From being a news publisher with a similar name, Country Press Australia president Andrew Schreyer has found East Melburnian publisher Gazette News has landed in the territory in which the West Gippsland Gazette launched in 1898.

Since last November, when the East Melburnian arrived in Manningham, Maroondah, Whitehorse, Monash and Knox with the promise of more titles to come, founder and chief executive Anna Saulwick’s Gazette company (no connection) has launched the Gippsland Monitor and the West Vic Brolga in Victoria, plus the North Shore Lorikeet and the Mid North Coaster in New South Wales.

And as she did when GXpress reported the “soft launch” in November 2024, Saulwick – a self-professed change agent who spent almost five years with Change.org in San Francisco – promises there are “more titles coming soon”.

Schreyer, whose step-grandfather bought the now print-and-digital West Gippsland Gazette in 1951, has issued a statement claiming that three major funders of the Gazette News sites had also donated more than $1.7 million to environmental lobby group Climate 200 and associated candidates, according to Australian Electoral Commission disclosures.

Through the Country Press Association, he has supported Liberal-National Coalition calls for the AEC to “review” a number of online publications said to be funded by Climate 200 supporters.

He said there was “a new threat where fake ‘news’ sites can become a loophole for political advertising donations to be redirected to fund ‘journalism’ that mainly produces political propaganda”.

In addition to its five localised websites and social media via TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, the Gazette News company publishes a “private newsletter”, ‘The National Account’ which promises “fair, independent reporting and common sense news”, but to which only subscribers have access.

Australia was to have moved into federal election mode last Sunday, but for the intervention of the emergency caused by Tropical Cyclone Alfred on the east coast; it needs to be held on or before May 17.

Peter Coleman

Pictured (top) the Gazette company’s sparsely-populated Gippsland Monitor website, and its branded Gazette home page; and (below) the print and digital West Gippsland Gazette offerings