About Katherine Times

Katherine Times

The Katherine Times is the regional newspaper of Katherine, the Northern Territory's third-largest town and the service centre for the vast Top End hinterland. Launched on 16 June 1983 by Vince Fardone and John McDonald as the town's first tabloid newspaper, it has served Katherine and its surrounding districts for more than four decades. It covers the region's news, sports, business and community events as the dedicated local voice for a town that describes itself as the crossroads of the Territory — where the Stuart Highway meets the Victoria Highway, and where the Top End meets the outback.

Overview

Katherine sits on the Katherine River, some 320 kilometres south-east of Darwin: a town of around 10,000 people serving a region that includes the Victoria River district's cattle stations, the Roper Gulf's Aboriginal communities, the mining operations, the Defence presence at Tindal RAAF Base, and the tourism drawcards of Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge) National Park. The Katherine Times exists to give this region its own newspaper. Where the Darwin dailies cover Katherine intermittently, the Times covers it as its whole world: the Katherine Town Council's decisions, the region's industries, the schools and sporting clubs, and the community life of a town that is equal parts service centre, garrison town and tourist gateway.

The paper's founding mission — as its launchers described it — was to give locals "a newspaper that would both inform and entertain." That dual brief has defined the Times across four decades: the serious journalism of council scrutiny, court reporting and industry coverage, alongside the community newspaper's traditional role as the town's noticeboard, forum and family album. It is listed among the Northern Territory's regional newspapers in current directories, alongside the Centralian Advocate, the Tennant and District Times and the Top End's other country titles.

History

Katherine's press history predates the Times. The Katherine Informer began in 1974 and became the Katherine Advertiser in May 1979; the Katherine Herald was established around the same time as the Times but survived only five issues — making the field, in the words of the Territory's newspaper history, "a crowded one," with all three papers publishing as weeklies. Into this crowded field, on 16 June 1983, Vince Fardone and John McDonald launched the Katherine Times as the town's first tabloid newspaper.

Fardone — who operated a photographic miniprocessing lab, expected to subsidise the new paper as it established itself — and McDonald set out with 5,000 copies of the first edition, aiming to win "acceptance and credibility with local readers." The tabloid format was itself a statement: modern, accessible, designed for a town on the move. The Times outlasted its rivals and became Katherine's enduring newspaper, recording the town's modern history across four decades: the 1998 Katherine floods that devastated the town, the growth of the Tindal base, the tourism boom at Nitmiluk, the mining cycles, and the evolving relationship between the town and the region's Aboriginal communities.

The paper's longevity reflects both Katherine's need for local news and the Times' embedding in the community. Through changes in the Australian regional press — the consolidation of country titles, the digital disruption — the Katherine Times has continued as the town's dedicated newspaper, its weekly editions accumulating into the most complete published record of the Katherine region's recent history.

Programming and Content

The Katherine Times covers the full life of the Katherine region. Council and civic coverage follows the Katherine Town Council — meetings, planning decisions, rates, infrastructure and the services of a regional service centre — alongside the Territory and federal politics that touch the region: Indigenous affairs, Defence, health and education funding, and the roads — the Stuart and Victoria Highways — on which the region depends. Court and police reporting covers the town's justice system with the directness of the Territory press.

Industry coverage reflects the region's economic base: the cattle industry of the Victoria River and Roper districts, the mining operations, the Defence presence at RAAF Base Tindal — one of Australia's most important northern bases — and the tourism industry centred on Nitmiluk National Park's gorges. The paper follows the seasonal rhythms that define Katherine life: the wet season's floods and the dry season's musters, festivals and tourist influx. Its coverage of the 1998 floods — when the Katherine River inundated the town in one of the Territory's worst natural disasters — remains part of the paper's institutional memory, a reminder of the Times' role as the town's witness in its hardest moments as well as its best. Sport is covered at the community level — Australian rules football, rugby league, cricket, netball, campdrafting and rodeos — alongside the iconic regional events. Community news — the schools, the service clubs, the agricultural show, the community events — fills the social pages, and the paper's letters pages give Katherine residents their forum.

Coverage and Audience

The Times' coverage area centres on Katherine and radiates across the region: the Victoria River district's cattle country to the west, the Roper Gulf region to the east, the communities along the Stuart Highway — Mataranka, Larrimah, Daly Waters — and the Aboriginal communities of the region. This is a vast, sparsely populated hinterland, and the Times is the only newspaper dedicated to covering it as a whole.

The paper's readers are the Katherine region's community: the multigenerational Territory families, the cattle station people, the Defence families at Tindal, the tourism and hospitality workers, the health and education professionals, and the Aboriginal communities. For these readers the Times is the record of their region: the council decision, the muster results, the show, the football final. In a region where distances are measured in hundreds of kilometres and the nearest daily newspaper is published in Darwin, the Times' role as the community's shared story is central to its value — the paper that knows Katherine because it is of Katherine.

Ownership

The Katherine Times was founded by Vince Fardone and John McDonald as an independent town newspaper in 1983. It subsequently became part of Fairfax Media's regional publishing stable — its Katherine contact details carrying Fairfax Regional Media branding and a fairfaxmedia.com.au email address — and through the Fairfax–Nine merger and the 2019 sale of the regional business, it sits within the Australian Community Media lineage of Northern Territory regional titles. Its editorial direction has remained focused on the Katherine region across its four decades of publication.

Digital Presence

As a regional weekly, the Katherine Times' primary product is its printed edition, distributed across Katherine and the surrounding districts, with digital access extending its reach to the Katherine diaspora, former residents and the station people, miners and travellers who follow the region's news from afar. The paper's four-decade archive — from the 5,000-copy first edition of June 1983 to the present — constitutes the most complete published record of the Katherine region's modern history: the floods, the booms, the shows, the seasons. For the Katherine region's residents, the Times remains what its founders intended: a newspaper to inform and entertain — the voice of the Territory's crossroads town. Across more than four decades it has been the region's witness, its forum and its family album — the paper Katherine reads to know itself. From the 5,000-copy first edition of June 1983 to today's digital-era weekly, the Times has kept faith with its founders' promise: to inform, and to entertain.