The Esperance Weekender has published its final edition and joined a growing number of regional publications shutting their doors.

The South Coast paper is the last independent masthead to leave the Goldfields and one of only a handful left in regional Western Australia.

The Weekender, which announced its closure in this week's edition, was started by a group of local benefactors who saw a need for a local newspaper after the town’s only weekly paper, The Esperance Express, ceased operating during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Weekender editor Geoff Vivian, who joined the paper in 2023, said the budget had always been marginal and that shareholders saw the venture as more of a "social enterprise".

"There was only one of those four years where it managed to pay for all of its bills, and it was

See Full Page