Local Media Pty Ltd publishes a local Diamond Valley News edition of The Local Paper.

The name Diamond Valley News was first used in 1959, after the Heidelberg Publishing Co. Pty Ltd was formed as a partnership between Leader Publishing Co., and the publishers of the Heidelberg City News.

Development of The Mall retail centre at West Heidelberg following the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, plus the appearance of an opposition Diamond Valley Mirror (November 12, 1958-April 27, 1966), spurred the start of the free Diamond Valley News and Heldelberger mastheads. The first issue of The Heidelberger was on November 12, 1958. Another opposition newspaper, the Diamond Valley Local appeared briefly from November 3, 1953 to February 234, 1956.

In the early 1960s, Heidelberg Publishing Co. Pty Ltd started the East Yarra News, succeeded by the Doncaster-Templestowe News (later Manningham Leader). It had local offices in the tower of Doncaster Shoppingtown which opened on September 30, 1969. It had opposition newspapers including the Eastern Suburbs Mirror and the Doncaster Standard. The Doncaster and Outer Circle Mirror was produced from Kew from November 15, 1957.

The commencement of the Heidelberg News and Greensborough and Diamond Creek Chronicle as a paid newspaper had taken place on March 26, 1897, with Eltham incoporated into the sub-title from 1916-1930. The office was based at 101 Upper Heidelberg Rd, Ivanhoe, and it had a busy job printing operation, later combined with Pickwick Press at Bell St, Preston, and later at 18 Spring St, Thomastown.

The Advertiser newspaper, based locally for a time at the Hurstbridge Post Office, had succeeded the Evelyn Observer newspaper established in 1873. From the mid-1920s until its closure in 1942, The Advertiser was printed at the Leader Publishing Co., Northcote. The Advertiser had been under the ownership of Decimus H. Mott and Sons, when they had arrived in Melbourne from Albury.

Identities involved in Heidelberg City News had included A. Roy Ford, Fred Laird and John Morgan.

The Rosanna Diamond Valley News edition appeared from 1959-1964, with the Diamond Valley News title commencing from the Diamond Valley municipality’s creation. A special commemorative edition was published on September 29, 1964. The Diamond Valley News title continued until 2001, when the Diamond Valley Leader title was adopted. Banyule and Nillumbik editions were published.

A major opponent, Valley Voice (and briefly, its sister newspaper, Heidelberg Voice) was produced for 78 issues around 1978-79. At a time soon after Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s rise-and-fall, the Valley Voice newspaper was founded as a free, weekly local publication with directors including teacher Geoffrey Wells, Australian Democrats-linked Neville Loftus-Hills, Liberal businessman Ian Marsden, ad man Les Schintler and graphic artist Fred Baker. Terrence Henderson was Company Secretary.

One of the paper’s leading proponents, serial ALP Federal candidate David McKenzie, was later to lose his house from investments backing the enterprise.
They were different times. In 1978-79, Eltham was a political boiling pot. Under the editorship of Flowerdale-based Sean Hanrahan, Valley Voice was printed under contract on Peter Isaacson’s press, for just 78 weeks. Late into its life, companion publication Heidelberg Voice started (and finished) with local MP John Cain enthusing: “I’m delighted to see there’s a new voice for the Heidelberg citizens. For too long there’s only been one paper. I welcome the new paper.” The Voice was gone within months, following the applied marketing of Leader’s Rob Bradley

Leader Newspapers printed the final edition of its Diamond Valley News in April 2020.