This article is about a newspaper published in Melbourne, Australia. For the newspaper published in Durham, North Carolina, USA, see The Herald-Sun (Durham, North Carolina).
The Herald Sun newspaper was formed in 1990 from a merger of the morning tabloid paper The Sun News-Pictorial with its afternoon broadsheet sister paper The Herald. It was first published on 8 October1990 as The Herald-Sun. The hyphen in its title was later dropped; the last hyphenated masthead appeared on May 1, 1993.
History
The Herald
The old Herald and Weekly Times building in Flinders Street.
The Herald was founded on January 3, 1840, by George Cavanaugh as The Port Phillip Herald. In 1855 it became The Melbourne Herald for all of one week before settling on The Herald. From 1869, it was an evening newspaper.
In its heyday, The Herald had a circulation of almost 600,000, but by the time of its 150th anniversary in 1990, with the impact of evening television news and a higher proportion of people using cars to get home from work, The Herald's circulation had fallen below 200,000. This was much less than that of the morning Sun.
As a result, the HWT decided to merge the two, and so after one hundred and fifty years, ten months and two days of publication, The Herald was published for the last time as a separate newspaper on 5 October1990. The next day, The Sun News-Pictorial published its last edition. Shortly before this, the Sunday editions of the two newspapers had been merged.
The resulting newspaper had both the size and style of The Sun.
Print editions
Like most morning newspapers, Herald Sun was released as a number of editions throughout the day. However after mX became established in the early 2000s, a give-away afternoon newspaper also by the HWT, the afternoon edition was scrapped.
Youth forum – letters from school-aged children on a variety of topical issues
Provincial Form Liftout – four-page horse racing guide providing fields and form comment for the major Victorian race meeting, fields for the day's interstate thoroughbred meetings, and Victorian harness and greyhound racing meetings
Tuesday
Learn – small section with articles and news about educational product and school life
Provincial Form Liftout – four-page horse racing guide providing fields and form comment for the major Victorian race meeting, fields for the day's interstate thoroughbred meetings, Victorian harness and greyhound racing meetings, and fields for interstate harness racing meetings and also melbourne cup.
Wednesday
Guide – television reviews, opinions, letters and a week's viewing guide
Connect – technology news and reviews
Simply Food – recipes and nutrition information (first Wednesday of each month)
Superform Liftout – eight-page horse racing guide providing fields and extended form for the major Victorian race meeting, and fields for the day's Victorian harness and greyhound racing as well as various interstate thoroughbred meetings
Thursday
HIT – entertainment lift-out, with music/box office charts, and news on music and movies
Provincial Form Liftout – eight-page horse racing guide providing fields and extended form for the major Victorian race meeting, and fields for the day's Victorian harness and greyhound racing as well as various interstate thoroughbred meetings
Superform Liftout – 12-page horse racing guide that includes extended form and analysis for Saturday's major Melbourne meeting, and form comment for Saturday's Sydney meeting. Also includes fields and form for many of Friday's thoroughbred, harness and greyhound racing meetings
Saturday
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Saturday – stories about people, events and issues of interest to Victoria and Australia
Weekend Sport – reports from Friday night's sporting games, previews of the weekend's action, feature stories and results from various sports both local and international
Superform Liftout – 16-page horse racing guide that includes extended form and analysis for the major Melbourne meeting, and form comment for the Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Victorian provincial meetings. Also includes fields and form for the night's harness racing and greyhound racing meetings
CareerOne – news and advice on the job market, classified job advertisements
RealEstate – auction reports, pictorial spreads and real estate advertisements
Home – full-colour home improvement magazine
Weekend – entertainment features, weekend movie guide, gardening, books and special interest columns
Sunday Sport – coverage of the weekend's AFL matches, news, features and results from various sports both local and international; includes photo finish prints of each of Saturday's horse racing events
Provincial Form Liftout – eight-page horse racing guide providing fields and form for Sunday's Victorian race meetings, and fields for the day's Victorian harness and greyhound racing as well as various interstate thoroughbred meetings
ie (Inside Entertainment)
Escape
Sunday
Sunday Cars Guide
TV guide
Body+soul
Stuff
Daily features (Monday to Saturday)
Your Say
Confidential (weekdays; formerly "The Eye")
Fun and Games
Sport
Racing liftout (four pages on Monday and Tuesday; eight pages on Wednesday and Thursday)
BusinessDaily
Classifieds
Weather
TV Programs
Gig Guide
Collectable items
Over the years, the Herald Sun has had a range of magazines, pins and memorabilia (usually with an outside partner) that could be obtained by either getting it out of the newspaper, or using a token from the newspaper to collect or purchase the item. Items that have been a part of this scheme include:
Family Encyclopedia CD-ROM Collection (2006) – in conjunction with publishing company Dorling Kindersley
The Greatest (2007) – a 14-part magazine series
Amazing Pictures (2007) - a 4-part magazine series
Criticisms
Critics say that the Herald Sun exhibits a right-wing bias, with some arguing that it reflects the view of Rupert Murdoch, who is the chief executive officer of Herald Sun's parent company. In reference to this perceived bias, some have taken to calling it "The Hun" (for example, ABC TV's Media Watch, on 1 May2006).[1]
Shortly before the 2004 election, the Herald Sun published an article entitled "Greens back illegal drugs" (Herald Sun, 31/8/2004) written by Gerard McManus which made a number of claims about the Australian Greens based on policies posted on their website at the time. The Greens complained to the Australian Press Councilcitation needed after withdrawing the policy statements from their website (but prior to the story being printed). The text of their adjudication reads:
In the context of an approaching election, the potential damage was considerable. The actual electoral impact cannot be known but readers were seriously misled. [...] The claims made in the original article were seriously inaccurate and breached the Council's guiding principles of checking the accuracy of what is reported, taking prompt measures to counter the effects of harmfully inaccurate reporting, ensuring that the facts are not distorted, and being fair and balanced in reports on matters of public concern.
The newspaper published what the Greens saw as an unenthusiastic apologetic of the original article. Claims have been made that the paper has a strong bias in favour of the Liberal Party[2] The columnist Andrew Bolt often takes controversial positions, and attracts anger from the left. John Pilger has described him as "the lowest of journalism's low, an extreme right wing and aggressively idiotic member of Murdoch's dominant press group in Australia".[3]