For decades Pinelands was often in the daily newspapers, the Cape Times and Cape Argus. These clippings were collected and collated by Pineland’s resident Mr Croxford and were donated to the Garden Cities Museum. While the Pinelands Town council generally enjoyed a good relationship with the daily press, it decided in 1959 to stop a Cape Times reporter from accessing the agendas and minutes of the monthly meetings. This led to a flurry of negative press articles and condemnation by residents. This required the Provincial Administrator to carry out an investigation. The Administrator was advised that the Council was acting in accordance with Council policy established in 1948. The Council changed the policy at its next meeting. Besides relying on the daily and weekend newspapers, Pinelands also has had its own newspapers and magazines over the years.
The first and longest running community magazine was The Garden City Monthly published by the Pinelands Horticultural Society and distributed free. It was first printed in a newspaper format and for the first year was purely horticulturally oriented. In November 1928 it became a monthly magazine. The first monthly edition was put together by the Committee who produced monthly issues until October 1931. The magazine was then contracted out to an advertising contractor until 1934 when the magazine ceased publication. With the help of Citadel Press, the Society revived the magazine in 1937 but struggled financially for two years until it was handed over to Mr Teline and Mr Mitton to produce with the Horticultural Society continuing as publisher. In the early 1940s an urgent appeal was put out to residents to subscribe for 6 1/2d to prevent the closure. With this financial assistance from residents the magazine eventually became almost self-supporting with Pinelands organisations sponsoring editions. In 1963 Mr Mitton’s son Ron took over managing the magazine, with Pinelands Garden City Monthly (Pty) Ltd as the publisher. Over the years the circulation had gone from 250 to 3600. Mary Davis took over as editor from 1955 until 1982 when Coral Eales took over as the editor. The magazine was generally non-controversial. However, in the 1960s a cover on one issue broke away from the usual cover photos of kittens, scenery, Pinelands itself, etc. and depicted a young model dressed in a full-length dress neck to feet. The dress however had a three openings/holes down the side of the dress which led to a complaint that “[it] appears to be a naked woman …is it meant to be a nightdress but if so, why high heel sandals” The last edition, December 1993, announced that it would be taken over by Unicorn publishing and would continue as a weekly community newspaper called Pinelands Post edited by Anne Tannenberger. After a few years it was combined with a sister newspaper, The Southern Suburbs Tatler.
The first broadsheet was Pinelands News which started in February 1946. The newspaper was produced and edited by R Norval. It contained local news as well as the memories of long-standing residents. Selling at thruppence every two weeks, the lack of advertising support led to its early demise.
The Pinelands Coop produced its own free newsletter appropriately named The Pinelands Co-op News. The editorial primarily dealt with products at the Co-op with adverts by other retailers which served Pinelands. At least 20 editions were produced by 1961 and distributed to the 2 700 households.
Garden Cities Outlook was first produced by Garden Cities in March 1959. This free bi-monthly magazine was aimed at both Pinelands and Meadowridge and was edited by Mrs M Monroe. The last issue was published in 1963. It was a mixture of history, Garden City news and interviews with well-known residents.
The Garden City Lifestyle magazine was the first free glossy magazine for Pinelands edited by Margaret Williamson. The publisher, Fred Roffey produced the first edition in 1998 and thereafter issued them very two months for two years. While concentrating on local news it also published articles of general interest to residents.
In 2005 the Pinelands Directory webpage was launched aimed to providing local news and a platform for small local businesses to publicize what they offered. Building on the achievement of this venture Max and Glynnis Schutte issued the first copy of the highly successful glossy magazine The Muse in 2010. Distributed monthly, this high-quality publication is free. It covers events in Pinelands, interviews with interesting residents, it highlights school and club achievements, offers advice and each month features an article on a bird found in Pinelands gardens. Five issues were published online during COVID lockdown in 2021. They then resumed their print edition, with back issues available online. After 12 years the magazine has become a part of Pinelands Community life.
