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Hello, and welcome
to POST Newspapers!
The POST turned 30
in September 2007, and it remains independent and
privately owned.
It was established
as the Subiaco Post by reporter Bret Christian and
his wife Bettye in September 1977 in the front room
of a tiny terrace house at 52 Churchill Avenue,
Subiaco.
Local councils
which had been ignored by reporters for years
became aware of the paper's close
scrutiny.
Subiaco then was
the first inner-Perth suburb to be "discovered" by
young home buyers. The paper captured the mood of
this fast-changing suburb and became the voice of
the residents undergoing the stresses of that
change.
When the paper
outgrew the front room of the family home in 1979,
it moved to its present location, the former
Vintage Wine Bar at 2 Keightley Road,
Subiaco.
Demands came from
neighbouring suburbs for other papers "as good as
the POST", and over the next few years the other
titles were established - Claremont-Nedlands POST,
Mosman Park-Cottesloe POST and the Floreat POST,
now the Cambridge POST following a local government
shake-up.
Its first
employee, Terese Fehlberg, still
works for the paper. The first issues, which had 12
pages, were produced monthly and 9000 copies were
distributed.
The number of
employees has grown to more than 30 and often the
number of pages is bigger than a weekday issue of
Perth's sole daily, The West Australian.
Each Friday morning
a massive operation swings into action to deliver
50,000 papers into each letterbox from West Perth
to North Fremantle and up to City Beach and Wembley
Downs.
The paper has won
prizes for excellence in journalism and is widely
respected as a courageous and campaigning voice for
its readers. Its reporters frequently win prizes for
their stories. The POST finances a prize for
excellence in local government reporting in the
annual Australian Journalists Association/Perth
Press Club Awards.
It rarely expresses
an opinion or an editorial - but it runs strong and
long letters from readers every week on topics
ranging from atheism to zoning. Letters writers are
given space that they would find difficult to
achieve elsewhere.
The POST's clear, easy-to-read design is loved by readers. The POST is bang up to date,
being the first paper in Perth to
establish a Web site.
The POST has deep
loyalty from readers who are treated with respect,
and often a phone conversation between a reader and
a member of the editorial staff ends with the line:
"We really love your newspaper. Keep it
up."
Readers plan their
weeks according to events publicised free of charge
in the Community News pages. Mention in these pages
of a particular community event is often a
guarantee that the occasion will be a
success.
Local businesses
regard the POST as an inexpensive and indispensable
way to tell residents about their goods and
services.
In rapidly changing
times, readers look to the POST as a bastion of
good, old-fashioned, value-for-money news
presentation.
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