About Snowy River Mail

Snowy River Mail

The Snowy River Mail is a weekly newspaper published in Orbost, in the Shire of East Gippsland, Victoria — the paper of the Snowy River district and the far-eastern Victorian coast. Published as The Snowy River Mail and Tambo and Croajingolong Gazette from 1890 to 1911, it is one of the historic titles of the East Gippsland press. Since 1999 it has been produced by the Yeates family — the fourth generation — as part of East Gippsland Newspapers.

Overview

The Snowy River Mail is the weekly paper of Orbost and the Snowy River district — the far east of Victoria, where the Snowy River meets the sea at Marlo, and the coast runs from Lakes Entrance to Mallacoota. Orbost is the district's service town: the centre of the region's dairying, beef, and timber industries, and the gateway to the Snowy River National Park and the coast. The Mail is its weekly record.

The paper is produced by East Gippsland Newspapers — the Yeates family's publishing business, the result of over 100 years of newspapers owned and published by the Yeates family in East Gippsland. The group's managing director and editor, R.D. (Bob) Yeates, is the fourth generation of the family involved in the business.

History

The paper was previously published as The Snowy River Mail and Tambo and Croajingolong Gazette from 1890 to 1911 — the first issue dated Saturday, 9 August 1890, a four-page paper titled "Snowy River Mail & Tambo and Croajingolong Gazette Orbost." The Gippsland Courier merged with the Snowy River Mail when proprietor Lachlan Ross moved to Orbost in 1910 — the consolidation of the district's early press into a single title.

In 1999 the paper was acquired by the Yeates family when the Hollins family retired from the newspapers business. The Yeates family's East Gippsland newspaper history spans over a century, and the paper is still being produced by the fourth generation of the Yeates family as part of East Gippsland Newspapers. The group also produces the Bairnsdale Advertiser, the East Gippsland News, and the Lakes Post, along with the yearly publications the East Gippsland Visitor Guide and the Great Alpine Road Touring Guide.

The paper's production has changed utterly over the Yeates generations: from hot-metal production to a Macintosh-based pre-press production area, with computer-to-plate technology and digital imaging today. The Mail's district has changed too — the timber towns, the fishing villages, the tourist coast — but the weekly rhythm persists: the paper that recorded the Gazette era of the 1890s still records the far east of the 2020s.

Issues No. 1211 (9 January 1914) to No. 1460 (20 December 1918) were digitised as part of the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program of the National Library of Australia. The Orbost & District Historical Society holds the paper's twentieth-century archive — issues from 1950, 1987, 1992, and 1994 — the contemporary record of the district's modern history. The 29 March 1950 issue carries the great flood of that year — the Snowy River in flood is the district's recurring drama, and the Mail has recorded every major inundation. The 21 August 1987 issue's photographs record the closure of the Orbost–Bairnsdale railway line — a significant event in Orbost's history, the end of the rail link that had connected the far east to the state since the line's opening.

The Mail has chronicled the district's great twentieth-century transformations: the Snowy Mountains Scheme's diversion of the Snowy River — the river that gives the paper its name, its waters turned westward to the Murray-Murrumbidgee irrigation country, and the long campaign for environmental flows to the river's lower reaches and its mouth at Marlo; the timber industry's fortunes in the East Gippsland forests; the dairying of the Snowy River flats; and the bushfire seasons — culminating in the Black Summer of 2019–20, when fire devastated the far east from Cann River to Mallacoota, and the district's papers were the emergency chronicle.

Content

The Snowy River Mail covers the local news of Orbost and the Snowy River district. Its journalism spans:

• District news: Orbost and the East Gippsland Shire's eastern towns — Marlo, Cann River, Mallacoota, and the coast — and the shire debates that shape the far east.
• Primary industries: dairying, beef cattle, and timber — the industries of the Snowy River flats and the forests.
• Environment: the Snowy River, the national parks, the coast, and the bushfire seasons that define the far east's calendar — from the river's environmental flows to the Black Summer recovery, the district's defining stories are written in water and fire.
• Sport: the district's football and netball clubs, cricket, and community sport.
• Community: the schools, the clubs, the milestones, and the social record of the far east — the weekly chronicle of a district where the towns are small, the distances are great, and the paper is the thread that holds the community together.

Coverage & Audience

The Snowy River Mail is a weekly newspaper published in Orbost, in English, serving the Snowy River district and the far-eastern Victorian coast — from the Snowy River flats to the coastal towns of Marlo, Cann River, and Mallacoota. Current articles from 2013 are available online through the EastVicMedia website.

Its audience is the residents of the far east — the dairy farmers and timber workers of the Snowy River flats, the townspeople of Orbost and the coastal towns, and the district's communities — who rely on the paper for the district news, agricultural coverage, and community record that reflect the region's identity. In a district where the nearest city is hours away and the disasters — flood, fire, drought — arrive on a grand scale, the weekly paper is infrastructure: the noticeboard, the record, and the forum of the far east.

The group's yearly publications — the East Gippsland Visitor Guide and the Great Alpine Road Touring Guide — serve the district's tourism economy: the coast from Lakes Entrance to Mallacoota, the Snowy River National Park, the Great Alpine Road itself. The Mail's district is one of Victoria's great touring regions, and the paper's publishing extends to the guides that bring visitors to it.

Ownership

The Snowy River Mail is produced by East Gippsland Newspapers — the Yeates family's East Gippsland publishing business, acquired by the family in 1999 when the Hollins family retired. The managing director and editor, R.D. (Bob) Yeates, is the fourth generation of the family in the business. The group's titles — the Snowy River Mail, Bairnsdale Advertiser, East Gippsland News, and Lakes Post — form the family-owned press of East Gippsland: a century of Yeates newspapers, from hot metal to computer-to-plate, still family-run in an era of consolidated regional media.

Digital Presence

The Snowy River Mail operates online at snowyrivermail.com.au — the paper's official domain — with current articles from 2013 available through the EastVicMedia website. The paper's historic editions (1914–1918) are digitised on Trove, and its twentieth-century archive is held by the Orbost & District Historical Society.

For the Snowy River district, the Mail remains what it has been since 1890: the far east's own paper — the weekly record of the Snowy River country, from the Tambo and Croajingolong Gazette of the 1890s to the Yeates family's fourth generation today, still publishing from Orbost, still the weekly thread of the far east, still the Yeates family's paper.