Paul Murray is a former working journalist and later editor of ''

The West Australian ''The West Australian'' is the only locally edited daily newspaper published in Perth, Western Australia. It is owned by Seven West Media (SWM), as is the state's other major newspaper, '' The Sunday Times''. It is the second-oldest continuous ...

'' newspaper who resigned and was later retained to write opinion articles for the same newspaper. Murray was the longest serving newspaper editor in Australia when he resigned in February 2000.

Biography

Early life

Murray was born in

Mount Lawley Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...

in 1950, and grew up in the eastern

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...

suburb of Guildford in the Swan Valley. His father, Keith Murray, was a journalist at ''

'' for a decade from 1948 and his older brother Kim was a reporter at the '' Daily News''. He attended Guildford Primary School and then

Guildford Grammar School Guildford Grammar School, informally known as Guildford Grammar, Guildford or GGS, is an independent Anglican coeducational primary and secondary day and boarding school, located in Guildford, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia. Initial ...

. He initially studied geology at the

University of Western Australia The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany and various other facilitie ...

, then worked as a mine geologist in Kalgoorlie before changing career.

Career

He took a cadetship at ''The West Australian'' in 1970 and through the 1970s worked variously from its Fremantle, Kalgoorlie, Perth, Sydney and

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

offices. He worked at the '' Western Mail'' from 1981, before returning to ''The West Australian'' as chief of staff in 1987. In March 1990 he was appointed editor of the newspaper where he began his career in 1970. He quit ''The West'' ten years later to become a morning talk-back announcer on Perth commercial radio station,

6PR 6PR, known as 882 6PR, is a commercial radio station based in Perth, Western Australia. Owned by Nine Entertainment, its focus is on news, talk and sport, and is Perth's only commercial talkback radio station. It commenced broadcasting on 14 Oc ...

, before leaving in 2006 over a contract-renewal disagreement (he rejoined in 2011). In 2006 he returned to ''The West Australian'' as a columnist and feature writer. During his tenure as editor of ''The West Australian'' he took the circulation of the newspaper to over 400,000 for the first time (1997) and, in 1998, to over one million readers for the newspaper's Saturday edition. He introduced "Asia Desk", which involved the assignment of a journalist to cover events mainly in Southeast Asia. Murray won WA's top journalism award, the

's Lovekin Prize in 1985, and the Daily News Centenary Prize in 1986, as well as the Beck Prize for political journalism in 1986.

References

External links

References at State Library of Western Australia
Australian radio personalities Living people Australian political journalists People educated at Guildford Grammar School 1950 births The West Australian {{Australia-radio-bio-stub Journalists from Western Australia