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Website marks 50th anniversary of axed newspaper

The 50th birthday of a daily-turned-weekly newspaper has been marked by its companion website – despite it ceasing publication last year.

The Reading Evening Post was launched on 14 September 1965 and continued to be published until December last year when the print publication was axed by Trinity Mirror.

The Reading Post and sister title Get Reading were among seven newspapers closed at the same time by the publisher as it adopted a “bold digital only approach”.

But despite it no longer being printed, the getreading.co.uk website has marked the paper’s 50th anniversary with a story and slideshow of old photos.

Pictured at the opening ceremony for the Reading Evening Post in 1965 are, from left, works manager BA Clark, editor Howard Green, managing director Rex Gerrie, The Hon David Smith, who was Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire, Alderman Alice Burrows, who was Mayor of Reading, and Lord Thomson of Fleet.

Pictured at the opening ceremony for the Reading Evening Post in 1965 are, from left, works manager BA Clark, editor Howard Green, managing director Rex Gerrie, The Hon David Smith, who was Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire, Alderman Alice Burrows, who was Mayor of Reading, and Lord Thomson of Fleet.

The story describes the paper’s beginning when it was launched by Thomson Regional Newspapers, who had bought the weekly Reading Standard.

The Evening Post was based in a new building on Tessa Road which was constructed as an extension to an old warehouse and it remained there until early 2014.

When it started life, the title adopted new computerised setting techniques in a system called Thomson Computerset, which was specially designed so the publisher could launch a series of new small regional dailies, of which the Reading title was the first.

The Get Reading website said that the new papers were the brainchild of Lord Thomson who saw an opportunity to use new web offset printing methods to produce papers more cheaply, so they could be economically viable in towns which did not have a daily paper.

In 2009, the newspaper was taken twice weekly, publishing as the Reading Post each Wednesday as a paid-for, with sister free title Get Reading being published each Friday.

The website said it is “still blazing a news trail” even though its paper ceased publication last December, claiming that in August it clocked up one million unique users and seven million page views.

It adds: “There is still a team of reporters keeping a close eye on the breaking news in Reading, Wokingham and Bracknell and publishing it faster than ever before.

“We don’t have news boys and girls pushing the paper through the letter boxes any more.

“But reports of news, sport and events are now delivered through mobile phones, through apps, on PCs, on lap tops, on hand-held devices and boosted through Twitter and Facebook.

“Anywhere in the world you can connect to the internet, you can find out what is going on in Reading and surrounding areas.”

But one commenter on the website’s story wrote: “Ahem…the Reading Evening Post doesn’t exist anymore… it didn’t last out the fifty years so why the news item?”

4 comments

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  • September 16, 2015 at 9:33 am
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    How boring! Lord Thomson on one side and the Lord Lieutenant on the other.
    Elsewhere, a daily colours its masthead red white and blue in yet another war commemoration (there seems to be one every week).
    Give me You Tube any day with its conspiracy theories and documentaries to give an idea of what is REALLY going on in the world.
    British corporate journalism is so conventional I’m surprised none of them have done. a spread on the huge London Arms Fair taking place this week…sorry, that’s not politically correct, is it?.

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  • September 16, 2015 at 9:50 am
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    The Reading Evening Post was a brilliant newspaper to work on with a wonderful team of journalists.

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  • September 16, 2015 at 10:35 am
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    Food challenges, bad parking stories with loads of UGC pics, ‘When the clocks go forward’ pieces and “10 things you’ll always do during a thunderstorm”, X things you know growing up in $localarea, X stories missed …. the listicles go on.

    Trinity Mirror is content by numbers via the same templated site and system.

    This is not just Reading, find any TM title and search for that type of content, its localised guff.

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