
Report this comment