The Pembrokeshire Herald, whose closure was announced on Friday, has enjoyed a roller-coaster ride since it first launched in 2013.
The controversial weekly, along with its sister titles the Carmarthenshire Herald and Llanelli Herald, have ceased publication with the possible loss of 24 jobs after a promised £1.5m investment failed to materialise.
Over the course of its six-year existence, the Herald has enjoyed a series of ups and downs, many of which made it onto HTFP.
Here is a reminder of some of the stories we’ve covered about the Herald and its staff since its launch.
- The Pembrokeshire Herald is launched with the first edition coming out in July 2013. The paper is such a success initially that it immediately increases its print run to meet demand.
- Later the same month its bosses make claims of sabotage after an advert featuring an obscenity, pictured above, is published in the newspaper – although the controversy was later welcomed as a boost for publicity.
- In August 2013, founding editor founding editor Bruce Sinclair quits over a column attacking the rival Western Telegraph and its news editor. He is replaced by Herald publisher Thomas Sinclair, who is not related to Bruce.
- In 2015, the group launches the Carmarthenshire Herald and Llanelli Herald, with 12 new jobs created as a result, followed by the Ceredigion Herald in March 2016.
- Thomas Sinclair is warned over his ‘cavalier’ approach to reporting restrictions in October 2016 as he is fined £500 for publishing the name of a 17-year-old defendant in a youth court case.
- The following year, Thomas is fined £1,500 for identifying the victim of a sexual offence via so-called ‘jigsaw’ identification, having told a previous hearing that “people probably already knew who she [the victim] was.”
- Months later Thomas shuts the Ceredigion Herald, saying the publicity surrounding the sex offence identification case has had “a negative effect on advertisers.”
- In January 2018 a county court judge orders Herald Newspapers to pay freelance journalist Alan Evans £6,500 in payments and court costs.
- Later that year founding shareholder Erfan Felix Al-Talal was is jailed for nine years over drugs and money laundering offences.
- Earlier this year Thomas comes under fire from the NUJ after defying court orders over money owed to reporters and photographers. He claims a new £1.5m investment would allow him to repay everybody – but it never materialises.
- The group’s closure is announced with the possible loss of 24 jobs.
This individual should not be allowed to have anything to do with local newspapers.
He deserves to be held accountable but it’s the many decent people who have worked for him in any capacity and who have been left high and dry that I feel sorry for.
Let him go back to where he came from and reinvent himself again just as long as he’s not in any position where he’s employing or dealing with honest members of the public.
A complete car crash from start to finish
Report this comment
Most newspaper businesses are finding life very difficult. Some labour under too much debt, many haven’t cracked digital yet and others see advertising and newspaper sales melting away.
By-and-large, these are firms that are doing their very best under trying circumstances.
This outfit, or more accurately, this individual clown, should never be allowed to give the rest of the industry a bad name.
Report this comment