When The Examiner officially marked its centenary, a little belatedly in 1946 due to wartime shortages, the then editor Rupert John (Jack) Williams said the newspaper had given its community service unequalled in the history of Tasmania.
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Writing in The Examiner Centenary Supplement, he said the life story of The Examiner, since the first edition came off the press, was one of romance and progress.
That first edition of the Launceston Examiner Commercial and Agricultural Advertiser was printed on Saturday, March 12, 1842, on a press smuggled into the colony disguised as brewery equipment. There was a newspaper war in progress in Launceston at the time and The Examiner’s founders wanted their new publication to avoid the acrimonious and often libelous bickering of the town’s other newspapers.
In The Examiner Centenary Supplement, Mr Williams said the paper had always stood for the principles of liberty, justice and progress . . . and had built up a reputation for honesty and fair dealing among all sections of the people.
The Examiner is the sole survivor of Launceston’s newspaper war of the 1840s. It sits in rare company as Australia's third-oldest newspaper, after the Sydney Morning Herald (1831) and the Geelong Advertiser (1840).
The Examiner's founders were businessman James Aikenhead and printer Jonathan Waddell but Congregationalist minister John West has always been recognised as the driving force in its establishment. The Reverend John West was 29 when the Colonial Missionary Society sent him to the colony of Van Diemen’s Land in 1839. In Launceston his congregation included the Aikenhead and Waddell families.
The Reverend West wrote the leading article in the first edition of The Examiner attacking convict transportation and its detrimental effect on building a respectable, sound and prosperous society. This began the newspaper's leading role in the anti-transportation campaign that helped unite the Australian colonies and sowed the seeds of Federation.
Twelve years after the first edition was produced in rented rooms in Brisbane Street, Aikenhead and Waddell bought land in Paterson Street and had new printing offices built. Many additions and later rebuilding took place on the site that housed The Examiner for the next 161 years.
The Examiner started out as a bi-weekly newspaper, printed on Saturday and Wednesday afternoons, until the publishing time was changed to 6am in 1860. It became a daily (Monday to Saturday) newspaper in 1877.
Advances in printing and publishing technology have always been embraced by The Examiner.
On the newspaper’s 54th birthday in March 1896, it became the first printery in Tasmania to be lit by electricity and have type produced by Linotype machines that replaced hand setting and revolutionised newspaper production.
The Weekly Courier, a magazine that featured photographs of local and overseas people, news and scenery, was published from 1901 and 1936 and other special publications were produced on a regular basis, including annual supplements and pictorial booklets.
On Monday, September 3, 1939, The Examiner had news on its front page for the first time to announce the declaration of war in Europe and in 1948 it became a tabloid-sized newspaper. Seven-day publication began in 1924 with the appearance of The Saturday Evening Express, which was published until 1984 when it was replaced by The Sunday Examiner.
The Examiner established the radio station 7EX in 1938 and the television station TNT9 in 1962. As the public company Examiner Northern Television Ltd (ENT) it diversified into other businesses and became one of Tasmania’s biggest companies.
After managing director Edmund Rouse was jailed for three years in 1989 for trying to bribe Labor politician Jim Cox, The Examiner was sold to NSW-based Rural Press Ltd (60 per cent) and Burnie's Harris and Co Ltd, publishers of The Advocate (40 per cent).
The Examiner launched its first news website in 1997 and in 2000 made all its daily content available online. Today The Examiner’s traditional daily hard copy version is complemented with its e-edition, website, phone and tablet apps and social media.
Rural Press became sole owner of The Examiner in 2004 when it bought Harris and Co Ltd and following the merger of that company with Fairfax Media became part of Fairfax. In 2015, it moved to new offices in Cimitiere Street.
Over the past 175 years, The Examiner has met the many challenges of changing technology and fluctuating economic conditions, no doubt due to the legacy of compassion and innovation established by its founders and embraced by subsequent owners and staff.
- Julian Burgess is The Examiner’s former associate editor