DAY one of a merger between Nine and Fairfax has come and gone, and the sky did not fall in. And not a single reader of the Western Advocate would have noticed the change.
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For our staff at the Advocate, it was certainly business as usual on Monday.
Our journalists and photographer arrived at work at the usual time and set about finding the stories that matter to you.
Our advertising staff spent the day talking with their clients, discussing the best way to take their messages to their customers – both in print and online.
Our front door was open as always and our reception staff were there to welcome visitors, while our administration and bookings staff just got on with the job of making the office run.
Because with a history that can be traced back 170 years, the Western Advocate has been through all this before.
We’ve seen owners come and go and we’ve been at the forefront of countless changes to the media landscape.
The way we collect the news has changed, as has the way we deliver it – not just in Bathurst, but right across the newspaper world. Print readership and advertising have fallen sharply and migrated online over time.
The main competitors to Fairfax’s stable of publications were no longer television or radio but myriad new foreign and local websites clamouring for advertising dollars.
To remain viable, the company had to change, to streamline and to innovate.
But what has never changed has been the Western Advocate’s determination to live up to the newspaper’s proud name. We are an advocate for Bathurst, an advocate for our readers and an advocate for our advertising clients. We are a part of the furniture in Bathurst and we’re not going anywhere.
Monday, however, was still a significant day in Australian media.
The Fairfax family name has been a mainstay of the media for decades and while the family has not run the company for 30-odd years, the Fairfax name has always been synonymous with quality journalism.
But the same is true for Nine. Like the Fairfax company it now owns, Nine has a commitment to delivering for its viewers, advertisers and, now, readers.
We cannot say what tomorrow will bring, but we’ve no doubt there will be more changes to come.
What we can control, though, is our commitment to what we do.
That will never change.
