About The Bunbury Herald

The Bunbury Herald

The Bunbury Herald is a weekly newspaper published in Bunbury, Western Australia — the port city and commercial capital of the state's South West. The current paper was established in 1997 by Seven West Media, reviving a masthead with deep roots: the original Bunbury Herald was first issued on 28 September 1892 as a weekly founded and edited by Stephen J Cusack, later running as The Bunbury Herald and Blackwood Express (1919–1929) before merging with the South Western Times in 1929 to become the South Western Tribune. The modern Herald serves Bunbury and the South West as Seven West Media's weekly for the region. Its website is bunburyherald.com.au.

Overview

Bunbury — Western Australia's third city, the port and service centre for the South West's mining, agriculture, forestry and tourism industries — is the Herald's patch. As a weekly, the paper covers the city and its region: the Bunbury council and the surrounding shires, the port's trade, the South West's development agenda, community events, sport and the social life of the state's southern capital. The 1997 revival gave the historic masthead a second life in the modern regional press.

History

The original Bunbury Herald was first issued on 28 September 1892 as a weekly, founded and edited by Stephen J Cusack — launching into a Bunbury transformed by the railway and the timber and mining booms of the 1890s. Cusack remained proprietor until failing health forced its sale on 1 October 1899; editorship passed to George William Keith. The paper later moved to a tri-weekly format, and from 16 August 1919 ran as The Bunbury Herald and Blackwood Express — printed by Sidney Charles Merriott — until 20 December 1929. In 1929 it merged with the South Western Times to become the South Western Tribune, ending the masthead's first incarnation after 37 years.

The historic run is preserved: issues of The Bunbury Herald (1892–1919) and The Bunbury Herald and Blackwood Express (1919–1929) were digitised through the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program — the National Library of Australia's project with the State Library of Western Australia — and hard copy and microfilm holdings are held at the State Library. In 1997 Seven West Media established a new weekly under the Bunbury Herald name, restoring the masthead to the city's newsstands after a 68-year absence.

Content

The Bunbury Herald covers Bunbury and the South West: the city council's affairs, the port and its industries, the region's mining and agricultural economy, tourism, education and health services, community events, and local sport. As the region's weekly within the Seven West Media stable, the paper complements the daily South Western Times — the longer reads, the features, the community pages — serving the readers of WA's third city with journalism grounded in the South West.

Coverage and Audience

The Herald's footprint is Bunbury and the South West region: the port city itself, the surrounding shires, and the communities that look to Bunbury as their service centre. Its readers are the South West's residents: the port workers, the miners and alumina workers, the farmers, the tourism operators, the professionals and the retirees of one of WA's fastest-growing regions. The weekly format serves the region's rhythm: the week's news gathered, the weekend's reading.

Ownership

The Bunbury Herald is owned by Seven West Media, published within the company's Western Australian regional newspaper portfolio alongside the South Western Times — the daily with which the historic Herald merged in 1929 — and the group's other regional titles. The 1997 revival brought the masthead back under the ownership line that descends from the state's newspaper history: the modern Herald is Seven West Media's weekly for Bunbury.

Digital Presence

The Bunbury Herald maintains its website at bunburyherald.com.au, with the paper's journalism available online alongside the weekly print edition and digital editions through Seven West Media's West regionals platform. The historic Herald's digitised run (1892–1929) on Trove gives the modern paper's name a searchable archive of nearly four decades of South West history. From Cusack's 1892 weekly to the 1997 Seven West Media revival, the Bunbury Herald masthead has served the South West across three centuries.

Cusack's Paper

Stephen J Cusack's 1892 founding of the Bunbury Herald came as the South West was booming: the railways reaching into the timber country, the Collie coalfields opening, the port handling the region's produce. Cusack — founder, editor and proprietor — was the classic colonial newspaper entrepreneur: the paper was his, the editorials were his, the risk was his. Seven years of proprietorship ended on 1 October 1899, when failing health forced the sale — a reminder of the personal cost of the colonial press. George William Keith's editorship carried the paper into the new century.

The Blackwood Express Years

The 1919 transformation into The Bunbury Herald and Blackwood Express — printed by Sidney Charles Merriott — extended the paper's reach into the Blackwood valley: the timber and farming districts inland from Bunbury. The combined masthead ran for a decade, from 16 August 1919 to 20 December 1929, covering the post-war soldier-settlement era, the Group Settlement schemes of the 1920s, and the timber industry's expansion. The 1929 merger with the South Western Times — forming the South Western Tribune — consolidated the South West's press as the Depression began.

The 68-Year Gap

Between the 1929 merger and the 1997 revival, the Bunbury Herald masthead slept for 68 years: the South Western Tribune and then the South Western Times carried the city's daily journalism, while the Herald name survived only in the archives — the Trove digitisation, the State Library's hard copies and microfilms. Seven West Media's 1997 decision to revive the name was a recognition of its equity: the oldest masthead in South West journalism, restored to the newsstands of the city it had served from 1892 to 1929.

The Modern Weekly

The 1997 Bunbury Herald was born into a different industry: the Seven West Media regional stable, the centralised printing, the digital editions. As a weekly alongside the daily South Western Times, the modern Herald occupies the community-paper niche: the features, the profiles, the community pages, the longer reads that the daily's news cycle doesn't accommodate. The revival gave Bunbury two Seven West Media papers — the daily and the weekly, the news and the community — under mastheads whose combined history spans 130 years.

The South West's Paper

Bunbury's growth — the port's expansion, the South West's population boom, the region's emergence as WA's southern capital — is the Herald's story to tell. The paper covers a city that has reinvented itself repeatedly: the timber port, the industrial city, the regional capital, the tourism gateway to the Margaret River region. The Bunbury Herald masthead — 1892 to 1929, 1997 to today — has recorded the South West's transformations across three centuries: Cusack's colonial weekly, Merriott's Blackwood Express, Seven West Media's modern weekly.

The Archive

The Trove digitisation of the historic Herald — the 1892–1919 weekly and the 1919–1929 Blackwood Express — preserves the South West's nineteenth and early-twentieth-century record: the railway politics, the timber strikes, the Federation debates, the Great War enlistments, the soldier settlements. For family historians, the digitised issues are a goldmine: the birth notices, the court reports, the advertisements of a colonial port town. The modern paper's bunburyherald.com.au carries the masthead forward; the archive carries it back.