Emma Pritchard

The Clarence Valley Independent wishes to advise our readers that our December 18 edition will be our final newspaper for 2024.

As our dedicated team take some time off over the Christmas/New Year period, we would like to take the opportunity to thank you for your ongoing support of our weekly publication.

Along with several community celebrations and milestone anniversaries which we were proud to be a part of throughout the past 12 months, 2024 was also a year of change for the Clarence Valley Independent.

In May, 30 years of free distribution came to an end when increasing production costs and subsequent loss of advertising revenue following the Covid-19 pandemic left management with no choice but to ask our readers to pay $2 for their weekly copy of the newspaper.

While we retained our much-loved community contributed articles and Grafton and Lower Clarence based journalists, our staff worked incredibly hard behind the scenes to introduce new changes to the format of our newspaper, including increased pages, more local content, and additional features.

With more than 120 newspapers shutting down in regional communities throughout Australia in the past four years, we had no intention of allowing the Clarence Valley Independent to be included on that list, and subsequently leave the Clarence Valley community without a local print media source.

The Clarence Valley Independent is incredibly proud to be here, for our local community as part of our local community, and we are the most legitimate way of providing true and factual news via print media to Clarence Valley residents.

We will always strive to give you the real story.

Our first edition for 2025 will be released on January 8.

We also wish to advise our readers that due to production shutdowns over the Christmas/New Year period, the TV Guide will not feature in the January 8 or January 15 editions.

The TV Guide will return to print from January 22.

Our office will be closed from December 20 until January 6.

From all of us, Merry Christmas, and we also wish you a safe and Happy New Year.