THE effect of the coronavirus has taken its toll on many of the Hunter region’s newspapers with former Fairfax, now ACM, announcing 10 titles to stop printing until at least June.

This comes after News Corp last week announced 60 of their papers across Australia are to suspend printing.

In the Hunter Region the Newcastle Herald and the Port Stephens Examiner will remain printing.

News Of The Area publications are not part of the ACM or News Corp group; it is a small independent company holding two community newspapers – Myall Coast NOTA and Port Stephens NOTA (News Of The Area).

Company director Michael Wright said, “It’s sad to see so many papers closing because of the virus, but hopefully they will be able to reopen again once the time is right.”

“These local community newspapers are so very important within each of the townships they write,” he said.

The News Of The Area newspaper has no plans of ceasing its printing.

“The 13 staff and contractors who work for the News Of The Area are still working and our aim is to keep this going.”

Mr Wright said, “Like all newspapers, we have lost most of our advertisers, but the few who are continuing (able to) are really making a difference in keeping these papers printing for the community.”

Last week the NOTA produced a huge double page crossword and sudoku spread. 

“The amount of emails that came unsolicitedly, thanking us, for a simple thing like that (crossword pages) was extremely rewarding, Mr Wright said.