The role of special edition editorials in forging and maintaining links between newspapers and the communities they serve

Abstract

Successful newspapers manage to carve out a niche for themselves with the communities they seek to represent, often appealing to what they perceive as the particular needs and interests of prospective readers. This is particularly evident in the case of newspapers in rural and regional communities that are in the early stages of development. This paper looks at the development of newspapers in two emerging communities, the Northern Territory and Tasmania’s north-west coast, during the late nineteenth century and explores how they use editorials to build and maintain their relationship with readers, both in their set-up period and during milestone events in their history.