Background After a successful career in advertising in the 70's and early 80's, as Creative Director of some of Australia's largest advertising agencies in Brisbane and Melbourne, I became involved in community publishing in the late 1980's while living in Lismore, Northern New South Wales. I helped produce the Northcoaster, an independent community newspaper, and also published Incredible Times, a lifestyle magazine. On returning to Brisbane in 1990, I ran a desktop publishing & marketing bureau for several years, during which time we published the Westender for two years (1992/93) as a promotional vehicle for his business. After returning from overseas in late 1999, I decided to recommence publication of the Westender newspaper. With the advertising support of the local small business community, and the invaluable contribution of a number of individuals and local community organisations, Vol 3 #1 of the Westender (Volumes 1 and 2 having been published in 1992 and 1993, respectively) hit the streets in mid-March 2000.
From an initial print run of 5,000 copies with limited local distribution, the Westender regularly produced 10,000 copies every month which were eagerly snapped up by readers throughout inner urban Brisbane - at almost 200 drop-off points in the CBD, South Brisbane, Valley, New Farm and West End. The Arts Section of the paper, revamped and re-branded as "arts@westender"earlier this year, quickly won the favourable attention of Brisbane's arts community and attracted advertising support from a number of theatre and performance companies including La Boite Theatre, Brisbane Arts Theatre and others. The Westender also gained valuable moral and editorial support from a broad coalition of progressive political parties, lobby groups and social service providers in the urban area of Brisbane. Taking the paper on-line
The decision to change the Westender community newspaper to a Web-based publication was relatively easy to make. The change of technology makes little difference. It is, after all, simply a different delivery system. “Content” is king, whether you publish that content on baked clay tablets, papyrus sheets, goat skin, cave walls or a computer monitor. Marshall McLuhan was only half right when he said, “The medium is the message.” The online version of the Westender will retain the local, community-based content that has proved so popular with readers in the past. The new Internet delivery system, however, also offers significant opportunities to make the Westender more accessible, more immediate and more personal than the traditional newsprint version. There’s much more room for reader feedback, on-line forums, discussion threads. Local news and stories can be published on the web within minutes of their reaching us, too. With a monthly newspaper, much of the material submitted to the Westender was cold or out of date before the paper went to print. ENGAGING THE COMMUNITY The people of West End area have always enjoyed a sense of community and local identity than most other suburbs of Brisbane. Hopefully, by adopting the changing technology of the Internet, we can build on that strong sense of local community and build a “virtual” community on the web. I urge all local residents and visitors to seize the opportunity presented by the on-line community newspaper, and maintain the high level of discourse and dialogue that makes West End so special. As always, it is the business community of West End who are supporting this new venture with their advertising. Please show them your support in return. Regards Kerrod Trott
Publishing Editor |
