About The Morning Bulletin

The Morning Bulletin

The Morning Bulletin is a newspaper serving Rockhampton and Central Queensland, Australia. Owned by News Corp Australia, it is one of Queensland's oldest newspapers, founded in 1861. Published as a print edition from 1861 until 27 June 2020, it now operates as an online newspaper, with a regionalised print edition of The Courier-Mail carrying selected Central Queensland stories. Its coverage centres on Rockhampton — the beef capital of Australia and the commercial hub of Central Queensland — spanning local government, agriculture, mining, courts, sport and community life, with a digital edition at themorningbulletin.com.au.

Overview

Rockhampton sits on the Fitzroy River in Central Queensland, roughly 600 kilometres north of Brisbane, and functions as the service centre for a vast region encompassing the beef cattle country of the central interior, the coal mines of the Bowen Basin and the Capricorn Coast tourism strip around Yeppoon. The Morning Bulletin has been the region's paper of record for more than 160 years — the second-oldest business in Rockhampton itself. As a News Corp Australia title it combines a Rockhampton-based newsroom with the group's state and national resources, and its editorial identity is inseparable from the beef industry, the resource sector and the civic life of Central Queensland.

History

Founding by the Buzacotts, 1861

The first issue of The Bulletin was launched on 9 July 1861. Its founder and original owner, William Hitchcock Buzacott, brought the press and equipment from Sydney, where he had operated a small weekly paper, to a town of just 698 residents. The paper was initially called the Rockhampton Bulletin. Its original home was in Quay Street near the old Customs House, in a low wooden building — but on 14 August 1862 the building burnt down and the presses were destroyed. Buzacott quickly obtained new equipment from Sydney and re-established the newspaper in a two-storey masonry building in Denham Street.

The paper's titles trace its growth: it was published as The Rockhampton Bulletin and Central Queensland Advertiser from July 1861 to January 1871, then as The Rockhampton Bulletin from 1871 to 1878, and from 1878 onwards as The Morning Bulletin. From 1873 it began the new year as a daily newspaper — the first daily paper issued outside Brisbane in Queensland, according to the Queensland Heritage Register. In 1875 the paper began publishing the Capricornian as a weekly to serve surrounding settlements that received mail only once a week.

The McIlwraith, Blair and Dunn eras

The Bulletin's dominance of Rockhampton's press owed much to a long line of proprietors. Following the death of W. H. Buzacott in 1880, William McIlwraith became owner, joined in partnership by John Blair in 1883. In 1911 McIlwraith and Blair were succeeded by three generations of the Dunn family company, which carried the Bulletin into the modern age and through the competition of electronic media. The Dunns were among Queensland's great provincial newspaper dynasties, with interests spanning Maryborough, Toowoomba and Rockhampton.

In 1926 the Denham Street building had become too small, and the newspaper returned to Quay Street in a new, purpose-built Bulletin Building — a three-storey newspaper office designed by prominent Rockhampton architect Roy Chipps and built by R. Cousins & Company. The building, added to the Queensland Heritage Register in December 2005, housed the paper for almost 88 years. In 2007 the printing equipment was relocated to new facilities in Hempenstall Street in the Rockhampton suburb of Kawana, and on 21 March 2014 the paper ceased operating from the iconic Quay Street building altogether — relocating first to 35 Fitzroy Street for about six months, then in late 2014 to 220 Bolsover Street, where it is produced from a small ground-level office. In August 2015 the old Bulletin Building was purchased by former Rockhampton resident and technology entrepreneur Bevan Slattery.

The end of print and the digital era

In May 2020 it was announced that The Morning Bulletin would be among the many News Corp regional newspapers to cease publishing a print edition and move to a digital-only edition available to online subscribers. The final print edition was published on 27 June 2020, after which the Rockhampton Print Centre was closed. To compensate for the loss of the local print edition, The Courier-Mail commenced a regionalised print edition featuring selected Central Queensland stories. The paper continues online at themorningbulletin.com.au under editor Emma McBryde, who succeeded Melanie Plane.

Copies of the paper up to the end of 1954 have been digitised as part of the National Library of Australia's Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program and are freely searchable through Trove.

Moments of notoriety

The Bulletin has twice made national headlines for the wrong reasons — episodes that, paradoxically, attest to its place in Australian media folklore. In January 2011 it reported that a farmer near Baralaba had lost 30,000 pigs swept away in floodwaters down the Dawson River and into the Fitzroy. The paper issued a retraction the next day: the reporter had misheard the farmer, who had actually said thirty sows and pigs. The error was featured on the ABC's Media Watch, parodied on the ABC comedy series Lowdown, inspired a comedy recording that won Best Comedy Release at the 2016 Bungendore Country Music Muster, and was even discussed on the BBC panel show QI.

In October 2016 the paper's print front page depicted Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull as a clown, with the headline urging him to stop clowning around and give Central Queensland a fair go, alongside an open letter issued on behalf of the people of the region. The image prompted Rockhampton's mayor to publicly apologise to Turnbull during his visit to the city — an apology Turnbull said was not required — and made national news.

Content

The Morning Bulletin's content reflects Central Queensland's economy and character. Beef industry coverage — saleyards, stud sales, Beef Australia expositions held in Rockhampton — sits alongside mining and energy reporting on the Bowen Basin, port developments at Gladstone, and agricultural coverage of the Fitzroy food bowl. Local government, courts, health, education and infrastructure form the news core, with state and national news drawn from the News Corp network.

Sport coverage emphasises rugby league — Central Queensland is league heartland — alongside cricket, netball, AFL, racing and the rodeo and campdrafting events of the beef capital. Community content, social pages and letters preserve the country paper's role as the district's noticeboard.

Coverage and Audience

The Bulletin serves Rockhampton and the surrounding areas of Central Queensland: the city itself, the Capricorn Coast towns of Yeppoon and Emu Park, the beef and farming districts of the Fitzroy basin, and the mining communities to the west. It was historically the only daily paper serving the Central Queensland region. Its audience spans farming families, mine workers, small businesses and the city's professional and retiree populations. Older reference works cite a circulation of 14,700 Monday to Friday and around 20,000 on Saturday as of 2013; current figures are not publicly confirmed. The masthead now operates primarily on a digital subscription model, with the Courier-Mail's regionalised print edition serving readers who prefer paper.

Ownership

The Morning Bulletin is owned by News Corp Australia, the Australian arm of the global News Corp group, within its Queensland regional portfolio. Its ownership lineage runs from the Buzacott brothers through McIlwraith and Blair, three generations of the Dunn family, the APN era and the present News Corp ownership.

Digital Presence

The paper publishes online at themorningbulletin.com.au, carrying breaking news, galleries and video updated through the day within the News Corp subscription framework. It maintains social media channels for news distribution and reader engagement. Digitised editions from 1861 to 1954 are freely available through the National Library of Australia's Trove service, making the Bulletin's long run one of the most accessible provincial archives in the country.