City Hub’s 30th Anniversary: Thirty Years Of Printing The News And Raising Hell

What you are reading is human generated. I swear. 

To mark the City Hub’s 30^th anniversary, Meta gave us a grant to digitise the old print editions of the City Hub.  It was some of the last money Meta gave out to Australian publishers before it disavowed itself of news content globally and its legal responsibilities under Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code.

Damp and old mouldy newsprint editions of the City Hub were boxed up and shipped off down the Hume Highway to Melbourne to be scanned; missing editions were generously supplied by the State Library of NSW. 

Now, previously unavailable print editions can be read online by you, our adoring readers. And by hordes of greedy AI bots who are busy scouring the intellectual property of this masthead to feed their offshore AI farms without paying for its use.

Over the last 30 years the City Hub has published tens of thousands of original articles by close to a thousand authors. We have encouraged community debate, shared a diverse range of views and championed free speech at every turn.  Much of what we have distributed has been made available off the grid; free of charge in an old-fashioned print publication. Founded in the 20th century on a 19th century ideal that “it is a newspaper’s duty to print the news and raise hell…”, the City Hub is so old it is radical. 

The first edition of the City Hub was printed in August 1995; as fate would have it, the same month that Microsoft introduced the first web browser. Over the last three decades, Australian journalism has struggled to survive as mega American tech companies have diverted billions from the coffers of the local Fourth Estate. 

Google search depressed the value of people reading the news and pocketed the rest; Meta distracted people away from the news entirely; and now ChatGPT and their AI offsiders are pilfering the content of this and countless other publications; and then regurgitating our intellectual property without attributions, payment, or referrals back to our sites. 

In the face of high-tech piracy of Australian content, the Albanese government must stand up and defend our nation’s journalism. Meta and Google must be required to abide by Australian law and compensate publishers under the News Media Bargaining Code. Australian copyright laws must be strengthened and enforced while there is still a local news industry to protect. Doing nothing for fear of antagonising a hyperbolic, reactionary American president is not an option. A robust, independent free press is a cornerstone of Australian democracy. The Fourth Estate ensures accountability, transparency and drives civic participation in an increasingly polarised, disinformed, and cynical world.  We need Australian public interest journalism now more than ever. 

Since founding the City Hub 30 years ago, I have contributed an occasional opinion piece to run in print on page 3. From the start, the themes championed in this space have remained consistent: the right to free speech, the need for a robust independent press and Sydney’s interminable ability to sparkle despite it all.

Here then, from our copyright protected print archives, are a few things I wrote on page 3, back in the early days when newsprint was king.  

1995: Flags are simply symbols made of cloth. And burning a flag is nothing more than a symbolic act, a form of speech which like all others ought to be protected.

1997: Now at the end of our second year of crusading against all that is ugly, unjust; or just uncool in Sydney — we catch our loyal readers off-guard by celebrating the Best of Sydney for the second year in a row. We live in an amazing city, graced by sun and surf. For two years now the City Hub has howled against power brokers and politicians who threaten to destroy one of the best places on the planet. 

1998: Clearly something is terribly wrong in the lucky country. Which is why we publish the City Hub. And no doubt why you read it. As the Right continues to grow more confident, hostile and vocal, it’s more important than ever that an independent media outlet exists. 

2005: Ten years after the City Hub first dipped its toes into the unprotected, shallow, shark infested waters of Australian publishing, our island continent is crying out for a bill of rights louder than ever. 

2011: Let Murdoch buy up every other local newspaper group in town. Let him tap our phones and shut down a weekly newspaper or two along the way, we will not be deterred,,. Sure we may live in the most monopolistic media market in the ‘free world’; ours may be one of the only democratic societies not to protect the right to free speech in a Charter of Human Rights, but we are still willing to speak the truth. 

Our 30th anniversary edition is out now! Pick up a copy on the streets of Sydney, or you can read a digital version of the magazine HERE.