According to elders in Alberton, the town has always had a local newspaper. Although the paper had different names previously, it wasn’t until 1976 when Johann van der Merwe took over from Maurice Franks, when the name Alberton RECORD was associated with Alberton’s newspaper.

After Caxton took over from Van der Merwe, the company kept him on as branch manager and asked him if he could run their sister publication, the Southern COURIER. The idea of having a free newspaper, delivered to more people, began when management under Van der Merwe wanted to increase the size of the paper. In order to do so, a decision to increase advertising revenue was made to help carry the cost of the paper.

Having survived being one of the few local papers to be delivered to the public for free; a decision which was met with a lot of criticism in the beginning proved to have set a new trend for community newspapers. Although other papers have surfaced over the years, the Alberton RERCORD has continued to live up to its tag line, ‘Alberton’s own newspaper’.

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