Sun News-Pictorial
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''The Sun News-Pictorial'' (known as ''The Sun'') was a morning daily tabloid newspaper published in
Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
,
Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...
, from 1922 until its merger in 1990 with '' The Herald'' to form the ''
Herald-Sun The ''Herald Sun'' is a Conservatism, conservative daily tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia, published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Corp Australia, itself a subsidiary of the American Rupert Murdoch, Murd ...
''. ''The Sun News-Pictorial'' was part of
The Herald and Weekly Times ''The Herald and Weekly Times'' Pty Ltd (HWT) is a newspaper publishing company based in Melbourne, Australia. It is owned and operated by News Pty Ltd, which as News Ltd, purchased the HWT in 1987. Newspapers The HWT's newspaper interests dat ...
stable of Melbourne newspapers. For more than fifty years it was the newspaper with the largest circulation in
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
. In 1930, more than 650,000 copies were sold each day.


Character

Along with its extensive coverage of
Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...
(for example, it was responsible for the competition that produced the original
VFL/AFL The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-eminent professional sports, professional competition of Australian rules football. It was originally named the Victorian Football League (VFL) and was founded in 1896 as a breakaway competition ...
team songs), ''The Sun News-Pictorial'' distinguished itself with its photography, columns, and cartoons. Its longest-running column was "A Place in the Sun", originally written by
Keith Dunstan John Keith Dunstan (3 February 1925 – 11 September 2013), known as Keith Dunstan, was an Australian journalist and author. He was a prolific writer and the author of more than 35 books. Early life Dunstan was born in East Malvern, Victoria ...
, founder of the Anti-Football League, and later Graeme "Jacko" Johnstone. The award-winning cartoonist
Jeff Hook Geoffrey Raynor Hook (27 December 1928 – 20 July 2018) was an Australians, Australian artist and editorial cartoonist. Hook was married to Pauline from 1961 and had five children. Career After attending St Virgil's College, Hobart, Hook sta ...
became the full-time cartoonist for ''The Sun News-Pictorial'' in 1964.


History


Origin

Keith Murdoch Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch (12 August 1885 – 4 October 1952) was an Australian journalist and media proprietor who was the founder of the Murdoch media empire. He amassed significant media holdings in Australia which after his death were expan ...
became editor-in-chief of '' The Herald'' in January 1921. When the proprietor of the '' Sydney Sun'' tried to break into the Melbourne market in 1922 with the launch of ''The Evening Sun'' and ''The Sun News-Pictorial'', Murdoch fought a long campaign which eventually resulted in the formation of ''
The Herald and Weekly Times ''The Herald and Weekly Times'' Pty Ltd (HWT) is a newspaper publishing company based in Melbourne, Australia. It is owned and operated by News Pty Ltd, which as News Ltd, purchased the HWT in 1987. Newspapers The HWT's newspaper interests dat ...
'' (''HWT''), with the circulation of ''The Herald'' up by 50%, taking over the two tabloids in 1925. Murdoch closed the afternoon rival ''The Evening Sun''. In 1928, Murdoch became managing director of the HWT, by which time ''The Sun News-Pictorial'' was on its way to becoming Australia's highest-selling newspaper. An early editor who has been given much of the credit for the paper's success was
Lloyd Dumas Sir Frederick Lloyd Dumas (15 July 1891 – 24 June 1973), generally known as "Lloyd Dumas" or "F. Lloyd Dumas", was a journalist and politically influential newspaperman in Victoria and South Australia. Early history Dumas was born in Mount B ...
.


Competition

''The Sun News-Pictorial'''s main competitors were the
broadsheet A broadsheet is the largest newspaper format and is characterized by long Vertical and horizontal, vertical pages, typically of in height. Other common newspaper formats include the smaller Berliner (format), Berliner and Tabloid (newspaper ...
s '' The Argus'' and ''
The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...
''. ''The Argus'' was a morning daily newspaper in Melbourne, published since 1846 and considered to be the general Australian newspaper of record for this period. Widely known as a conservative newspaper for most of its history, it adopted a
left Left may refer to: Music * ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006 * ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016 * ''Left'' (Helmet album), 2023 * "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996 Direction * Left (direction), the relativ ...
-leaning approach in 1949, and after twenty years of financial losses, closed on 19 January 1957. The other competitor over the life of the newspaper was the more
liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * Generally, a supporter of the political philosophy liberalism. Liberals may be politically left or right but tend to be centrist. * An adherent of a Liberal Party (See also Liberal parties by country ...
-minded ''The Age'', a daily newspaper that had been published in Melbourne since 1854.
David Syme David Syme (2 October 1827 – 14 February 1908) was a Scotland, Scottish-Australian newspaper proprietor of ''The Age'' and regarded as "the father of Protectionism, protection in Australia" who had immense influence in the Government of Victor ...
became sole proprietor of the paper in 1891, and he built it up into Victoria's leading newspaper, soon overtaking its rivals ''The Herald'' and ''The Argus''. By 1890 it was selling 100,000 copies a day, making it one of the world's most successful newspapers, but Syme's will prevented the sale of any equity in the paper during his sons' lifetimes, which had the unintended consequence of starving the paper of investment capital for 40 years; ''The Age'' was unable to modernise, and gradually lost market share to ''The Argus'' and ''The Sun News-Pictorial'', with only its classified advertisement sections keeping the paper profitable. By the 1940s, the paper's circulation was lower than it had been in 1900, and its political influence had also declined to the extent that while it remained more liberal than the extremely conservative ''Argus'', it lost much of its distinct political identity. After David Syme's last surviving son, Oswald Syme, took over the paper, he modernised its appearance and standards of news coverage by removing classified advertisements from the front page and introducing photographs long after other papers had done so. In 1948, realising the paper needed outside the capital, Oswald persuaded the courts to overturn his father's will and floated David Syme and Co. as a public company, selling £400,000 worth of shares to enable a badly needed technical upgrade of the newspaper's production. ''The Sun News-Pictorial'' became the highest-circulating daily in Australia, and at times the world, outselling its rivals three to one. One substantial reason for its high level of daily sales was that ''The Sun News-Pictorial'' offered a free
life-insurance Life insurance (or life assurance, especially in the Commonwealth of Nations) is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money upon the death ...
policy to each of those who subscribed for regular daily home delivery of the newspaper (i.e., rather than those who bought it occasionally from street vendors or newsagents), and the insurance policy (valued at somewhere near 12 months' average wages) was current for the duration of that household's subscription.


1990 merger

''The Sun News-Pictorial'' ceased publication on 6 October 1990 and merged with sister evening newspaper '' The Herald'' to form the ''
Herald-Sun The ''Herald Sun'' is a Conservatism, conservative daily tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia, published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Corp Australia, itself a subsidiary of the American Rupert Murdoch, Murd ...
'', which contained columns and features from both of its predecessors.


Notable journalists, columnists, cartoonists and editors

*
Jeff Hook Geoffrey Raynor Hook (27 December 1928 – 20 July 2018) was an Australians, Australian artist and editorial cartoonist. Hook was married to Pauline from 1961 and had five children. Career After attending St Virgil's College, Hobart, Hook sta ...
*
Keith Dunstan John Keith Dunstan (3 February 1925 – 11 September 2013), known as Keith Dunstan, was an Australian journalist and author. He was a prolific writer and the author of more than 35 books. Early life Dunstan was born in East Malvern, Victoria ...
*
Pat Jarrett Patricia Irene (Pat) Jarrett (9 March 1911 – 28 August 1990) was an Australian sports journalist, press officer and sub-editor. Life Jarrett was born in 1911 in the Melbourne suburb of Albert Park. She was registered as Irene Herschell Jarret ...
, women's editor from 1946 to 1983 (then a consultant) *
Kitty McEwan Kathleen Agnes Rose McEwan also known as Kitty McEwan (15 March 1894 — 17 August 1969) was an Australian Sports journalism, sports journalist, golfer and former superintendent for the Australian Women's Land Army in Victoria (state), Victoria. ...
, women's sports journalist from 1946-1966.


See also

*
List of newspapers in Australia This is a list of newspapers in Australia. ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' is the most-read newspaper in Australia, with over eight million readers as of 2021. Top 10 newspapers by circulation The following is a list of the top 10 newspapers ...


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sun News Pictorial, The Newspapers established in 1922 Publications disestablished in 1990 Defunct newspapers published in Melbourne 1922 establishments in Australia Daily newspapers published in Australia 1990 disestablishments in Australia