Kalgoorlie Miner: Golden future of news as team celebrates 125th birthday

WA’s last remaining daily regional newspaper this week celebrates its 125th birthday. Damon Erceg takes a look at the Kalgoorlie Miner’s past and its very bright future. From the gold rush, earthquakes, the two World Wars, the Great Depression, to race riots, the Kalgoorlie Miner has reported on them all over the past century and a quarter. It’s a milestone not many papers outside of a major capital city have met. And despite a climate in which many newspaper companies are closing titles in small communities, WA’s last remaining regional daily paper still thunders on 125 years after its foundation, telling the stories of its locals without fear or favour. And it’s an achievement editor Neil Watkinson says is single-handedly making WA’s Goldfields-Esperance region one of the best informed in the country. A HUMBLE START On September 14, 1895, Sidney and Percy Hocking published the first edition of The Kalgoorlie Miner, which was four pages long and cost two pence. The paper was printed in a ramshackle hessian, wood and iron building on the site of the historical Kalgoorlie Miner building on Hannan Street. As was custom for the day, the news itself started on page 2 — a sudden rise in the value of shares in the Lake View Mine, a case of perjury before the Coolgardie Warden Sessions, and the sale of local mines — with the front page dedicated to advertising. The advertisements themselves paint a vivid picture of the life and times of residents in WA’s wild outback — sparkling ales and wines for those celebrating, financial services for those lucky enough to have struck it rich and saloons for those not so fortunate. Page 3 contained public notices and tenders, and there were more business advertisements on the back page. The Hocking brothers were very careful to spell out their intentions in the first edition of their brand new periodical. “This journal will be an entirely independent organ devoted exclusively to the advancement of the interests of the field, owing allegiance to no political or local faction or party,” they wrote. “Its one aim will be to secure the due recognition of the importance of the mines and town of Kalgoorlie and to foster all that tends to the success of this great mining camp.” The same intentions still motivate the paper to this day. CROWDED MARKET Kalgoorlie’s first-ever weekly newspaper came off a press established by Decimus and Stanley Mott who launched The Western Argus at Kalgoorlie on November 24, 1894. For months the weekly paper lost money as hundreds of people fled the city each week amid concerns the mines on which Kalgoorlie was built wouldn’t sustain them. It didn’t help that the Mott brothers knew newspapers; they did not know mining. Enter Sidney Edwin Hocking, who knew both newspapers and mining. He didn’t believe the doom and gloom pedalled by the mining naysayers. He felt they would indeed be the golden goose. Sidney started his career at the daily South Australian Advertiser becoming their mining writer and went on to establish two newspapers in Coolgardie before he headed to Kalgoorlie — the Golden Age and the Goldfields Courier. He offered the Mott brothers £250 and on August 6, 1895, the Coolgardie partnership of Sidney and Percy Hocking and James MacCallum Smith bought The Western Argus. The Hocking brothers produced their first issue of the Argus just a week later. And a few weeks after that Sidney’s faith in the mining industry proved to be well founded — the Great Boulder mine became a huge wealth producer. The good news prompted them to speculate further and launch the city’s first daily paper, thus the Miner was born, boasting Sidney Hocking’s signature on the front page. In that first edition, Hocking laid out why he was so committed to the town and the paper. “This town is rapidly taking its place as the capital of the goldfields of WA, and has already become such an important centre that the appearance of the Kalgoorlie Miner, the first and only daily paper printed and published on the East Coolgardie field, will cause no surprise,” he wrote. “Already the mines of the district are so remarkable that they have thrown into the shade all properties in less favoured localities. “Today it is the Hannans mines and the phenomenal success which has attended their returns that have kept the great interior goldfields of WA before the public. “But for these the collapse of the Londonderry, Bayley’s and a few other well-known properties would have caused a general withdrawal of money from these fields and thus have given gold mining a check such as years of patient labour would not have overcome. “Thanks to the wonderful success of the Great Boulder, Lake View and Ivanhoe mines, the only three crushing on the field, the whole of the interior goldfields have been saved from at least utter stagnation. “Now for the first time the district is being appreciated at its true worth as the greatest gold mining camp of the century and a boom founded solely on the merits of our hitherto ‘overlooked ore deposits’ is setting in. “Already the town is assuming the importance of an inland city, and all the mercantile houses of the colony are falling over one another in their eagerness to secure business sites in the main street. “The price of land, that sure barometer of the prosperity of the chief place in a district is going up by leaps and bounds and on all sides the clang of the builders’ hammers make noise, if not music, day and night. “It is not too much to expect that within a very short space of time Kalgoorlie will have a population of 20,000, and that the Miner will by that time rival the journals of the present metropolis, Perth. “For nearly 12 months the Western Argus has been the only newspaper published on the field and in placing their fresh venture, the Kalgoorlie Miner, before the public, the proprietors Messrs Hocking and Co do so with the assurance that it will meet with the success which is ever attendant on well directed enterprise.” And in closing their letter to the public, the Hocking brothers predicted their own future: “That rival journals will spring up is to be expected, but their advent will merely be taken as a confirmation of our judgment in launching the first daily produced in the district.” It took just two days after the publication of that missive for W. E. Clare — owner of the Coolgardie Miner newspaper and the Goldfields Chronicle — to also spot the opportunity and launch the daily Hannan’s Herald. However, the Hocking brothers proved too good for Mr Clare, who closed the Herald just one year later, leaving Kalgoorlie to once again be a one-daily paper town. Five years after Sidney spent that £250 the brothers were offered £150,000 for their business. They turned it down. VALUABLE LEGACY Sidney Hocking died in 1935 leaving his four sons to run the Miner. And 85 years on the paper still holds the respect of its founding family, with Sidney’s grandson still reading the periodical each day. Speaking ahead of the Miner’s 125th birthday, John Hocking said he couldn’t go a day without the Miner and was pleased to see it continue to thrive. “It is a paper you can trust, written by people you can trust,” Mr Hocking said. The business remained in the family’s hands for 35 years after Sidney’s death, but they handed over ownership to WA Newspapers in 1970. But the paper, Mr Hocking said, was much as it had ever been. “It was a journalist’s paper then. It is a journalist’s paper now,” he said. The same sentiment was shared by the mayor of the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder John Bowler. “As a former journalist myself, I believe strongly in the importance of the local daily paper and its ability to not only break the stories that matter, but also make sure that all the good news stories in our community make it into the public domain,” Mr Bowler said, adding the publication was nothing without its journalists. “The journalists, who are the heart and soul of a paper, are still here in Kalgoorlie-Boulder covering all the stories, big and small,” he said. “I commend the team at the Kalgoorlie Miner for their ongoing hard work and commitment to local news, and wish them all the best for the next 125 years.” A journalism background isn’t the only thing linking the Kalgoorlie mayor to The Miner’s founder, with both men serving at the head of the city’s council. “The City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder and its predecessors also have strong links to the Kalgoorlie Miner, not least with the founder of the paper, Sidney Hocking, who served on the Town of Kalgoorlie Council in 1895 and again in 1907, before serving as the mayor of Kalgoorlie from 1909-1911,” Mr Bowler said. BY LOCALS FOR LOCALS Kalgoorlie locals Jeff and Faye Jones have had the Kalgoorlie Miner delivered to their doorstep every day for 45 years. Mrs Jones said local stories had resonated with her the most across the years. “Local people are interested in the local news ... if there is a car prang on the corner of Hannan Street or whatever, we all want to know about it.” The couple believe the preservation of local newspapers is “vital” as “the rest of the world don’t know we exist half the time”. “The capturing of the word is very important, I believe, and you can only do it in print,” Mr Jones said. CHALLENGES OF TODAY The challenges faced by the paper today are vastly different to those of 125 years ago. Despite a gloomy outlook for many regional newspapers around the world, Miner editor Neil Watkinson says he has every reason for good cheer. “The COVID-19 pandemic has made life tough for many people and enterprises, and the media industry has been no exception,” he said. “But the Kalgoorlie Miner carries on telling the news, six days a week. It continues to make sure the Goldfields-Esperance region is one of the best informed in the country, with its links to The West Australian augmenting the many local stories there are to tell in this vibrant, energetic part of Australia.” Kalgoorlie’s mayor once again agrees. “Not only is (The Miner) the only remaining regional daily newspaper in WA, but also from its auspicious start 125 years ago, it continues to thrive, covering important regional stories every day,” Mr Bowler said. “In this increasingly digital age, it is great to see the Kalgoorlie Miner continue to develop its online presence and offering and stay relevant in the changing media environment, while continuing to deliver a good old-fashioned newspaper six days a week.” And it is innovation, Watkinson says, that has been the key to the Miner’s survival and his excitement for the future. “Our hard-copy edition is now supplemented by a website and Facebook page which allow us to get the news out as it happens,” he said. “In recent weeks, we have also launched our digital edition of the newspaper. “Technology means our reporters and photographers can file from out in the field to get the stories to our readers immediately as they happen. “And it also means we can get the news out when the chips are down. “On November 18, 2017, a wild storm knocked out the power to the entire city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder. “The Miner building, like many other parts of town, was without power for several days, meaning we relied on a generator. “But that did not get up and running until about 4pm on Sunday, November 19, meaning most of the next day’s edition was produced in an unusual fashion — using laptops and iPads powered by car batteries and portable batteries, as well as a temporary takeover of the Goldfields Triple M radio station, which did have its power restored promptly. “We also relied on our colleagues in Perth to assemble the paper without us being able to see it.” In 1995, the Miner commissioned a book about the first 100 years of the newspaper. Norma King was the writer, and its title was Voice of the Goldfields. Watkinson says that description is still just as accurate today as it has ever been. “There are always rumours of our demise, with many predicting that we will become a weekly,” he said. “We just don’t see that happening any time soon. We are here to stay and we are raring to go.”

Kalgoorlie Miner: Golden future of news as team celebrates 125th birthday

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