The ''Walsall Observer'' was a weekly
newspaper
A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as p ...
, published in
Walsall
Walsall (, or ; locally ) is a market town and administrative centre in the West Midlands County, England. Historically part of Staffordshire, it is located north-west of Birmingham, east of Wolverhampton and from Lichfield.
Walsall is th ...
in the
West Midlands
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
of
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
from 1868 to 2009.
History
Founded October 24, 1868 by brothers John and William Griffin as ''The Walsall Observer, and General District Advertiser'', it became a regional weekly. By 1962, as the ''Walsall Observer and South Staffordshire Chronicle'', it was the only surviving paper in Walsall, having absorbed such competitors as the ''Walsall Advertiser''. By 1990 it had become a
free newspaper. By 2006, it had gone from nine journalists on staff twenty-five years earlier (i.e., circa 1981) to one senior, one trainee, and an editor shared with two other weekly papers; and, the
National Union of Journalists
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) is a trade union for journalists in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was founded in 1907 and has 38,000 members. It is a member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
Structure
There is ...
charged, was reduced to a situation where "the paper largely regurgitates submitted material and press releases with little or no challenge.".
[House of Lords Select Committee on Communications. "The ownership of the news: Evidence, Volume 2" The Stationery Office, 2008; p. 106, 146] In 2009, owners
Trinity Mirror closed it down along with several other
Midlands weeklies.
Former reporters for the ''Observer'' include
David Ennals, Baron Ennals
David Hedley Ennals, Baron Ennals, (19 August 1922 – 17 June 1995) was a British Labour Party politician and campaigner for human rights. He served as Secretary of State for Social Services from 1976 to 1979.
Early life and military career
...
;
Steve Green;
Jane Kelly; and
Richard Tomkins.
References
Publications established in 1868
Publications disestablished in 2009
Culture in the West Midlands (region)
{{UK-newspaper-stub