#TheHerald180 | The heady days of The Herald’s most successful era

Message from Ric Wilson, editor-in-chief of the Eastern Province Herald from 1993 to 2004

I was fortunate to be the editor of the Eastern Province Herald in 1995 when we celebrated the paper’s 150th anniversary.

Which we did in great style at the newly refurbished Feather Market Hall with a banquet for the city’s VIPs, and later a civic reception attended by President Nelson Mandela and hosted by mayor Nceba Faku, who years before and in years to come would call for the paper to be burned or boycotted.

Such is the fluctuation of fortunes in the newspaper world — a world that has changed beyond recognition with modern technology.

I was also fortunate to be editor of The Herald during its most successful era, selling on average between 30,000 and 40,000 papers a day, compared with today’s 10,000.

It was also a challenging era of political and social change, during which we at The Herald pioneered transformation in the newspaper industry by forming, in 1996, SA’s first black empowerment partnership in a new company, Times Media Eastern Cape, 30% owned by local black businessmen. 

It was ironically a process that culminated with my own “transformation” in 2004 when I made way for the paper’s first black editor.

I was fortunate too as editor of SA’s oldest daily newspaper to cover some of the big events that shook the world.

The attack of 9/11 in 2001 is the obvious one, but surprisingly it didn’t sell as many papers as the death in 1997 of Princess Diana, which was The Herald’s biggest ever sale, more than 60,000 copies the next day.

Another landmark occasion was the 1995 Royal Tour.

Mayor Faku and I were unlikely allies in working behind the scenes to make that happen, ensuring that PE and not East London, favoured by a powerful ANC faction, was nominated by the government to be the Eastern Cape host to Queen Elizabeth.

Back then The Herald (along with the Evening Post and Weekend Post before they closed) was printed in the basement of the former Newspaper House in Baakens Street.

Two editions of the Herald were printed by presses which thundered through the night, shaking the building and spewing out thousands of papers that were loaded onto a fleet of waiting trucks and delivered up and down the coast from Knysna to Port Alfred and deep into the Eastern Cape to the Free State border.

There were more than 40 journalists on The Herald alone and a further 30 or more on the two Posts, plus scores of admin, advertising and printing staff, so it was a busy building back in the day. Now abandoned and derelict awaiting an uncertain future.

The internet revolution and the explosion of social media have been a calamity for newspapers worldwide and they’ve had to adapt to survive.

So we find The Herald today a shadow of its former self, an editorial staff of 24, many of whom work remotely from home, with a rented office HQ in The Atrium at Greenacres, printed by contract at a press outside the city, and with a daily sale of 10,000 newspapers.

But with a feisty online website which gives hope for the paper’s future.

The Herald