TODAY’S edition marks a milestone for your free local newspaper.
It celebrates our two-year anniversary and the 100th edition of this paper.
The man behind the paper is publisher David Johnston and it’s important also to mention his grandmother. I say that because it was an elder lady in Ipswich who voiced here sadness with missing the QT and feeling like she had lost contact with her community.
In that moment, David likened that elder lady to his grandmother and the sadness associated with feeling disconnected to the community. This gave David the inspiration to start creating and printing the Local Ipswich News.
The success of his “Ipswich Local” monthly magazine started just 6 months before this weekly paper also gave him the confidence to invest in a quality local free weekly.
“My Grandma always kind-hearted lovely lady who would have done anything she could for the people in her life,” David said.
“I saw that Ipswich had a passion for local papers and I heard numerous times from residents about the demise of not just the Queensland Times, but also the free Ipswich Advertiser so I rolled up my sleeves and said, ‘let’s do it’.”
It takes courage and deep pockets to launch a newspaper, and many have tried and failed throughout Queensland in the past few years.
Local Ipswich News has survived and grown stronger because local businesses also believe in the value of a paper that supports and informs the community.
A paper that is prepared to take a stand and to question the validity of the tidal wave of press releases that arrive in the editor’s e-mail box every day. While advertisers allow us to pay the weekly bills and to keep the press rolling, without you the reader we would fail.
We thank you for your support, you may not always agree with a particular story or viewpoints in this column, but I hope it at least makes you stop and think about what is happening in this community.
In just over a year’s time, you will be asked to vote in another council. At least you know while you have Local Ipswich News you have a paper that will give you the facts so you can make the right decisions about who is the best person to vote for.
Thanks also to our great contributors John Wilson, Glen Smith, David Reid, David Martin and Sloan Wilkins for their excellent columns which are always thoughtfully written. Our small production team of Paul Stuart and Dan Mulley are also dedicated to producing a great paper.
Our vision when I joined the paper midway through last year was to take this from a “good read to a must I hope for you it has now become just that.
