By Bev Mortimer
St Francis Chronicle, community newspaper, was the last publication that The Port Elizabeth newspaper, The Herald, printed yesterday as The Herald has stopped printing newspapers – after 174 years!!
The Herald has not stopped publishing its own newspaper, ‘The Herald’ . It has now outsourced the printing of its paper to Die Burger .
The Herald, which started printing its newspaper on 3 December 1845, has sold its printing presses to Cold Press and has stopped printing its own papers and its other commercial clients’ newspapers. The Herald is already (from this week) being printed by Cold Press at Die Burger’s printers in Port Elizabeth.
And in more extremely sad news… 90% of The Herald’s printing workforce (around 30 employees) have lost their jobs and are looking for new work, printers told St Francis Chronicle yesterday as they printed the last publication, which was St Francis Chronicle.
St Francis Chronicle, which has been printing at the Herald for the last seven years, will now use different printers in the future, from our August edition – out late July.
Some of the printers, but few, are fortunate to be able to take up positions at Die Burger. The others, not so fortunate, the large majority, might move cities to find other printing jobs or will find or take on other lines of work, they said,
It was an emotional and sad moment as all the printers took photos of St Francis Chronicle printing on the huge printing presses which were being dismantled and sealed in plastic from yesterday afternoon. They will soon be trucked out of the building in Rowallan Park, and go to their new owners, who are going to sell the equipment and the building, it is said.
St Francis Chronicle 