In the wake of the Black Saturday bushfires, which tore through north-eastern Victoria in the early months of 2009, The Phoenix emerged, a newspaper that sought to cover the region’s recovery and provide advertising at no cost to local business.

The Phoenix founder and editor, Ash Long, said it was “designed purely to help local people” and provided it for free.

“Our major aim was to assist businesses with advertising after the bushfires so they’d have one less expense, and it worked very well,” Long said.

“We said to each business you can have $2000 worth of advertising, we ended up giving away $1.3 million in advertising to hundreds of local businesses.”

Long said he was proud of its “community service approach”, but ultimately had no choice but to cease printing after 18 months.

“Our intention was not to make a profit-making paper, and actually we ended up running at a fairly substantial loss,” Long said.

As owner of independent publisher Local Media Pty Ltd, Long continued to manage The Melbourne Observer, a metropolitan paper focused more on entertainment and the arts.

But with ties to the north-east dating back to 1973 when he started his career as a stringer for the Whittlesea Post, Long was determined to return to the area.

And so in 2016 Local Media commenced The Local Paper, which would pick up where the Phoenix left off providing local news to the Murrindindi Shire, but this time as a commercial enterprise.

The Local Paper is now distributed weekly across six councils in the north-east of Victoria and is made available free online, but its hub remains the Murrindindi Shire, and the town of Yea.

Located an hour and half north-east of Melbourne’s CBD, Yea has a long news history with the Yea Chronicle and Alexandra Standard dating back to 1890 and 1877 respectively, and the regional titles including the Mansfield Courier, Shepparton Times and Seymour Telegraph also supplied locally.

Murrindindi Shire Council CEO Craig Lloyd said in a written statement that local newspapers are crucial to supporting local sporting groups and businesses in the area.

Mr Lloyd said this service is “particularly critical” for the community during crisis scenarios such as the pandemic, as the paper helps relay crucial safety information.

Working for the public interest is central to the role of the journalist at all levels, as the Civil Impact of Journalism Project found, this includes providing a watchdog role on authority, helping society understand itself and creating an avenue for people to engage in political and social activities.

The centralisation of many local newsrooms to larger regional hubs has damaged the capacity for publications to cover stories in-depth and employ journalists anchored in the environment, a trend that has negatively affected the quality of local reporting.

In 2015-16, a study found 90 per cent of Australia’s media revenue was monopolised by four major players, making Local Media a notable outlier.

Yea Newsagency owner Lin Bailey has lived in the community for 17 years, and said despite the many papers on offer, The Local Paper is particularly community-minded and “fearless” in its reporting of local issues.

“The Local Paper can be controversial, they’re not afraid to hold people accountable,” Ms Bailey said.

Long first established this reputation as a reporter for the Yea Chronicle in 1986, when he was awarded the Westpac Award for best local reporting by the Victorian Country Press Association.

Long said the local government was planning on raising residential rates by as much as 27 per cent.

“They wanted to do so in secret before the next edition of the newspaper went to print, so we ran some special editions and it didn’t go ahead,” Long said.

On the 6th of April 2016, The Local Paper ran a front page story that detailed Murrindindi Shire Council CEO Margaret Abbey’s 10 per cent pay rise to her annual salary, approved at a meeting closed to the public.

The story also found Abbey was handed a two year contract extension which “bypass[ed] the convention of advertising for other candidates”.

The same edition provided columns for local councilors Margaret Rae and Eric Lording, who voted on either side of the controversial decision.

Following the news Ms Bailey said she was one of many enraged community members that protested the action, and said the reporting was “a source of knowledge” they would never have been able to access without the paper.

“Our local issues will never be in the Herald Sun and because the council won’t inform us of what they do, having local news means they have to,” Ms Bailey said.

But a decrease in advertising revenue for many local newspaper’s caused by digital disruption and compounded by the pandemic has many publications facing crisis scenarios around the country, and The Local Paper has not escaped unscathed from this trend.

Local Media was forced to cease distribution of its printed newspaper for several weeks during the pandemic, as lockdown measures caused a 50 per cent downturn in sales for businesses in Murrindindi Shire, leaving most unable to provide the advertising that keeps the newspaper profitable.

And whilst The Local Paper was able to retain its 24 employees and resumed its printed newspaper this week, Long said he’s hoping to receive the Victorian Government’s regional newspaper support fund as they look to adapt the business model, with this week’s “austerity edition” containing little paid advertising.

“We’ll need to have new additions and distribute to a wider area to be able to have the same income we were having before COVID-19,” Long said.

But as an independent outlier to the mainstream ownership that encompasses much of Australia’s media landscape, The Local Paper’s highly targeted approach could ultimately be its greatest asset.

A study led by British academic journalist Richard Sambrook has found a “highly targeted, local cost operation” as workable in a climate where people are less willing to pay for their newspaper.

This model is dependent upon intimate relationships between the newspaper, local businesses and council, a feature Long said is central to The Local Paper’s identity.

Adaptability is a quality Long has developed over a career that spanned half a century, as detailed in his autobiography Long Shots, a lifetime of local news reporting and ownership has led to the peaks of statewide recognition and the troughs of bankruptcy on more than one occasion.

All future variables aside, Long said he will remain dedicated to providing for his community.

“Local news is closest to the people, it’s not the highest prominence, but you can really do some good.”

(Featured Image: The Local Paper's official masthead obtained, May. 24, 2020. The Local Paper is a local newspaper distributed in north-eastern Victoria. Supplied: The Local Paper)