Hauraki-Coromandel Post closure: First editor pays tribute to community newspaper

Normandy veteran Fred Amess gets emotional around Anzac day. Photo / Alison Smith

The Hauraki-Coromandel Post had a brief – but impactful – life in the world of journalism.

It began when the two newspapers for which I was editor – the Coastal News and the Waihī Leader – merged after the disruption of the target="_blank">Covid-19 global pandemic.

We had recently celebrated the 40-year milestone of the Coastal News, which began life as the Whangamatā Flash.

Meanwhile, the Waihī Leader was a well-loved newspaper with a longer history, and my time as editor was made much easier with the help of excellent journalist and contractor Rebecca Mauger working part-time on the team.

When the Covid-19 global pandemic hit and an announcement was made by the Government that the country would go into national lockdown, we had to fight to keep our community newspapers publishing.

Initially, the Government put community newspapers in the category of “non-essential” news, which was a blow to ourselves as journalists and our loyal readers.

As editor of both the Waihī Leader and Coastal News, I took up the cause with Coromandel MP Scott Simpson, who helped lobby the Labour-led Government to rethink its decision and allow community news to continue to be circulated.

The Government did change its stance – realising that for many of our elderly and rural populations, community newspapers were their only source of news.

This was just one of numerous causes that were pursued and successfully won throughout my time as editor of the much-loved HC Post.

One in particular stands out in my memory, and led to my nomination for Best Environment Reporting in the Voyager New Zealand Media Awards.

The front page of the first HC Post edition on October 8, 2020.

It also led to a law change.

The slow-growing reef fish species pink maomao now has a chance of survival, after Tairua-based videographer Mike Bhana and I filmed fishermen with thousands of pink maomao in bins in Tairua, with reports that fishermen had been taking similar unrestrained numbers of these species for three months.

The fishing organisation Legasea had been advocating for a change to regulations since 2019 to see pink maomao put into the amateur daily limits. Once the story of “wholesale slaughter” in Tairua hit the New Zealand Herald website on the evening that I wrote it for the Hauraki-Coromandel Post, it immediately topped this national news platform.

One of the bins of Pink maomao filmed in Tairua on one of several boats at the Tairua Wharf. Photo / Mike Bhana

When the fishermen showed up at the Tairua wharf the next day, they were confronted by locals who blocked access to their boats and made it clear how they felt. Locals throughout the Coromandel contacted me in the days that followed, giving tipoffs and essentially standing vigil to protect these species of fish.

Some of the stories covered – or uncovered – during my editorship were picked up internationally by newspapers in the United States, UK and Canada.

There was the “message in a bottle” from Whangamatā’s prolific letter writer and all-round good guy Jim Green, multiple stories on the effects of mining and mining layoffs in Waihī, and uplifting stories like the retro pin-up grandmother.

Jim Green of Whangamatā has written to dozens of world leaders and takes great pleasure in the replies. Photo / Alison Smith

Not all stories went global but many had an impact locally.

These included stories on the stark differences between rich and poor in the Hauraki-Coromandel District, the “asset-stripping” furore over Lindsay Rd council land in Whangamatā, and the story about how Hot Water Beach would become the nation’s only pay-to-visit beach because of a council plan to charge parking at every single parking lot in the small settlement.

Giving a voice to communities, underdogs and local heroes is what I cherished most about being a community newspaper editor and journalist with such a pursuasive and authorative national media platform as the Herald group, NZME.

I also made many friends along the way, worked with a fantastic and capable team of salespeople, sub-editors, multi-media journalists, managers and receptionists (Karen Carley and Stacey Renata).

An absolute privilege was the chance to spend time sitting in the company of local war heroes Fred Amess, Brant Robinson and Des Harrison to document their unimaginable war experiences.

My intro for Vietnam veteran Harrison was: “As poignant as the memory Des Harrison has of chemicals raining down on him in Vietnam is the time he was turned away at the door of the Auckland RSA.”

On a personal note, I am proud and sad to see this newspaper reach its final edition.

Des Harrison of Whangamatā has painful memories of his treatment upon return from the Vietnam War. Photo / Alison Smith

The HC Post reached a healthy 80 pages during my tenure as editor, and we expanded to cover further areas of Hauraki, which became tough for me as a one-journalist/editor against other local papers that were journalist-owned, and included some that received government funding from the Public Interest Journalism Fund, allowing them to employ several reporters to cover smaller areas.

The Thames-Coromandel District Council also moved into the realm of publishing in the last decade, with the ratepayer-funded publication of its Our Coromandel magazine and a guaranteed reach of non-resident ratepayers on its database giving it an edge for advertising.

I left the HC Post in 2022 and continue to write as a freelance journalist, and this year won Best Campaign with the New Zealand Guild of Agricultural Journalists and Communicators.

Alison Smith Waihi Leader 21 June 2019 The Bay of Plenty Times Photograph by Andrew Warner

I am now working on ocean restoration initiatives with an impact investor in Auckland and studying my Masters of Technological Futures – focusing on community journalism.

If we believe in the power of community news, let’s find ways to support it as a community – by taking an interest in news, contributing to it, reading the local paper, sharing story ideas and by advertising in our local paper.

Journalists are the heroes that people turn to when all else has failed: when the system lets them down, when fundraising is needed to save a life, when there appears to be nobody keeping an eye on the regulators, and when a community wants to find its own solutions and champion its most dedicated people.

Alison Smith was the first editor of the Hauraki-Coromandel Post.