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The editor of the Fremantle Herald and Perth Voice has taken an extraordinary public swipe at Seven West Media after negotiations with the media giant over a printing contract failed, leaving the paper without a printed edition for the first time in 35 years.
On a one-page edition printed on A4 paper and published on the papers’ Facebook pages, editor Andrew Smith accused Seven West Media’s subsidiary West Australian Newspapers of using its printing press monopoly in WA to force small independent papers into lengthy contracts.
Fremantle Herald’s A4 paper edition.Credit: Freoview
Smith said he got an email from Seven West Media’s Colourpress printing arm on Monday telling them both their papers had been removed from its printing schedule after negotiations broke down.
He claimed the company was throwing its weight around to prevent his paper from taking up a contract with a new printing press recently purchased by a consortium of businesses led by western suburbs-based Post Newspapers.
“In a week of high drama our printer, West Australian Newspapers, slammed the door in our face, and yours, refusing to put the Herald on its print press. And all because there’s a new printer in town,” Smith said.
“Over four weeks of discussions, we’d told this then-monopoly WA printer we did not want to be forced to sign any lock-in, two-year contract, albeit with a faint sweetener of print costs held to current levels.”
Smith said Seven West Media was trying to lock the paper into a contract to prevent it from dealing with any other printer in WA or beyond.
“The reason for The West’s hard-knuckle approach was to put up a blocker for any clients who might be tempted to shift allegiance to the new printer cranking up in Perth this week,” he said.
“After 35 years working with many printers and their usual friendly, can-do way (including The West), we have now had a box-seat experience of the sheer commercial brutality a monopoly in any industry can play.
The south-eastern suburbs-based Examiner Newspapers and eastern suburbs-based Echo Newspaper have both jumped ship to Fair Maiden.
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Smith said the Herald would survive thanks to its online presence.
“Without the huge growth of the Herald/Voice online e-news over the last two years, the much-loved Chook could well have been a dead duck today,” he said.
“Or worse, a much-diminished newsroom media company, if we’d been forced to our knees to sign a prejudicial contract which would have prevented us from testing the print market for two years.”
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