I’VE been very privileged to have a run as editor of this newspaper and to add to its 165-year history, albeit in just a small way; 12 months is hardly a drop in the bucket of the many decades of news reported at the Hamilton Spectator, but my name will be on that list all the same.

What follows is a somewhat disjointed collection of thoughts, but that is reflective of the varied responsibilities that come with the job.

Just over four years ago I walked into these offices at 59 Gray St, hired as a senior journalist – although to be honest I probably didn’t deserve that title given my media experience was limited to Melbourne TV and editing of a different kind, but I was terribly glad to have found a job out here that at least partially matched my skillset.

Up until then I thought I wasn’t too shabby a writer from my high school magazine days, but I quickly realised improvement was required as I discovered just how much sloppiness there was with my tenses and structures (although this article may still be a departure from the latter.)

Occasionally I open one of those early articles from 2020… and quickly close them again in embarrassment.

(I’d like to think I won’t in the future do the same with the ones I’ve written in the last year or two.)

It says a lot about the graciousness of the Spec staff that they made allowance for my initial lack of tight adherence to the internal style guide, but gradually I understood what was required to be a valued part of the editorial team.

My colleagues were of critical importance to me – the organic nature of a regional newspaper staffed by people who have lived and breathed the Hamilton region most or all their lives made my job easier – not only do they feed you story ideas and expand on the ones you do have, the history and ‘feel’ of the town gets reflected more accurately.

But it’s not just them – outside of the Spec office, there are countless people from the area to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for their input for articles, and that includes many residents in all the satellite towns.

I’ve enjoyed interacting with townsfolk from places like Glenthompson, Coleraine, Balmoral and Penshurst – and there’s something uniquely enjoyable about hobnobbing with a bunch of locals at the Gringegalgona CFA and getting them together for a group photo that ends up on the front page; regional people are typically unpretentious and humble, and the times I interacted with them were never fake.

And it goes beyond the written words – capturing the landscape and people in pictures has also been part of my varied experience and there are countless photos I took of everything from footy matches to art shows and wide vistas of sheep against the Grampians in the distance.

Many times on my long drive in from Harrow, I stopped to pull out the camera because what I saw was too good to miss; although I’d been visiting my sister’s family at Wannon since 2011 regularly, I got a much greater appreciation for the beauty in the region in the last four years after I moved up here to get married.

But with images, I was just an occasional stand-in when required – I’m no match for the brilliance of our own permanent photographers, who have consistently done an excellent job; they added to the incredible archive of photos here at the Spec and importantly, consistently made the front and back pages pop.

That high quality inspired me back in June to create a quick weekly slideshow on social media to give them a wider audience. (If you haven’t seen any of them, ask someone to show you. Sadly, I have no idea if anything like that will be done in the future with the new owners; in any case, I hope you like this week’s final contributions.)

Newspapers still matter out in the sticks

IN my time here, I’ve appreciated the importance of newspapers to rural communities, and I’m convinced it matters more to them than any masthead matters to their city counterparts.

I’m no technological luddite, but I think the clever (and often unethically manipulated) algorithms that decide what you see and don’t see on social media aren’t up to the job of providing as comprehensive a snapshot of specific regional information that you can refer to as handily as a physical paper produced by people who live there.

Social media has a place but won’t capture as wide a cross section of the heartbeat of a rural town – sure, you’ll get immediacy and a limited selection of personally tailored content, which works in a certain way – but it won’t inform you as deeply and broadly the way a well-produced regional newspaper will do; I think a healthy community in the 21st Century should have both at their disposal.

Sheepvention is an excellent example of how the coverage difference matters.

For my part, in the editorial role, multiple principles have guided my time, in no particular order – local content that goes beyond the Hamilton CBD, accuracy, people first, accountability of authority, community responsibility, empathy and a distaste for sensationalising stories beyond their scale.

That last one especially probably removes me from potentially furthering my career in mainstream media, but as a Christian, I don’t think I could’ve aimed any differently and retained my conscience before God.

(Unlike Sir Humphrey Appleby one time explaining to Bernard in the classic TV series, Yes Prime Minister, I don’t think a clear conscience is akin to acquiring a “taste for luxuries”.)

In summary, I wanted to produce a paper that could be picked up from an archive in five, 10, 20 years or more, and provide for the reader a good reflection of that time.

Internally, I considered it important to know the names of everyone in the building, from the front office to the back. While most general editorial decisions were ultimately mine, countless other decisions regarding sport, advertising, and design, along with the hard and diligent quality-control work of production staff, printers, and front-office personnel interacting with the public, facilitated every edition of the paper; to get the best out of people, they must feel personally valued often.

They join with the hundreds of locals who have crossed the threshold of the doorway of this historic building on Gray St as part of its staff for over a century and a half; the memory of those people deserves honour too; all of this is part of what has shaped the town and the surrounding farming regions.

But the public has crossed the threshold of that doorway too – maybe to place a classified ad, share some news tip or complain about an article, but most regularly to simply buy a copy of the Spec.

And it is ultimately for the readers this paper has existed, whether you bought it here at the office or at the supermarket on a Friday afternoon to read in the carpark, as I have seen many times.

My own daily trip from Harrow has included not just enjoying the amazing countryside views and acknowledging the same school bus driver coming past and waving at the same school kids at one of the bus stops, but on the return leg I was also the de facto paper delivery boy for the town, dropping off a bundle twice a week at the café – for the readers there.

Last week I had to do it on the Saturday morning as I got home too late the evening before after attending the Carols by Candlelight, and ended up in conversation with one of the local legends, Lachie Turner.

The picture (left) you see of him is reflective of what the paper was produced for, a local resident simply wanting to know what’s going on, old school.

For him and for you, the paper was made locally by locals; you hold in your hands the last of a long line of editions fully produced and printed in Hamilton, and what a history it is.

To the community of Hamilton and the wider regions surrounding, on behalf of all the staff at the Hamilton Spectator, I want to thank you – it was an honour to serve you.

INK makes impressions on paper, but in this case, paper also left an impression on (top) editor, Mark Rabich, standing in front of the soon-to-be-decommissioned Hamilton Spectator press. Sitting down with a cuppa and a copy of the Hamilton Spectator (and some other rag) at the local café just after 8am last Saturday is Harrow local, Lachie Turner, in a scene likely similar to many others across the region. At 90, Lachie was born in the district when the Spec was already 75 years old. Photos: GLENN GUY and MARK RABICH.