Front page of the 3 July 2007 edition |
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| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Tabloid |
| Owner | Northcliffe Media (part of DMGT) |
| Editor | Bill Martin |
| News editor | James Garnett |
| Sports editor | Sara Raine |
| Founded | 1895 |
| Political alignment | Independent right-of-centre |
| Headquarters | Derriford, Plymouth |
| Circulation | 31,803 |
| Sister newspapers | Western Morning News |
| Official website | www.thisisplymouth.co.uk |
The Herald is South West Media Group's Plymouth-based newspaper, serving Plymouth and the surrounding communities of West Devon, South East Cornwall and parts of the South Hams. The editor is Bill Martin, the deputy editor is Clare Jardine, the web editor is Neil Shaw and the news editor is James Garnett.
The paid-for newspaper has an ABC circulation of 31,803 (January – June 2010) and is owned by the Northcliffe Media, part of the Daily Mail & General Trust. Its sister titles include the Express & Echo in Exeter, the Herald Express in Torquay, the Leicester Mercury and the Western Morning News.
Its website at www.thisisplymouth.co.uk has more than four million page views a month from 295,000 unique visitors and includes video and audio content, as well as interactive features such as story comments and a forum, to complement the printed title.
The Herald is published six days a week, Monday to Saturday, and now has a single edition covering Plymouth, south east Cornwall and south and west Devon. It carries a jobs supplement every Wednesday, a homes supplement every Thursday and an entertainment supplement every Friday, with extra pages of business printed on a Tuesday to support the daily business content..
The Herald extensively reports on Plymouth's sports teams including Plymouth Argyle F.C. (Football League Championship), Plymouth Albion R.F.C. (National Division One), Plymouth Titans (Rugby League Conference), Plymouth Admirals (British American Football League), Plymouth Raiders (British Basketball League) and the Plymouth Devils (Speedway Conference League). The sports editor is Sara Raine and the Argyle Chief Reporter is Chris Errington.
The history of the Herald stretches back to 2pm on Monday, 22 April 1895 when the Western Evening Herald was launched as Plymouth's first evening newspaper. Various other newspapers had come and gone in Plymouth in the preceding 100 years. The WEH was published by the owners of the Western Daily Mercury. It was then bought by Sir Leicester Harmsworth in 1921 — a year after he bought the Western Morning News company — and was renamed The Evening Herald and Western Evening News on 17 September 1923. On 24 May 1924, the name was changed again to the Western Evening Herald and Western Evening News.
After changing format to tabloid in 1987, the title changed again to the Evening Herald, becoming simply The Herald in October 2006 when its print deadline shifted from midmorning (between 9am and 11am) to 1am to accommodate the 120-mile distribution journey to Plymouth after printing was transferred to Weymouth in Dorset.
The paper is based at a purpose-built site, shared with the Western Morning News, at Derriford in the north of Plymouth. The building, in the shape of a ship and constructed predominantly from glass, was designed by architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, who also designed The Eden Project and Waterloo station. The building was completed — at a cost of £34 million — in 1993 and the two newspapers moved to the site the same year.
Alan Clark, the Conservative MP for Plymouth Sutton from 1974 to 1992, dismissed the people of Plymouth as "believing everything they read in the Herald".
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