Editing Herald Sun (section)

===Merger to form the ''Herald-Sun''===
In its prime, ''The Herald'' had a circulation of almost 600,000, but by the time of its 150th anniversary in 1990, with the impact of evening television news and a higher proportion of people using cars to get home from work rather than public transport, ''The Herald''{{'s}} circulation had fallen below 200,000. This was much less than that of the morning ''Sun''.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}

With the only alternative option being to close ''The Herald'', The Herald and Weekly Times decided to merge the two newspapers. ''The Herald'' was published for the last time as a separate newspaper on 5 October 1990. The next day, ''The Sun News-Pictorial'' published its last edition. The Sunday editions of the two newspapers, the ''Sunday Herald'' and the ''Sunday Sun'', were also merged to form the ''Sunday Herald Sun''. The resulting newspaper had both the size and style of ''The Sun News-Pictorial''. [[Bruce Baskett]], the last Editor of ''The Herald'', was the first Editor of the ''Herald-Sun''.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}

The hyphen in its title was dropped after 1 May 1993 as part of an effort to drop the overt reminder of the paper's two predecessors that the hyphen implied, and also by the fact that by 1993, most of the columns and features inherited from ''The Herald'' and ''The Sun News-Pictorial'' had either been discontinued or subsumed completely in new sections.<ref>{{cite web |title=Learn &#124; Herald Sun |url=http://www.heraldsun.com.au/learn |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080820143243/http://www.heraldsun.com.au/learn |archive-date=20 August 2008 |access-date=2014-04-29}}</ref>

After a progressive decline in circulation the afternoon edition was cancelled, the last edition being published on 21 December 2001.<ref>{{cite news|url= |title=Vic: Herald Sun to cancel PM edition|work=AAP General News (Australia)|date=21 December 2001 |publisher= | access-date=}}</ref> The News Corp Australia-produced ''[[mX (newspaper)|mX]]'' had filled part of that gap, being freely distributed in the afternoon from stands throughout the Melbourne CBD until its closure on 12 June 2015, though it was generally not available outside that area.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Jolly |first=Nathan |date=May 29, 2024 |title=The iconic mX newspaper set to return to train stations |url=https://mumbrella.com.au/the-iconic-mx-newspaper-set-to-return-to-train-stations-833447 |access-date=November 11, 2024 |website=Mumbrella}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Christensen |first=Nic |date=May 28, 2015 |title=News Corp to axe commuter mX newspapers |url=https://mumbrella.com.au/news-corp-to-axe-commuter-newspapers-mx-296779 |access-date=November 11, 2024 |work=Mumbrella}}</ref>

Recent editors include [[Peter Blunden]], Simon Pristel, Phil Gardner and Bruce Guthrie.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/05/18/a-short-history-of-bossy-herald-sun-headlines-read-it-now/|title=A short history of bossy Herald Sun headlines: Read it now!|last=Crook|first=Andrew|date=18 May 2009|work=Crikey!|access-date=2010-02-18|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090522203647/http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/05/18/a-short-history-of-bossy-herald-sun-headlines-read-it-now/|archive-date=22 May 2009}}</ref>