About News of the Area

News of the Area

Overview

News of the Area is an independent group of free weekly newspapers published on the New South Wales coast by Myall Coast Communications Pty Ltd. The edition serving Coffs Harbour is the Coffs Coast News of the Area, launched on 31 July 2020, which provides the Coffs Harbour district with a printed and online weekly newspaper. The Coffs Coast edition was the group's expansion into the city just weeks after News Corp Australia ended the print edition of the long-established Coffs Coast Advocate in its mid-2020 regional restructure, leaving the city without a printed local paper. The Public Interest Journalism Initiative (PIJI) describes News of the Area as an independent weekly newspaper group and identifies the Coffs Coast News of the Area and the Clarence Valley Independent as the two weekly newspapers serving the Coffs Harbour-Grafton region. The masthead remains current: the Australian Press Council's September 2026 register of constituent bodies lists "News of the Area (Coffs Coast)", and Country Press Australia listed the Coffs Coast edition among its New South Wales member publications in its 2024 parliamentary submission.

History

The News of the Area group began with a single community paper serving Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest, the twin villages at the mouth of the Myall River on the northern shore of Port Stephens. Known simply as News of the Area, and later styled the Myall Coast News of the Area, the paper was an established part of that district's life by the mid-2010s: its printed editions from 2014 survive in its online archive, recording a weekly paper circulating through Tea Gardens, Hawks Nest, Bulahdelah, Karuah, Pindimar and North Arm Cove, and its website carried community reporting through 2016. and in 2019 the Ryerson Index committee undertook a project to scan and index the paper's death and funeral notices for family-history researchers. The publishing company took its name, Myall Coast Communications, from that home territory, and the National Library of Australia records the company, based at Raymond Terrace, as the group's publisher.

From that base the group expanded north along the coast with a series of local editions, including the Nambucca Valley News of the Area. Its best-documented expansion came in 2020. News Corp's mid-2020 restructure ended the print editions of many regional titles; in Coffs Harbour the Coffs Coast Advocate, published since 1907, lost its print edition and was merged into the Daily Telegraph's website. News of the Area responded by launching its Coffs Coast edition, which PIJI's Australian News Data Report records as opening on 31 July 2020. The group has continued to grow: in May 2025 it opened the Port Macquarie News of the Area, a print and digital outlet that PIJI's PIPI data service recorded as the eighth outlet opened by the News of the Area Media Group.

Programming and Content

The Coffs Coast News of the Area covers the local government, community, school, sporting and cultural life of Coffs Harbour and its surrounding towns, including Sawtell, Toormina and Woolgoolga. Its journalism was examined in PIJI's Australian News Data Report of February 2024, which sampled the digital output of the region's outlets over a month and found very high levels of public interest journalism; community coverage was the largest focus of the Coffs Coast paper's output, with government among its leading subjects. The study illustrates the paper's role: reporting Coffs Harbour City Council, public services and courts alongside the community events and people that larger outlets rarely cover.

A long-running feature of the Coffs Coast edition is "Hypotheticals", a weekly legal column by Manny Wood, the principal solicitor of Coffs Harbour firm TB Law and an accredited specialist in wills and estates, who uses the column to answer everyday legal questions for readers; the firm continues to promote the column as a current weekly publication in the Coffs Coast News Of The Area. The editions share the group's community-first format of local news, reader contributions, letters, sport and notices, presented under the group's "Free Local News" banner, with each edition maintaining its own local identity and social media presence.

Audience and Reach

The Coffs Coast edition serves the Coffs Harbour local government area on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, a regional city and holiday destination surrounded by smaller coastal and hinterland communities. PIJI's regional profile notes that the Coffs Coast News of the Area is one of only two weekly newspapers in the Coffs Harbour-Grafton sample region, the other being the Clarence Valley Independent, while News Corp's Coffs Coast Advocate continues as a digital-only presence. As a free publication, the paper is supported by local advertising and distributed to households and outlets across its coverage area, and its stories reach a wider audience online. The group's editions together span coastal communities from the Myall Coast through the Nambucca Valley and Coffs Coast to Port Macquarie.

Digital Presence

The group's website, newsofthearea.com.au, is the shared digital home of the News of the Area editions, publishing local news online alongside the weekly print papers, with individual editions also operating local sites and Facebook pages; the Nambucca Valley edition, for example, was posting news to its page in June 2026. Digital publication has been part of the group's model from its early years: the original Myall Coast paper's website carried its printed editions and community stories from at least 2014. PIJI's researchers were able to sample the Coffs Coast edition's digital output for their February 2024 content study, and the National Library of Australia catalogues the group's newer editions, including the Port Macquarie News Of The Area, as current serial publications.

Ownership and Organisation

News of the Area is published by Myall Coast Communications Pty Ltd, an independent local media company based at Raymond Terrace in the Hunter region, which the National Library of Australia records as publisher of the group's editions. The group is not part of either of Australia's large regional chains, Australian Community Media or News Corp Australia; PIJI classifies it as an independent weekly newspaper group. It is a member of Country Press Australia, whose 2024 submission to the Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society listed the Coffs Coast News of the Area among its New South Wales members, and the Coffs Coast masthead is a constituent publication under the Australian Press Council's standards scheme, appearing in the Council's September 2026 register. Each edition is produced with locally based contributors and community correspondents, reflecting the group's origins as a single community paper on the Myall Coast. The model is visible in the group's home edition, where freelance reporters drawn from the local community have filed for the Myall Coast paper — one contributor's candidate profile for the 2024 MidCoast Council elections, for instance, recorded that he had worked as a freelance reporter for the Myall Coast News Of The Area since March 2023 — and the paper is woven into local civic life, appearing among the sponsors and supporters of community events such as the Galleries in the Gardens' Anderson Art Award at Tea Gardens in 2025.

Contact and Availability

The Coffs Coast News of the Area is published weekly in print and online for Coffs Harbour and district, and is available free. The group's website is newsofthearea.com.au, which carries news from the Coffs Coast edition and its sister papers, and the editions maintain Facebook pages for local news, community notices and advertising enquiries. News of the Area's publishing company, Myall Coast Communications Pty Ltd, is based at Raymond Terrace, New South Wales.