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Market-Place newspaper closes
By Market-Place
April 17, 2008

As one door closes, a new web future opens

Market-Place, Australia's independent Anglican national newspaper, has printed its last edition.

Eleven and a half years after the paper began, the newspaper will cease publication with the current April 2008 edition.

"It's been a great journey, bouyed along by the passion of the readers and the brilliant minds who have written thoughtful articles each month," editor Allan Reeder said.

"Bishop Bruce Wilson has made an enormous contribution  over many years both writing for the paper and, as Consulting Editor, co-ordinating 'Heart & Soul' 'Everyday Anglicans' and book reviews. It couldn't have happened otherwise."

"But now the time has come to head in a new direction."

The independently-owned paper is closing,  but in a way that will enable a new source of community media for Australian Anglicans to emerge.

"There's no shortage of keen Anglicans who want to read about what's happening in the wider church," the paper's editor believes, "and there's a healthy market of readers out there for a new team to attract by taking the ideals behind Market-Place onto the web."

Begun in October 1996, the newspaper is winding up after charting the major events in the life of the Australian Anglican church, as well as acting as a means of discussion of key debates, for more than a decade.

"The feed-back from readers consistently shows signs of their passion for the Anglican church and how much they appreciate the independent, balanced and provocative style of the paper," Allan Reeder said.

"I know they'll be sad that the paper's come to an end," Allan Reeder said. "I hear too many stories of what it means to people when the paper arrives each month. I'm sure readers across the country will be very disappointed."

And now the good news

The independent, balanced news reporting that has characterized the pages of Market-Place newspaper for the past decade will now be instantly available to a much wider audience of Anglicans across Australia, via the web.

"It was always the problem of spreading resources too thinly that stopped a Market-Place web-site happening before now," editor Allan Reeder said.

"But it had to happen eventually, because there are simply too many advantages for a national church community spread across vast distances in web-publishing."

Under a plan to take Market-Place into the future, a 2-stage process has been designed to let the best system evolve.

A preliminary web-site is already up and running at www.marketplaceonline.com.au which will cover the latest news and the bare essentials until the long-term site is fully developed.

This initial site will be be free and current Market-Place readers will ableto stay in touch with the news.

In due course the full range of features now found in the pages of Market-Place will be on the new 'complete' site, plus more that hasn't been possible in a newspaper.

How much more?

"The wish-list of what could be on the Market-Place site is only limited by the imaginations of the group that's begun to sort through the practicalities of delivering it," Allan Reeder said.

"It's important to give this design process the time it takes to get it right, but in the meantime readers will be able to access a 'lite' version to keep them in touch with the news."

Like the former independent newspaper, it will be up to subscribers to fund the new 'expanded' site.

"There's never been any church funding for the newspaper," Allan Reeder said, "but that's what has let Market-Place deliver the provocative and engaging style of journalism that readers have come to appreciate."

"That's why they paid for subscriptions to the newspaper, and  why I'm confident they'll financially support the new web-site."

Current subscribers are about to receive a letter in the mail detailing how they can continue with Market-Place by supporting this new venture.

"There'll be advertising, but in order to pay its way the fully-developed site will let subscribers contribute to its costs."

Similar to a number of web-publications, the new fully-developed site will be a blend of free pages and subscriber-only articles.

"The details are still to be sorted, but readers can imagine getting the news for free but then having password-access to, say, the best of the current feature articles or opinion columns."

"It's a pattern that's been successful in Australia for sites such as crikey.com"