A total of 12 000 copies of the Mid-Karoo Express will be distributed every Thursday in towns such as Cradock, Middelburg, Somerset East, Cookhouse, Bedford, Adelaide, and Fort Beaufort.

To celebrate the launch of the new newspaper, Mid-Karoo Express hosted a launch breakfast with key stakeholders in the area at The Palms on Thursday, October 5. This was followed by a cake-cutting event at the Spar in Cradock with radio presenter Jacques Arendt, providing the music and entertainment.

A live Facebook broadcast was also done on Wednesday, 4 October by Arendt from the newspaper’s brand-new offices at 104 Frere Road in Cradock. Mid-Karoo Express staff have also recently visited two schools in Cradock, Michausdal Primary and ACVV’s Hasie Kalbassie as part of community outreach campaigns that they will be running in all the distribution areas of the newspaper.

Tasmia Ismail, general manager of Die Burger in the Eastern Cape and EP Media, says the interest and support the newspaper has already received from advertisers and residents are good indications that there is a great need for such a newspaper for the community.

EP Media already brings eight local newspapers to the people of the Eastern Cape. Two of the newspapers, PE Express and UD Express, are 34 and 46 years old, respectively. Two brand new newspapers were also launched in February and October in Queenstown and King William’s Town in 2016.

King William’s Town Express also celebrated its first birthday on Thursday, 5 October. The newspaper’s regional editor, Bettie Giliomee, says the Mid-Karoo Express will not only be a source of local news for the community but will also bring good-quality reading material free to people who are not always able to pay for reading material.

The Mid-Karoo Express editorial content includes school, municipal, entertainment, sport, and motoring news. There is also a focus on agricultural news, as well as profile stories about local people. The content will be written in Afrikaans and English.

"Residents are encouraged to contact our correspondents with all their news," adds Giliomee.

The distribution figures of EP Media’s local newspapers are verified by the independent Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABCs).

For more information, contact [email protected] or [email protected].