How a Melbourne newspaper merger created Australia's most widely circulated daily tabloid

Entertainment · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Born from the 1990 union of an afternoon broadsheet and a morning tabloid, the Herald Sun dominates the Victorian media landscape. While it maintains a massive readership, the publication has frequently courted controversy, facing intense criticism for its reporting on social issues, political accuracy, and editorial choices.

The Herald Sun emerged on 8 October 1990, following the merger of two long-standing Melbourne institutions: The Herald, an afternoon broadsheet founded in 1840, and The Sun News-Pictorial, a morning tabloid established in 1922. By the time of the merger, The Herald’s circulation had plummeted from a peak of nearly 600,000 to under 200,000, largely due to the rise of television news and changing commuting habits. The new publication adopted the tabloid style of The Sun News-Pictorial, eventually dropping the hyphen from its name in 1993 to signal a complete integration of its predecessor's features.

Today, the paper remains a significant force in Australian media. In 2017, it held the title of the country's highest-circulating daily newspaper, with a weekday circulation of 350,000 and a claimed readership of 1.26 million. Despite this reach, the paper has been the subject of numerous adjudications by the Australian Press Council. In 2004, the Council found that the paper had seriously misled readers regarding the Australian Greens' drug policies. Other controversies include the 2007 contempt of court conviction of two journalists who refused to reveal their sources, and widespread condemnation of a 2018 cartoon depicting Serena Williams, which critics compared to racist imagery from the Jim Crow era.

Academic scrutiny has also highlighted the paper's role in shaping public discourse. Research from 2021, analyzing over one million words, suggested that the Herald Sun and its affiliates disproportionately focused on transgender issues, with over 90% of the coverage appearing negative. Similarly, a 32-month campaign beginning in 2016 regarding supposed African gangs in Melbourne was criticized by community leaders and academics for fostering a moral panic through the repeated use of racialized language, despite a lack of evidence for the existence of such groups. These instances underscore a recurring tension between the paper's massive influence and the ethical standards expected of a major news organization.

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