It’s a familiar theme: “When giants/elephants do battle, lesser mortals/grass gets trampled…” Or words to that effect.

And so it is in the newspaper market of GXpress Magazine’s home town of Noosa (actually we’re in the cheaper backblocks of the shire, but no matter).

Recent history of what seems an amazingly resilient marketplace has seen the arrival of Pakenham, Victoria, based Star News Group which acquired Noosa Today, the paper created by local media people displaced when the Murdoch-owned Quest Newspapers decamped.

And some including local journalist Isobel Coleman (no relation) – displaced by that acquisition, launched a weekly glossy called YLM (or Your Local Magazine).

That at least, was the story when we wrote about it in June.

But nothing stays the same, especially when giants such as APN News & Media – which owns the biweekly Noosa News and Maroochydore-based Sunshine Coast Daily – and Star – which struts its independence and family ownership, but not its Victorianness – fight. Today has responded to both YLM and the Noosa News’ glossy property section by going glossy itself, though content doesn’t seem to match up to the aspirations of its heatset production.

And sadly it’s the YLM mortals who are in danger of being trampled.

Last week, they’d picked up a couple of new advertisers and were increasing pagination; this week some of the existing ones seem to have been picked off, and pragmatically they’re going monthly.

Sad really, because there’s every reason to believe that after a while, one or other of the giants will get bored and walk away. As Rural Press (now part of Fairfax Media), Michael Hannan with his Weekender and Lindsay Bock with Noosa Journal did. And of course, News Limited (now News Corp Australia) did after acquiring both of the last two.

What now? Coleman will find the market tough while the excitement continues, and that’s likely to be a while… a shame since it’s a likeable and valued product (and yes, we know how that feels). APN has, I believe, a dollar each way, printing the newcomer.

And it’s likely that Noosa may never again see the style and quality of the Noosa Blue monthly published in the early 1990s by Phil Jarrett and his wife Jackie. You’ll still see Jarrett’s byline in the national press, on a travel piece from some far-off part; when he’s home lately it’s been to run the local Festival of Surfing.

So perhaps that’s the lesson: To get on with life and – as John Juliano says in his GXpress column this month – know when to get off the merry-go-round.