{{Short description|Defunct British weekly newspaper}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}} {{More citations needed|date=December 2009}} The '''''Walsall Observer''''' was a weekly newspaper, published in Walsall in the West Midlands of England from 1868 to 2009.
== History == Founded October 24, 1868<ref>British Museum Dept. of Printed Books ''Catalogue. Supplement: Newspapers published in Great Britain and Ireland...'', 1905; p. 330</ref> 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''.<ref>House of Commons. ''Parliamentary papers'' Volume 21; p. 416</ref> By 1990 it had become a free newspaper.<ref>Benn Business Information Services. ''Benn's Media Directory, 1990'' p. 190</ref> 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 charged, was reduced to a situation where "the paper largely regurgitates submitted material and press releases with little or no challenge.".<ref>House of Lords Select Committee on Communications. "The ownership of the news: Evidence, Volume 2" The Stationery Office, 2008; p. 106, 146</ref> In 2009, owners Trinity Mirror closed it down along with several other Midlands weeklies.
Former reporters for the ''Observer'' include David Ennals, Baron Ennals; Steve Green; Jane Kelly; Ruth Elliott-Smith and Richard Tomkins.
== References == {{reflist}}
Category:Newspapers established in 1868 Category:Newspapers disestablished in 2009 Category:Culture in the West Midlands (region) Category:1868 establishments in England Category:2009 disestablishments in England
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