Every Thursday morning, around 47 400 copies of the Roodepoort Record (Record) community newspaper are distributed to homes and businesses in the Roodepoort area in Johannesburg West. However, at the end of April 2020, the printing and distribution of these copies got suspended. Covid-19, and the resultant national lockdown, had put a hold on local news in Roodepoort.
Now, a year later, the Record is functioning even better than before, said Jeanette Peach, business manager and advertising task team chairperson of Caxton Johannesburg West.
“The Roodepoort Record has a 70% readership. That means that every person who receives the Roodepoort Record reads every issue or at least two issues per month,” according to Jeanette Peach, the business manager and advertising task team chairperson of Caxton Johannesburg West. PHOTO: Supplied/Anneke du Plessis
Operating in lockdown (and thereafter)
Senior management at Caxton made the decision to halt print publications of the Record when the initial Covid-19 lockdown was extended, according to Peach.
“Not only did we lose money on a local level, but the factories that do the printing and the inserting of the retailer pamphlets of the newspapers also came to a standstill,” she said.
The Record is a free knock-and-drop newspaper that relies on an advertising funding model. As such, it had to re-establish relationships with advertisers — old and new — in order to operate and serve the community again once publishing resumed, according to Peach.
Jeanette Peach explains how the Record had to re-establish relationships with advertisers. The news team used their platform to inform community members of operating business and services in the community.
“We received support from a few [new and old] small businesses out there, who were desperate to get a message out. Our profitability was in a negative initially, but the company carried that negative and the losses…and we decided to persevere, stick it through,” she said.
Peach told MatieMedia that the Record is in a better financial position now than it was a year ago, and that they reached record financial achievements in May 2021.
For the Record
The readers of the Record are described by the editor, Adele Bloem, as family-orientated and passionate about the community. However, they have zero tolerance for municipal service delivery failures, she added.
“We cover a little bit of everything, ranging from crime news, municipal issues, school news and all the community events in between (including the odd ‘koek-en-tee’ and ‘bejaardes bederf’ stories),” said Bloem in email correspondence with MatieMedia.
At the Roodepoort Centre for the Elderly, the weekly newspaper delivery is a highlight for the residents, according to Jolene Peyper, the manager of the old age home. “One of the residents uses a wheelchair — the papers are too heavy for him to carry — and loads the seat with the newspapers, and distributes it down the hall,” said Peyper.
A resident of the Roodepoort Centre for the Elderly, Hans Wessels, hands out newspapers to fellow residents after collecting them from the gate with a wheelchair. PHOTO: Supplied/Jolene Peyper
The Record has covered stories like the disappearance of the three-year-old boy, Lee Mentoor, three years ago, and the recent murder of Tshegofatso Pule in the Durban Deep area of Roodepoort, according to Bloem. Both of these stories gained media attention nationwide, she said.
“The story [of Lee Mentoor] started out small, but, as it unfolded, it became quite big, and received a lot of coverage from various media houses,” stated Bloem.