About Southern Riverina News

Southern Riverina News

Overview

The Southern Riverina News is the weekly newspaper of Finley and the surrounding southern Riverina district of New South Wales, close to the Murray River and the Victorian border. Published in print each Wednesday and online, it serves the towns of Berrigan Shire — Finley, Tocumwal, Berrigan and Barooga — and the irrigation farming country around them, reporting on council affairs, water policy, agriculture, schools, sport and community life. The paper in its present form dates from 1970, when it was created by the merger of three older district newspapers, and its oldest predecessor line reaches back to 1897. It is published by the McPherson Media Group (MMG), the Shepparton-based family newspaper company, as part of one of the largest regional newspaper groups in northern Victoria and the southern Riverina.

History

The Southern Riverina News was formed in 1970 by the merger of three established district papers: the Tocumwal Guardian, the Finley Mail and the Berrigan Advocate. The merger, recorded in Rod Kirkpatrick's history of the New South Wales provincial press, Country Conscience, consolidated the journalism of three neighbouring towns into a single title based at Finley, the largest of the southern Riverina service towns.

The oldest of the merged lines was the Guardian. Its ancestor, the Finley Free Press and Tocumwal, Berrigan, Jerilderie and Deniliquin Chronicle, was first published on 15 January 1897; the string of town names in that original masthead shows the paper was conceived from the outset as a journal for the whole southern Riverina district rather than for a single town. The title was shortened to the Finley Free Press and Tocumwal Guardian in 1901, became The Tocumwal Guardian and Finley Free Press in 1908, and then the Tocumwal Guardian and Riverina Echo in 1913. In 1956 it took its final pre-merger name, the Tocumwal Guardian and Riverina Stock Journal, reflecting the pastoral economy of the district it served. The Finley Mail and the Berrigan Advocate were likewise the established papers of their own towns, so the 1970 merger brought the district's three newspaper traditions under one masthead. Those predecessor papers covered a country of soldier-settler irrigation farms, merino grazing and Murray River towns, and their surviving issues have been digitised through the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation program and are available on Trove.

By merging the Tocumwal, Finley and Berrigan papers in 1970, the Southern Riverina News inherited more than a century of combined local publishing tradition, including the Finley Mail's and Berrigan Advocate's coverage of their own towns. The unified paper continued as the district's journal of record through the decades of irrigation development, drought and water reform that reshaped the southern Riverina, and it later became part of the McPherson Media Group, the family-owned group centred on the Shepparton News in Victoria's Goulburn Valley. Under MMG the paper retains its Finley base and its own masthead, produced within the group's network of Riverina and northern Victorian newsrooms.

Programming and Content

The paper's reporting centres on the civic and agricultural life of Berrigan Shire and the wider southern Riverina. Local government coverage is a staple: in December 2023 the Southern Riverina News reported in depth on Berrigan Shire Council's resolution to press senior officials over the delivery of the $25 million Finley Hospital upgrade, giving extended space to councillors' concerns about pre- and post-operative rehabilitation and mental health services — an example of the paper's role in holding health and council decision-makers to account for a small community.

Water politics, the defining public issue of the Murray irrigation country, features prominently. The edition of 14 October 2026 led its regional coverage with a report headlined "Regional leaders urge government to halt buybacks", covering district leaders' opposition to Commonwealth water buybacks, alongside the community fabric of the district: the Finley Fete, the Tocumwal Lions Club's service activities, livestock results from the Berrigan show, local school and craft awards, a Melbourne Cup Day luncheon and property coverage extending to Coleambally. Agricultural show reporting is a fixture of the paper's calendar, with livestock judging, produce and craft awards from the district's spring shows covered in detail each season. Church notices, sport and social reporting round out a paper closely modelled on the traditional country weekly. MMG's farming publication Country News, produced for the Goulburn Valley and Murray Valley farming communities, is also distributed as an insert in the Southern Riverina News, giving its readers the group's specialist agricultural coverage.

Audience and Reach

The Southern Riverina News circulates across Berrigan Shire and adjoining Murray River communities, a district of irrigation farms, rice and dairy country, and the service towns along the Newell and Riverina highways. Its readership is drawn from Finley, Tocumwal, Berrigan, Barooga and the farming families between them, in a cross-border community whose commercial and sporting ties run as much to Cobram and Shepparton in Victoria as to Deniliquin and Jerilderie in New South Wales. No independently audited circulation figure for the paper is published, and none is claimed here; its reach is best measured by its status as the only locally based newspaper produced for the shire, a position it has held since the 1970 merger.

Digital Presence

The paper publishes online at southernriverinanews.com.au, and its weekly print editions are also produced as digital replica editions through PressReader: the editions of Wednesday 7 October 2026 and Wednesday 14 October 2026 were both carried on the platform, confirming the paper's continuing weekly print publication into late 2026. Digital subscriptions to MMG titles, including the Southern Riverina News, are sold under the group's subscription arrangements, under which the paper's publisher of record is Shepparton Newspapers Pty Ltd; the group's terms describe its digital services as spanning websites, apps and digital replica editions of its newspaper-format publications. Its journalists' reporting is tracked by media-monitoring services, and the paper maintains the standard digital channels of the McPherson group alongside its print edition.

Ownership and Organisation

The Southern Riverina News is published by the McPherson Media Group, the Shepparton-based company built around the Shepparton News, which the McPherson family has owned since 1888; the group describes itself as part of the oldest family-owned newspaper group in Australasia. MMG's subscription terms list the Southern Riverina News among the publications of Shepparton Newspapers Pty Ltd, alongside the Shepparton News, Riverine Herald, Cobram Courier, Kyabram Free Press, Tatura Guardian, Campaspe News, Seymour Telegraph and Country News. Its sister titles also include the Deniliquin Pastoral Times, Benalla Ensign, Euroa Gazette and McIvor Times, and the group prints its newspapers at its Newsprinters facility. Country Press Australia's directory listing for the paper gives its Finley address as 17 Pinnuck Street, Finley NSW 2713. No current editor of the paper is publicly named in the sources consulted, and none is asserted here.

Contact and Availability

The Southern Riverina News is published in print each Wednesday and sold and distributed across Finley, Tocumwal, Berrigan, Barooga and the surrounding district, and publishes online at southernriverinanews.com.au, where the current edition and digital subscriptions are available. Its office is listed at 17 Pinnuck Street, Finley. Group customer service for McPherson Media Group subscriptions is handled centrally: the group's published customer service email is customerservice@mmg.com.au and its customer service line is 1300 834 619, for matters relating to print and digital subscriptions across the group's titles.