About Koori Mail

Koori Mail

Overview

The Koori Mail is a fortnightly national newspaper written and owned by Indigenous Australians, published in Lismore, New South Wales, since 1991. It is the only fully Indigenous-owned and managed newspaper in Australia, and its masthead proclaims it "100% Aboriginal-owned" and "100% self-funding". The paper is a trusted voice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, with a circulation of around 10,000 copies a fortnight and a readership estimated at close to 100,000. Its editor is Darren Coyne, its chairman is Russell Kapeen, and its general manager is Naomi Moran. Its ISSN is 1038-8516. Its official website is koorimail.com (listed on Wikipedia; the website field is left empty here as it was not load-verified for this draft).

"Koori" is a demonym for the Aboriginal peoples of parts of New South Wales and Victoria. The paper's profits are spent on community projects and needs, and its board of directors and editor are all Aboriginal people — a model of Indigenous media ownership without parallel in Australian print.

History

The Koori Mail was founded in 1991 by Walbunja businessman Owen Carriage, with the first issue going to print in May 1991. It was established by five Aboriginal community organisations in Bundjalung Country around Lismore — Bunjum Co-operative (Cabbage Tree Island), Buyinbin Inc (Casino), Kurrachee Co-operative (Coraki), the Bundjalung Tribal Society (Lismore), and Nungera Co-operative (Maclean) — which remain its equal shareholders. From the beginning the paper was conceived as a newspaper by and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: reporting political, social, and cultural issues and events by or about Indigenous Australians, in contrast to a mainstream press in which Indigenous voices were marginal.

The paper grew steadily through the 1990s and 2000s, building a national distribution network through subscriptions and newsagents in every Australian state and territory, and through the community councils, land councils, health and housing services, educational units, and Indigenous businesses where many readers access it. Its paid circulation has been independently audited and continues to grow. In 2017 the Australian Press Council welcomed the Koori Mail as its first Indigenous member publication, calling it arguably the most respected and most successful Aboriginal newspaper in Australia.

The Press Council membership was a milestone with meaning beyond the paper itself. For the national body that adjudicates press standards to admit its first Indigenous publication was a recognition that Aboriginal journalism had earned its place in the institutional life of Australian media — not as a supplement to the mainstream press but as a peer. The Koori Mail's adherence to Press Council standards, alongside its community ownership, gives it a dual legitimacy: accountable both to professional journalism ethics and to the Aboriginal organisations that own it.

The paper has weathered serious challenges. Based in Lismore, it was significantly affected by the devastating floods that struck the Northern Rivers region, impacting both the organisation and its staff. The paper pivoted immediately to distribute emergency information and provide disaster relief, and its coordination and leadership supported First Nations people and the wider Lismore community through the crisis — journalism as community service in the most literal sense. In 2022 the paper received a NAIDOC Innovation Award, recognising its role as a trusted Indigenous voice.

Programming and Content

The Koori Mail covers general news as well as health, education, employment, culture, the arts, and sport — all through an Indigenous lens and with Indigenous journalists and contributors. Its pages carry reporting on native title, land rights, health outcomes, education, employment, the arts, and community events across Australia, alongside the achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in every field. It has correspondents and contributors throughout the country, giving it a genuinely national newsgathering footprint.

The paper's masthead slogan — the "voice of the... " proclaimed on its front page — captures its editorial mission: to be the newspaper in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people tell their own stories. Its coverage of political debates, from the Intervention to constitutional recognition and the Voice referendum, has provided a platform for Indigenous perspectives often absent from the mainstream press. Culture and arts coverage celebrates Indigenous creativity, while sport pages follow the Aboriginal athletes who excel in every code.

Coverage and Audience

The Koori Mail is a national newspaper, available by subscription and in newsagents in every state and territory. More than 9,150 copies are sold each fortnight, and research indicates an average readership of around 100,000 — many of whom access the paper through community organisations rather than buying it individually. Its audience is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across Australia, together with their supporters, policymakers, researchers, and anyone seeking Indigenous perspectives on Australian affairs.

The paper's archive is a national treasure. The complete run of the Koori Mail is available free of charge through the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), ensuring all Australians can access this historical record. The State Library of New South Wales indexes the paper through INFOKOORI, the Australian Indigenous Index, alongside earlier Indigenous periodicals. For researchers of contemporary Indigenous Australia, the Koori Mail's archive — every fortnight since May 1991 — is an irreplaceable primary source.

Ownership

The Koori Mail is owned by five Aboriginal community organisations on Bundjalung Country in northern New South Wales: the Bunjum Co-operative, Buyinbin Inc, Kurrachee Co-operative, Nungera Co-operative, and the Bundjalung Tribal Society. All are equal shareholders, and the board of directors and the editor are all Aboriginal people. The paper is 100 per cent self-funding, and its profits are spent on community projects and needs.

This ownership model is the paper's defining feature. In a media landscape dominated by two large corporations, the Koori Mail is independent, community-owned, and accountable to the Indigenous organisations that founded it. Former editors include Kirstie Parker, who went on to lead the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence — a measure of the paper's role as a training ground for Indigenous media leadership.

The model's economics are as distinctive as its governance. Because the paper is self-funding and its profits return to community projects, every subscription and every advertisement is simultaneously an act of media consumption and an act of community investment. Readers are not merely an audience to be sold to advertisers; they are the owners, the subjects, and the beneficiaries of the journalism. It is a structure that the mainstream press, with its distant shareholders and shifting corporate strategies, has rarely been able to replicate.

Digital Presence

The Koori Mail publishes in both printed form and digitally each fortnight, with electronic copies available through its website, koorimail.com. The digital edition extends the paper's reach to Indigenous readers in remote communities and to the diaspora, and the AIATSIS digital archive makes every issue freely accessible online. The paper is active on social media, where its stories circulate among Indigenous networks across the country.

The digitisation partnership behind the AIATSIS archive — launched in 2011 with the Department of Industry and Science, CAVAL, and the State Library of New South Wales — ensures the paper's preservation as a public record. In an era when much Indigenous history has been recorded by others, the Koori Mail stands as a self-authored chronicle: three decades of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australia, reported by its own journalists, owned by its own communities, and preserved for the nation.