A report on the closure of the Haltwhistle Echo for Tyne Tees Television news magazine Today at Six, originally broadcast on 25 September 1969. The newspaper ceased production on 26 September 1969 and was absorbed by the Hexham Courant. Alister Harrison reports. Harrison introduces his report with a piece to camera on the Haltwhistle high street. He talks about the problems on Fleet Street [probably due to Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of News International] where there is a big question mark...

A report on the closure of the Haltwhistle Echo for Tyne Tees Television news magazine Today at Six, originally broadcast on 25 September 1969. The newspaper ceased production on 26 September 1969 and was absorbed by the Hexham Courant. Alister Harrison reports. Harrison introduces his report with a piece to camera on the Haltwhistle high street. He talks about the problems on Fleet Street [probably due to Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of News International] where there is a big question mark over the survival of The Sun broadsheet. But there is a more immediate crisis in the newspaper world, he reports. The Northumbrian village [sic] of Haltwhistle is to lose its ‘tuppeny squeak’, slang for newspaper. The newspaper had, for more than 70 years, been the ‘voice of the people’. Compositors at Hexham are setting up the typeface for the last daily edition of the Haltwhistle Echo on 25th September 1969. The reporter in voice-over talks about the newspaper having fought many a campaign, provided an outlet for a thousand and one viewpoints and kept the 7,000 inhabitants of Haltwhistle in touch with the usual hatches, matches and dispatches. But the reporter states that today the Echo will appear for the last time. And that 16 miles away at Hexham, the compositors were busy assembling the front page to meet the Thursday morning deadline. From the next week on, they will be transferring the Haltwhistle news type into the Echo’s big sister, the Hexham Courant. Harrison asks the editor Edward Taylor why the Echo is closing down. Taylor explains that it is not because of decreasing circulation but because the new printing presses were not able to cope with the small size of the Echo. It would not be an economic proposition to increase the size of the Echo to 8 pages nor would it be possible each week to accommodate news of that kind in an 8 page Echo. It would not be possible to print it and fill it purely with Haltwhistle news. This is the reason why the newspaper is folding. He thinks it’s a great shame as it has been a popular and very useful little paper in the Haltwhistle area. And he thinks they could claim to have a blanket circulation in the town. Vox pop with woman who says that it’s a shame the newspaper is to close as it was a good read. She used to look forward to Friday morning. She’s sorry to see it go. Vox pop with a young man who says he will probably get the news in the Hexham Courant now. The reporter notes that it will cost twice the price. The young man agrees. Vox pop with an elderly woman who says that she sends the Echo all the way to Australia for her son and daughter. And she also has a son in Cardiff, Newport, and sends the newspaper to him too. She never thought she’d live to see the day that she would see the end of the Echo. Piece to camera closing report observes that the front page headline of the last edition of the Echo says that the Haltwhistle works are to expand because of new machinery. The reporter notes the irony. It is the same machinery that is going to mean that the ‘squeak’ will no longer be seen on the streets of Haltwhistle.