Build it and they will come – reasoning behind birth of the Voice

People ask me why I started up the South West Voice in Macarthur.

The short answer is in the pictures attached, MP Greg Warren’s advertisement and the screenshot of the number of times it has been viewed.

Greg was my very first advertising client, which was a brave move on his part, a plunge into the unknown as it were.

But as the Google Analytics figures below show, his advertisement in the Voice since February 2016 has been seen an incredible 1,634,274 times.

That’s right, one million, six hundred and thirty four thousand and two hundred and seventy four times that someone, somewhere cast their eyes on our local MP’s ad in this brash new online news website.

In other words I, an old newspaperman, believed that just as fewer and fewer people were reading news in print, more and more would utilise a modern device, an iphone, ipad or a laptop, to find out what was happening in their own backyard.

I predicted –correctly – that the old newspaper companies would relentlessly reduce the resources of their local papers until they could no longer properly cover local news.

It’s a dumb policy, and I said it three years ago.

Dumb because while you can get the big international and national news through many means – radio, TV, metropolitan print newspapers – only local newspapers cover local news.

The big boys and girls of the media only send a reporter to Liverpool or Campbelltown if someone has been murdered.

I wanted to play a small role in ensuring there was an outlet that ran local council, police, chambers of commerce, sport and education news.

The old parish pump, in other words, just that it was online.

And the Voice was born.

Believe it or not that was the short answer.

The long answer is actually very simple: I just did not want to play golf seven days a week after taking a redundancy from Fairfax Community Newspapers in 2014.

So establishing an online news website was what I settled on, and with local digital expert Daniel Doherty as my partner along for the ride, we were up and running in September 2014.

Daniel has moved on after making a big contribution, but I am still here, having published 3,752 articles since then.

I am not claiming credit for every single one of these; thanks must also go to wonderful supporters such as Mike Shean from Group Six rugby league and Jason Ellsberg from the Ghosts cricket club and many others

From the very beginning most people who had a look liked what they saw, whether it was via the home page or Facebook or Twitter where our stories are also simultaneously published.

On all our social media sites we decided we would grow organically and not hand money over to Facebook to get lots of new friends or followers.

It means that most of our friends on all our social media sites are local and they actually like us.

The three years and a bit have bit of a crazy ride but I have enjoyed every moment, including some of the criticisms.

Almost thirty years as an editor I learned that if you always have the last word – as others do – readers go somewhere else.

So, that’s pretty much the story of the South West Voice in Macarthur.

Oh, there was one other bit: I nearly called it The Kontos Report, but decided against it, a good decision I reckon.

Anyway, thank you for supporting the Voice of Macarthur, either as a reader or an advertiser.

You’re the real reason it’s been such a success.

Merry Christmas one and all.