Shamrock

A detailed history, including discussion of the identity of Shamrock. Prominent columnists and journalists who write for The Sydney Morning Herald include Robert Manne, Doug Anderson, Paul Sheehan, Anthony Dennis, Mark Riley, Miranda Devine, Adele Horin, Michael Idato, Julia Baird, Mike Carlton, Gerard Henderson, Alan Ramsey, Peter FitzSimons, David Marr, Roy Masters, Keith Austin, Deborah Smith, Maggie Alderson and Richard Glover. ISBN 0-86-314199-4. It also owns various other newspapers and magazines throughout Australia and New Zealand, including The Age (a similar broadsheet newspaper published in Melbourne). Boethius Press. The company also owns the The Sun-Herald, the Sunday counterpart to the Herald, and a number of community newspapers in Sydney. Charles; Loughin, Bernard, Shamrock: Botany and History of an Irish Myth: A Biography of the Shamrock in History, Literature, Music and Art. It is currently controlled by John Fairfax Holdings.

Nelson, E. The Fairfax family owned the newspaper for 149 years but lost control of it on December 11, 1990 following financial misadventure of Warwick Fairfax. The shamrock features on the passport stamp of Montserrat, many of whose citizens are of Irish descent. We have no wish to mislead; no interest to gratify by unsparing abuse or indiscriminate approbation.". The English word comes from Irish seamróg, meaning young clover. Its editorial policies were based "upon principles of candour, honesty and honour. It has subsequently become an emblem of Ireland, but has official status in neither Northern Ireland nor the Republic of Ireland—the official emblem of the Republic is the harp. It became a daily newspaper in 1840, and in 1842 changed its name to The Sydney Morning Herald.

According to what the Oxford English Dictionary calls "a late tradition" (first recorded in 1726), the plant was used by Saint Patrick to illustrate the doctrine of the Trinity. A decade later it was bought by Charles Kemp and John Fairfax. It is registered with the World Intellectual Property Organization as a symbol of Ireland. The paper was named after Scotland's Glasgow Herald, and was founded by three Englishmen, Alfred Stephens, Frederick Stokes and William McGarvie. The Shamrock is also used as a badge for sports teams, state organisations and troops abroad from Ireland - Aer Lingus, IDA Ireland, University College Dublin, the Northern Ireland Tourist Board and Fáilte Ireland use is as part of their identity. It only had four pages and a circulation of 750 copies. The shamrock was traditionally used for its medical properties and was a popular motif in Victorian times. The Sydney Morning Herald began its life as a weekly newspaper, the Sydney Herald.

The shamrock, an unofficial symbol of Ireland, is a three-leaved young white clover, sometimes (rarely nowadays) Trifolium repens (white clover, known in Irish as seamair bhán) but more usually today Trifolium dubium (lesser clover, Irish: seamair bhuí). Since the advent of the Internet, the Herald has developed an comprehensive online presence with all major news stories available for online viewing and retained online for some time. Tabloid newspapers, such as its competitor The Daily Telegraph, are considerably smaller, with each page having a size of approximately A3. The Herald is a broadsheet, meaning that each page is approximately A2 in size. Column 8 is another long-running institution.

The cryptic crossword in the Sydney Morning Herald is popular. It also produces two colour magazines, the weekly Good Weekend, and the monthly the(sydney)magazine. They currently include a motoring section, Drive, a food and lifestyle section, Good Living, a property section, Domain, and a television section, The Guide. The Sydney Morning Herald publishes a number of daily sections, as large-format magazines, some of which have been part of the newspaper's infrastructure for more than two decades.

Like The Age, the demographics of its readers are more attractive to many advertisers than its tabloid competitor. In the coverage of Fairfax's business affairs, this revenue has often been referred to as "rivers of gold". The Saturday edition of the Herald carries a massive classified section - a popular selling point and a powerful source of cash revenue for the company. The Herald sells 375,000 copies to the Telegraph's 345,000.

The Saturday editions of both papers are more closely matched. Its circulation is smaller than the Telegraph; according to circulation data published in the first half of 2004, the Herald sells about 221,000 copies per weekday compared to around 409,000 copies of the Telegraph. The Fairfax papers (the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age), seen as centrist, are often contrasted with the News Limited papers (The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun), which tend to be more right-leaning, and "the Fairfax press" is often used pejoratively by conservative commentators. Historically the paper was characterised as a right of centre, old-school conservative organ of the Establishment, providing a counter-point within Fairfax's holdings to the liberal Melbourne Age, especially during David Syme's tenure as editor of the latter, and it did not editorialise in favour of Labor at a state election until 2003.

The Herald attempts to maintain editorial balance, with both left leaning contributors like David Marr and cartoonist Michael Leunig, and conservative writers such as Miranda Devine and Gerard Henderson. It is often seen as the paper of the educated middle class. The Sydney Morning Herald is recorded as being read by a stronger representation of the so-called, "AB demographic", (the highest demographic in terms of education, income and occupation) than its main competitor, the only other major daily newspaper in Sydney, the Murdoch-owned The Daily Telegraph. .

Since then, over 51,000 editions have been produced. It is also the oldest Australian newspaper, having been continuously published since 1831. The Sydney Morning Herald is a major Australian broadsheet newspaper published daily in Australia's oldest and most populous city, Sydney.