FROM THE DESK OF Roland Rocchiccioli – September 20, 2018

The new masthead for the Ballarat Times News Group marks the beginning of a new and exciting chapter for the local newspaper.

FOURTEEN years ago Alan Marini and Debbie Kolarik established the Golden Plains Miner, a free, weekly paper. Soon after I moved to

Ballarat, Mr. Marini approached me with a view to writing a column. He had no knowledge of my career history and, subsequently, admitted to being embarrassed when he took the time to check. I am not certain, exactly, but since I have been in Ballarat for almost 11 years, I think I have been writing my column for about nine years. Four years ago the name was changed to The Miner.

Now the newspaper has new owners, The Times News Group, ensuring its on-going survival, and expansion, which is imperative for Ballarat and the paper’s circulation environs.

I grew-up in the goldfields of Western Australia. Gwalia, a shanty, goldmining town, 147-miles north of Kalgoorlie, on the edge of the Great Victoria Desert. The steam train was twice-weekly, and the DC-3, flew-in every Saturday morning. Commercial radio 6KG Kalgoorlie; the ABC-6GF on relay from Perth; and the Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper, were our vital links to the greater world. There was a certain hush across the town for the ABC’s nightly, 7pm news bulletin, read by announcers who later played a major part in my broadcasting life.

I was an imaginative and enthusiastic reader; children’s newspapers in the form of Jack and Jill, Playhour and Eagle, were an important part of my child-hood. I lived, vicariously, through the wireless. Aged about four years, Ronald Hanmer’s haunting composition, ‘Pastorale’, which was used as the theme music for ‘Blues Hills’, the daily ABC radio serial which was broadcast from 1949-76, was the impetus to send me running for Beria, shouting: “Quick, Mum, Gwen Meredith’s on!” She died in 2006, aged 98. Fantastically, she wrote all of the 5975-episodes.

Around the world newspapers are being sold, amalgamated, or closing-down, with owners arguing they cannot sustain the financial burden of a struggling enterprise. A 20-year seismic shift has seen the shape and structure of broadcasting and the print media transformed, drastically. Social media has altered the dissemination of information. The daily home delivery of newspapers has been relegated to the annals of ‘in the olden days’!

Justifiably, cost cutting measures have seen a partial demise of regional television stations and newspapers; newsrooms broken-up; fewer regional journalists; bulletins read from studios located in capital cities – even other states. As daily circulation drops, the ultimate fate of newspapers is problematic. Staff numbers have been slashed and services outsourced. A battalion of 100-journalists working a major daily is past. Setting aside those specialist programs, television, for the most part, cannot devote the time, effort, or money, required for serious investigative journalism. It remains, strictly, the purview of newspapers and quality magazines. Sadly, they, too, are in decline. The print media has been left grappling to find a new raison d’etre.

In reality, local radio stations and newspapers are a critical feature of the nation, especially regional communities. They are the voice of people; the only means by which society is able to register its approval, or not, and without which it is left silent and impotent. Newspapers and pamphlets are, dating back to the first printing presses, the brave, frontline soldiers protecting our rights and liberties; challenging bureaucracy and enforcing accountability; scrutinising and bringing our lawmakers to heel. In short, they are the guardians of our fragile democracy, and without which we are rudderless and powerless. They are the beacons of our potency; the means by which battles have been fought and won; the course of history altered. It is why they demand public support, and our assiduous protection.

The Times News Group, which has purchased the newly-named Ballarat Times News Group, is, I suspect, one of the few local newspaper groups in the world which is looking to buy, rather than sell. The locally owned and operated Times News
Group is based in Torquay and publishes the weekly newspapers: Surf Coast Times, Bellarine Times, Armstrong Creek Times, and now the Ballarat Times News Group, and a new masthead, Golden Plains Times, a designated publication for readers in the Golden Plains Shire.

Journalism was never more important. The new management has great and exciting plans. I am looking forward to the next ten years of this community content being delivered to us free on every Thursday. Long may it, and the other mastheads, continue to keep us informed.

Roland can be heard each MONDAY morning on 3BA at 10.30am.

Contact [email protected].