The Courier’s Thursday issue was delayed last week as a result of the widespread flooding which has occurred in the Hunter Valley.
Last Thursday’s edition was unable to be delivered from Sydney to Muswellbrook, where the newspapers are collected and then distributed throughout the North West.
The Courier is printed in Sydney by Spotpress, a commercial printing business. This printing business is also used by other independent newspaper publishers.
The commercial challenges in running a printing press, and the inability to print in full colour at Narrabri, meant the printing of The Courier in Narrabri ceased in 2017. The Courier was then printed at the Leader Print site in Tamworth and then at North Richmond during the COVID pandemic.
Both the Tamworth and North Richmond print sites were operated by Australian Community Media.
Last year, North Richmond was closed down and printing at Tamworth was only operated for ACM’s internal newspapers, meaning The Courier and other independent publishers were forced to find alternative printing arrangements.
The only available site to print newspapers is in Sydney, where The Courier has now been printed for the past year.
While the actual printing of the newspaper occurs in Sydney, The Courier employs 15 staff locally, in addition to paper boys and girls, and is committed to maintaining a printed publication dedicated to the local community. The Courier also publishes the Wee Waa News, the North Western Guide, and in November 2020 started the Gunnedah Times.
The Courier has only missed an edition twice in more than a century, the first being on the death of then proprietor John Shearer Dunnet in September 1927.
The second instance was in the 1970s during a Narrabri flood which inundated the printery at the rear of the newspaper’s Maitland Street building.
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