About The Warragul & Drouin Gazette

The Warragul & Drouin Gazette

The Warragul & Drouin Gazette is a paid weekly newspaper published in Warragul, West Gippsland, Victoria — the oldest continuous news source in the region, dating to 5 July 1898. Published every Tuesday by the family-owned Warragul Regional Newspapers Pty Ltd from 97 Queen Street, Warragul, it boasts one of the highest non-daily paid circulations in regional Australia. It is the weekly paper of West Gippsland.

Overview

The Gazette — as it is known locally — is the paid weekly of Warragul and Drouin, the twin towns of West Gippsland. Warragul is the region's commercial capital: the dairying district's service town, the centre of the Baw Baw Shire, on the Princes Highway between Melbourne and the Latrobe Valley. Drouin, its neighbour, is the growth town of the west — the commuter belt's advance into Gippsland, where Melbourne's south-east growth corridor meets the dairy country. The Gazette serves a population of roughly 60,000 people across West Gippsland, and remains, in its publisher's words, almost the sole source of local public interest journalism in the community it serves.

The district is the dairy capital: the rolling country of the Baw Baw Shire, the Strzelecki Ranges' foothills, the towns of Yarragon (the village), Trafalgar, Neerim South, Longwarry, and Bunyip — each with its own character, each covered by the Gazette. The paper's Farm World publications serve the agricultural field-days economy centred on Lardner Park, while the Dairy Expo annuals serve the industry that defines the region.

The paper is sold in a 40-kilometre radius of Warragul and Drouin; 85 per cent of copies are sold in Warragul, Drouin, Yarragon, Trafalgar, Neerim South, Longwarry, and Bunyip. It sells 6,500 hard copies per week, plus 300 digital subscriptions, at a cover price of $2.50 — averaging 80–90 pages per week, produced by 5.2 full-time-equivalent journalists, publishing only local public interest journalism. The organisation describes itself as proudly family owned, and claims the highest non-daily paid circulation of any newspaper in regional Victoria, currently at 10,200 (print and digital readers).

History

The West Gippsland Gazette was first published on 5 July 1898 by Albert Harvey — a former sea captain who had to change careers due to an eye condition. Albert Harvey had grown up in Littlehampton, Sussex; apprenticed to the sea at the age of 14, a problem with his eyes caused by the use of binoculars forced a career change — and at the age of 37 he decided he wanted to found a newspaper. His brother William Britton Harvey, who had been operating the Guardian in Warragul on lease, joined Albert. The original eight-page edition covered local news from the Warragul, Buln Buln, and Narracan shires, and included advertisements from early businesses such as the Orient Hotel.

Over the decades the Gazette underwent several ownership and format changes. In 1931 the title was shortened to the Warragul Gazette (the West Gippsland Gazette ran from 1898 to 1930, and is digitised on Trove). Later the paper was acquired by James Vincent Gannon, who converted the broadsheet to a tabloid format and reorganised the layout to prioritise news over the women's column. In 1951 the paper was sold to Keith Staniforth Hopkins, who expanded the business into a regional newspaper group and introduced a free weekly, the Latrobe Valley Express — the free bi-weekly that still serves the Latrobe Valley.

Today the Gazette is published every Tuesday by Warragul Regional Newspapers Pty Ltd — the domain thegazette.com.au registered to the company (ACN 005 057 036) — from 97 Queen Street, Warragul. The publisher also produces the weekly Baw Baw Shire and West Gippsland Trader and the annual publications The Farm World News, The Farm World Program, and The Dairy Expo News. The company is a member of the Victorian Country Press Association and Country Press Australia.

In its submission to the federal News Media Assistance Program consultation, Warragul Regional Newspapers set out the paper's civic role: "We set the news agenda in our region without question" — the local AM radio station and ABC radio offering limited local news across a wider patch with far fewer journalists, the Gazette is almost the sole source of local public interest journalism for its 60,000-strong community. With 5.2 full-time-equivalent journalists producing 80–90 pages a week of purely local journalism, the Gazette is the newsroom of West Gippsland — the paper that holds the shire to account.

Content

The Gazette provides coverage of local government, schools, sports, community events, classifieds, and weather. Its journalism spans:

• West Gippsland news: the Baw Baw Shire Council, Warragul and Drouin's development, and the district's daily life — the planning battles, the infrastructure debates, and the growth of the twin towns.
• Dairying: the dairy capital's industry — the farms, the processors, the Dairy Expo — covered in the paper and its Farm World publications, the agricultural journalism that serves the region's defining industry.
• Sport: the West Gippsland Football Netball Competition, the Gippsland League (Drouin, Warragul, Trafalgar), cricket, and the district's clubs — the weekend record of the dairy capital's sporting leagues.
• Community: the district's schools, the community groups, the events, and the social record — the weekly chronicle of the dairy capital's civic life, from the school speech nights to the community fundraisers.
• Trader and annuals: the Baw Baw Shire and West Gippsland Trader weekly, and the Farm World and Dairy Expo annuals.

Coverage & Audience

The Warragul & Drouin Gazette is a paid weekly newspaper published every Tuesday, serving Warragul, Drouin, and the West Gippsland district — Yarragon, Trafalgar, Neerim South, Longwarry, Bunyip, and the surrounding towns — in print and digital formats through thegazette.com.au. The Tuesday rhythm is the week's civic heartbeat: the paper that sets the news agenda for the dairy capital, in print and online, every Tuesday without fail, from Queen Street, still the district's own. Its audience is the residents of West Gippsland — the dairy farmers, the townspeople of the twin towns, and the district's growing communities — who rely on the paper for the local public interest journalism that no other outlet provides at the same depth. In a district where the Gazette sets the news agenda without question, the Tuesday paper is the week's civic event: the shire's record, the district's forum, the community's mirror.

Ownership

The Warragul & Drouin Gazette is published by Warragul Regional Newspapers Pty Ltd — the proudly family-owned Warragul publisher, based at 97 Queen Street, Warragul. The company also publishes the Baw Baw Shire and West Gippsland Trader and the Farm World and Dairy Expo annuals, and is a member of the Victorian Country Press Association and Country Press Australia.

Digital Presence

The Warragul & Drouin Gazette is available in print and in digital format through thegazette.com.au — its official website, registered to Warragul Regional Newspapers — where readers can preview the week's edition. The site extends the Tuesday weekly's reach across West Gippsland and beyond, carrying the Gazette's local journalism online.

For West Gippsland, the Gazette remains what it has been since 1898: the region's oldest continuous news source — the paid weekly of the dairy capital, from Albert Harvey's eight-page West Gippsland Gazette to the family-owned Warragul Regional Newspapers of today, still setting the news agenda from Queen Street, Warragul, still the Tuesday paper the district reads first.