About Magnetic Community News

Magnetic Community News

Overview

Magnetic Community News is the local news outlet for Magnetic Island, the island community in Cleveland Bay about eight kilometres offshore from Townsville in North Queensland. Based at Nelly Bay, the island's ferry port and largest settlement, it serves the island's villages of Picnic Bay, Nelly Bay, Arcadia and Horseshoe Bay. Although inventoried as a newspaper, it is today an online-only publication: its website states that it began as a printed newspaper in 1989, paused during the COVID-19 disruption of 2020, and now publishes on the web.

The publication is owned and edited by Debra Denison, who is also its photographer and principal writer. It operates independently of any media group, covering council works, community events, sport, the environment and the practical business of island life — including the ferry and bus timetables its residents depend on. The site was active and publishing when checked on 18 October 2026, with posts dated through mid-October 2026, and the Public Interest Journalism Initiative's Australian Newsroom Mapping Project has likewise recorded it as a community digital news outlet based on Magnetic Island.

History

According to its own About page, Magnetic Community News was established in 1989 as a printed newspaper for Magnetic Island. For most of its life it was a print weekly: the paper recalls that it was "out on the streets by lunchtime each Tuesday", a rhythm that made it a fixed point in the weekly life of an island small enough that news travels fast but formal word still matters. No earlier island masthead history is claimed here; the 1989 founding is the paper's own account, published on its website, and no independent founding record has been published.

Print publication was interrupted in mid-2020, when the paper paused during the COVID-19 pandemic — a hiatus its About page describes before explaining that the local news is now published online instead. The move from print to digital mirrors the path of many small Australian community titles in the same period, but Magnetic Community News retained its name, its island base and its editor through the transition. The Public Interest Journalism Initiative's newsroom mapping, published in 2022, listed Magnetic Community News as a community digital outlet for Magnetic Island, Queensland, confirming the title's survival in online form. Its continuing role is also visible in third-party use of its work: Townsville City Council's Magnetic Island Project Updates newsletter of January 2026 credited a photograph to the outlet.

Programming and Content

The content of Magnetic Community News is the working agenda of a small island community. Its website organises coverage under sections for news, community and environment, sports and health, arts, and entertainment and tourism. Local government is a staple subject: Magnetic Island is part of the City of Townsville, and council projects on the island — harbour dredging at Nelly Bay, road repairs, water infrastructure and pedestrian works — directly affect residents' daily movements, making council reporting a core part of the outlet's brief.

Community material sits alongside the news: club and school notices, sporting results, health and environment stories, arts coverage and event listings for the island's villages. The site also carries service information of a kind metropolitan outlets would not publish, notably island ferry and bus timetables — essential reading in a community where every trip to work, hospital or the airport begins with a boat. Denison's role as photographer as well as editor and writer gives the coverage a documentary character, and the outlet's images are used beyond its own pages, including by the city council in its island project newsletters.

October 2026 posts sighted on the site included a postponement notice for coastal management works at Geoffrey Bay, community announcements and a report of a vessel found safe near the island — a mix of civic notices, environment news and marine-safety reporting typical of the outlet's output.

Audience and Reach

The audience of Magnetic Community News is, in the first instance, the resident population of Magnetic Island: 2,475 people at the 2021 census, spread across the four settled bays on the island's eastern side — Picnic Bay in the south, then Nelly Bay, Arcadia and Horseshoe Bay to the north. Nelly Bay, where the outlet is based, is the island's transport hub and its largest village, with 1,213 residents at the 2021 census; the island's ferry terminal has operated there since 2003, when it was transferred from Picnic Bay.

The readership extends beyond residents. Magnetic Island — Yunbenun to the Wulgurukaba (Wulguru) people, its traditional owners — is one of North Queensland's established holiday islands, lying within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, with more than half its 52 square kilometres protected as national park. The island took its European name from Captain James Cook, who recorded in 1770 that his ship's compass behaved oddly as he passed, and its landmarks include the Second World War coastal forts above Horseshoe Bay, now reached by the Forts Walk. For a local paper, this setting produces a distinctive news mix in which koala sightings, reef and catchment questions, ferry timetables and council tenders all count as front-page material. Holidaymakers, day-trippers from Townsville and the island's many former residents and repeat visitors form a secondary audience for an outlet that is effectively the island's paper of record. No audited circulation or readership figure for Magnetic Community News has been published, in either its print or online eras, and none is asserted here.

Digital Presence

The publication's website, magneticcommunitynews.com, is now the newspaper itself. It carries rolling news posts under the masthead "Magnetic Community News — Est 1989", the section structure described above, and standing service pages including the ferry and bus timetables. Posting was current when the site was checked on 18 October 2026: the newest item was dated about 13 October 2026, preceded by posts dated 10, 9 and 6 October 2026, indicating a regular, near-weekly rhythm of online publication rather than a static archive. The site also links readers to a Facebook presence for the title.

The digital format suits the community's geography. An online-only paper no longer has to be printed and carried across the bay for distribution, and islanders on the mainland — for work, medical care or travel — can read the same edition as those at home. The website states the change plainly: after the mid-2020 print hiatus, the local news is available online at the site.

Ownership and Organisation

Magnetic Community News is an independent, locally owned outlet. Its website names Debra "Debbie" Denison as owner and Editor-in-Chief, and she is also credited as the publication's photographer and writer; Mardi and Neal Saker are listed as associate graphic designers. The operation is therefore a very small, owner-run newsroom of the kind that sustains much of Australia's community press: one editor producing the reporting, photography and publication, with design assistance.

A register compiled for the Australian Government's review of the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code listed Janfont Holdings Pty Ltd as the company behind the Magnetic Community News title, in the Townsville City local area. The outlet has no parent media group, and its site presents the business as an island enterprise based at Nelly Bay; its survival through the 2020 print hiatus and into online publication has been on that independent basis.

Contact and Availability

Magnetic Community News is published online at magneticcommunitynews.com and is free to read. Its contact details, as published on its website, are Magnetic Community News, 5 Trana Court, Nelly Bay, Magnetic Island, Queensland 4819, telephone (07) 4778 5707, email magneticnews@bigpond.com. News tips, community notices and advertising enquiries are directed to the editor at those contacts. The current online edition and the site's timetable and community pages are available at the address above at all times.