Archives for March 1971

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