Our History

Heritage newspaper names have been adopted for many of the local editions of The Local Paper. The masthead titles pay homage to the traditions of long, established newspapers that have served local communities over the past 150 years. The newspapers are today published under The Local Paper brand by Local Media Pty Ltd. The Local Paper commenced weekly editions on

Local Media Pty Ltd produces the Mitchell Shire Edition of The Local Paper. Our company’s progenitors established editions of The Chronicle in Seymour, Kilmore and Broadford in the late 1980s-early 1990s against the established Free Press newspaper. But it gave us no joy to see the Smith family have to relinquish ownership of that newspaper in 2006, and to see the Kilmore

Ash Long has been the Proprietor of Local Media Pty Ltd since 2002. His links with the company’s Melbourne Observer newspaper go back to 1969, more than 50 years ago. As a 12-year-old newsboy, Ash Long started in the first weeks of the Sunday Observer newspaper, delivering newspapers around the Housing Commission areas of Reservoir and East Preston. It

Victorian publisher Peter Isaacson purchased the Sunday Observer newspaper in 1977. At the start of the newspaper’s life in September 1969, Isaacson (along with Progress Press and Waverley Offset Printers) had been a contract printer of the Observer under the proprietorships of Gordon Barton and Maxwell Newton, until each of them took possession of their own presses.

After his publishing empire had collapsed in the mid-1970s, Observer publisher Maxwell Newton moved to America and restored his career. Maxwell Newton was described by Jim Grant, is his Grant’s Interest Rate Observer (Oct. 22, 1984): “By 1977, his net worth was $3 million or so at the top. He was re-building his fortunes in pornographic books

Just 2½ years on from Maxwell Newton’s launch of the Melbourne Observer newspaper on March 20, 1971, his major opponents – The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd and David Syme & Co. Ltd – joined together to start the Sunday Press newspaper (cover price 15 cents). Its final edition was published on August 13, 1989. An early editor was

The rapid growth of the Melbourne Observer newspaper was reported upon by Norman Thompson of The Review on July 22, 1972: The enigmatic Max Newton has set Melbourne newspaper circles abuzz with plans to upgrade his Sunday paper, the Melbourne Observer. Newton has signed up one of Australia’s most highly-paid journalists, Walkley winner John Sorell of the Melbourne Herald,

Within two weeks of the closure of Gordon Barton’s Sunday Observer newspaper in March 1971, publisher Maxwell Newton hit the streets with his Melbourne Observer newspaper. Newton was editorially equipped for the task: he had been Editor of The Australian Financial Review (Fairfax) when it went daily; he had been foundation Editor of The Australian national broadsheet for Rupert Murdoch seven years earlier

The appearance of Maxwell Newton’s Melbourne Observer newspaper in March 1971 caught the attention of the Batman’s Melbourne columnist (Keith Dunstan) in The Bulletin magazine. “As a good Melburnian I have never got over the sense of sin regarding Sunday newspapers. Oh, admittedly they have been coming over from Sydney for years now, but I have always

Local Media Pty Ltd, current-day publisher of the Melbourne Observer and The Local Paper network, can trace its beginnings to the first days of the Sunday Observer and Nation Review newspapers. The Sunday Observer newspaper was established in Melbourne by businessman Gordon Barton (IPEC) on September 14, 1969. The Sunday Review (later The Review and then Nation Review) first hit the streets on October 11, 1970. Local Media Pty Ltd