When I started working at the Bunbury Mail in south-west Western Australia in 2009, it employed five journalists and a dedicated editor to produce one free weekly newspaper and the biweekly Harvey Mail. Some weeks the book would be more than 70% ads. Those numbers sound luxurious now.
Up the road at the Mandurah Mail, up to 80% of page space would be ads. They barely had enough room for stories. You had to compete for space, learn the art of writing brief, and get really good at finding that one hanging word that would bring you in under length. I know people hate it when regional papers are referred to as training grounds, but some truths can’t be helped: there is no better place to learn the job of journalism than a place like that.
