About Shepparton News

Shepparton News

The Shepparton News is a daily morning newspaper serving Shepparton, Victoria — the capital of the Goulburn Valley, Australia's food bowl. Established in 1877 by Thomas Haslam, whose printing press arrived by bullock team from Echuca, it has been conducted by the McPherson family since 1888 — one of the longest continuous family ownerships in Australian regional publishing. Owned by the McPherson Media Group, it is the daily paper of the Goulburn Valley.

Overview

The Shepparton News is the daily newspaper of Shepparton and the Goulburn Valley — the great irrigated food bowl of northern Victoria, the dairying and fruit-growing district that feeds the nation. Shepparton is the valley's regional capital: the city of SPC Ardmona, the fruit processors, the multicultural food industries, and the Goulburn River. The News is its daily record — the morning paper of the valley's farms, factories, and towns.

The paper's editor is Tyler Maher, and its headquarters are at 79 Goulburn Valley Highway, Shepparton. Its sister newspapers within the McPherson Media Group include Country News, the Kyabram Free Press, and the Tatura Guardian — the group's family of Goulburn Valley titles. Country News — the free weekly insert carried in eleven of the group's titles, with an audited circulation of 55,000 — is the group's valley-wide rural voice; the Kyabram Free Press and Tatura Guardian are the weeklies of the valley's towns. Together the McPherson titles form the densest family-owned regional newspaper network in Victoria — a group that has stayed independent through the consolidation waves that swept the state's country press.

History

In 1877, Thomas Haslam came to Shepparton with a printing press transported from Echuca by a bullock team and established the Shepparton News. As he was on the other side of the Goulburn River, it took two days for Haslam to transfer the plant on MacGuire's Punt, two by two. The News was first published in February 1877, and the original offices were at the corner of High and Westford Streets. The News' content was then largely of community meetings and around eighty percent advertising — the classic formula of the pioneer country paper. Haslam later sold the paper to Gordon Middleton.

In 1888, Congupna farmer Colin McPherson sold his stake in the Victorian Farmers Gazette and purchased the Shepparton News, as his poor health from asthma forced him to pursue another profession. The McPherson era had begun — and it has never ended. The printing press was replaced by the Wharfedale cylinder press in 1892. There was a fire in 1893. As his health deteriorated, McPherson was forced to lease the News to employees Messrs. Morgan, Horan and Simpson in 1900. After his death in 1901, Edward John Morgan and his wife Jean McPherson operated the newspaper until his sons were old enough.

Successive generations of the family owned the paper through the twentieth century — more upgrades with new buildings, a twin Cossar press, and in 1968 the beginnings of a Goss Community web-offset line — with Ross and Chris McPherson famously "buying back the farm" from a 1960s partnership with Age publisher David Syme & Co., restoring the paper to full family ownership.

Ross McPherson is the fourth generation of the McPhersons to lead the company, the family having conducted the Shepparton News for a remarkable 136 years: Ross's great-grandfather Colin purchased the newspaper in 1888 from the original owner, Thomas Haslam. Ross studied law at Melbourne and London Universities and pursued mixed careers of law and journalism, practising commercial law in Melbourne before returning to the region — and the family business — in 1980 as editor-in-chief. He is the executive chairman of the McPherson Media Group, a former deputy chancellor of Melbourne University and a past president of the International News Media Association. His community involvements have included chairing the Goulburn Valley Hospital Foundation for 33 years, founding the Committee for Greater Shepparton, chairing the Fairley Leadership program for its first ten years, and convening the Foodbowl Unlimited project with John Corboy. In the early 1990s recession he devised the Clever Food Conference, which brought Edward de Bono to Shepparton. Chris McPherson died in 2015, and a new generation now helps lead the company.

In 2024 Ross McPherson delivered the Greater Shepparton Biennial Bruce Wilson Memorial Heritage Lecture — "A town talks about itself: the heritage and future of country newspapers" — reflecting on the community conversation first forged in the days of bullock drays and hand-set lead type, and its future in the era of algorithm-driven messages.

The paper adjusted its print frequency in the 2020s, moving from daily to twice-weekly print in response to changing readership patterns, as announced by executive chairman Ross McPherson and reported by GXpress — with daily news updates continuing on digital platforms through an upgraded mobile app, newsletters, and audio bulletins, nearly 80 per cent of readers then on mobile devices.

Content

The Shepparton News covers the daily life of the Goulburn Valley. Its journalism spans:

• Valley news: Greater Shepparton council, the valley's towns — Tatura, Kyabram, Mooroopna, Merrigum — and the district's daily events.
• Food-bowl coverage: the dairy industry, fruit growing, SPC Ardmona and the processors, irrigation and water policy — the industries that define the valley, from the orchardists' harvests to the water market's fluctuations.
• Multicultural Shepparton: one of regional Australia's most diverse cities — the Albanian, Iraqi, Afghan, Sudanese, Indian, and Pacific communities — and the paper's coverage of the valley's multicultural life.
• Sport: the Goulburn Valley Football League, cricket, netball, and the district's clubs.
• Community: schools, health (the Goulburn Valley Hospital), milestones, and the social record of the valley — the daily chronicle of the region's civic life, from the hospital foundation's fundraisers to the school speech nights.

Coverage & Audience

The Shepparton News is a daily morning newspaper serving Shepparton and the Goulburn Valley, published in English, in print and online, with daily news updates on digital platforms. Its audience is the residents of the valley — the farmers and food-industry workers, the townspeople of Shepparton and its satellite towns, and the valley's multicultural communities — who rely on the paper for the daily news, agricultural coverage, and community record of Australia's food bowl, in print and online.

Ownership

The Shepparton News is owned by the McPherson Media Group — the family-owned Shepparton-based regional publishing group, conducted by the McPherson family since 1888. The group owns and runs the News and eleven other local print newspapers in the Goulburn Valley, along with digital versions, and publishes several national agricultural magazines. Ross McPherson AM is the executive chairman and editor-in-chief, the fourth generation of the family to lead the company.

Digital Presence

The Shepparton News operates online at sheppnews.com.au — its official website, listed in the paper's Wikipedia infobox — with daily news updates on digital platforms, an upgraded mobile app, newsletters, and audio bulletins. The site extends the daily's reach across the valley and beyond, carrying the News' food-bowl journalism online.

For the Goulburn Valley, the News remains what it has been since 1877: the valley's own daily — the morning paper of the food bowl, from Haslam's bullock-team press to the McPherson family's fourth generation, still publishing from Shepparton, still the daily record of the valley that feeds the nation, still family-owned after nearly a century and a half.