Granny turns 175

Happy birthday to 'Granny', as she has long been known -- The Sydney Morning Herald.

It is one of the world's oldest and largest-circulating newspapers. IMHO it was also once one of the best, but it has slipped since it fell out of the hands of the Fairfax family who owned it for 149 years.

It was around that time that the management (clearly by then more important than the journalists) decided to eradicate all references to 'Granny', and took a little Granny logo off 'Column 8' which had been there for decades (I'm trying to find a copy if you have one).

This 'heralded' a change from tradition to modernism, which sounds fine until you realise that it also meant a shift from excellence in journalism to a fondness for anything to do with pasta, Michael Jackson and Ikea.

But happy birthday anyway to one of the world's important institutions of journalism. To old Scotchman Fairfax who started it, after his bankruptcy in the Old Country, I say, "lang may your lum reek", and that I for one remember the days of auld lang syne.

SMH website :: History of the Herald

Tagged: australia, journalism