In the first issue of the Mount Gambier standard, Theo Carey made it clear that his newspaper was particularly aimed at the farming community stating  '... the agricultural is our first and most important interest' (3 May 1866, p. 2). Despite criticism - both for not including enough about agricultural issues, as well as for presuming to give advice to farmers - he remained faithful to this precept. The newspaper also reflected two major sections of the local community - the large number of members of the Roman Catholic faith living in the district (particularly centred around Penola) and the large German community. Despite the competition of the older Border watch, within a year of its establishment the MountGambierstandard was being printed twice every week. From 1869, under the ownership of Edwin Derrington, the newspaper became a neat, well planned production, using modern publishing ideas - despite its small size. In July 1871 when a distressed Mount Gambier farmer, Carl Jung, shot dead a debt collector, the Standard used large print headlines to report the subsequent court cases. 'The murder case: full confession of the murderer' (7 July 1871, p. 3) showed an unusually modern method of reporting for the time, particularly in a small country newspaper.

The newspaper maintained a balanced, unruffled tone throughout its life. In 1869 when the story of an underage girl being detained as a potential nun in the Josephite convent was reported in the Adelaide press, the Standard deliberately printed two opposing views of the situation, gleaned from city newspapers (26 March 1869, p. 4). Like most newspapers of the time, the Standard gathered its non-local news by reading other newspapers widely - local, interstate and overseas. However, unlike some of its contemporaries, rather than simply re-printing these articles, the Standard summarised and provided commentary on the material it derived from other newspapers. Derrington left the newspaper in late 1872, to run the Port Adelaide news, and Carey then returned to the helm. Just over a year later however, Carey announced the closure of the newspaper stating, 'No cruel fate has denied us prosperity and success ... But there are other fields of labour; and a call to one of these has been accepted' (1 May 1874, p. 2). The 'call' was to run the new Methodist journal, which Carey moved to Adelaide to produce on behalf of the church.