| Year | Date | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 1901 | 1 Jan | Federation of the Australian colonies |
| 1901 | 21 Dec | First issue of World News, weekly issued by Daily Telegraph, Sydney. |
| 1903 | Linotype machines installed at Sydney Morning Herald. | |
| 1903 | 5 April | First issue of Sunday Sun, Sydney |
| 1903 | 24 Oct | First issue of Border Morning Mail, Albury (daily) |
| 1907 | 11 March | Australian Star, Sydney, becomes the Star |
| 1908 | 22 April | First photographs in the Melbourne dailies, Age and Argus. |
| 1910 | 1 July | Sun, Sydney, launched by Hugh Denison; replaces Australian Star. |
| 1910 | 10 June | The North Queensland Newspaper Co. Limited is formed by the amalgamation of The Townsville Newspaper Co. Limited and The Northern Mining Printing and Publishing Co. Limited. Capital £48,000. |
| 1916 | 11 Oct | First issue of Northern Times, Newcastle; forerunner of Newcastle Sun |
| 1918 | 23 March | First issue of Newcastle Sun; news all over Page 1 |
| 1918 | 12 Oct | First issue of Labor News, Sydney |
| 1918 | Dec | Charles Brunsdon Fletcher appointed editor of Sydney Morning Herald |
| 1919 | 1 March | First issue of Smith’s Weekly, Sydney |
| Year | Date | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 1922 | 11 Sept | First issue of Sun News-Pictorial, Melbourne’s first new daily for 31 years; launched by Sydney-based Hugh Denison, publisher of that city’s Sun and modelled on London’s Daily Sketch and Daily Mirror. |
| 1923 | 4 April | Hugh Denison launches Evening Sun, Melbourne; it is coloured pink, is sensational and sets out to pick at little faults in the Herald. |
| 1923 | 2 July | Daily Guardian launched in Sydney after Smith’s Newspapers Ltd (publisher of Smith’s Weekly) was incorporated. |
| 1923 | 24 July | First issue of new Adeliade evening daily, the News. |
| 1924 | Jan | The Labour News, Sydney, becomes Labor Daily. |
| 1924 | Mar | Keith Murdoch becomes managing director of the Herald and Weekly Times Ltd. |
| 1924 | 30 May | First issue of the News, evening daily, Hobart; ceased 26 December 1925. |
| 1924 | 15 Sept | Ballarat Courier incorporates its older rival daily, the Ballarat Star. |
| 1924 | 31 Dec | Albury Daily News ceases; incorporated in Border Morning Mail from January 1925. |
| 1925 | Sept | Warwick Oswald Fairfax joins John Fairfax & Sons. |
| 1925 | 25 April | Denison closes Melbourne Evening Sun (lost between £200,000 and £300,000) and sells Sun News-Pictorial to Herald & Weekly Times. |
| 1925 | 29 Oct | First issue of Morning Star, Melbourne, daily issued by Victorian Farmers Union; sold at one penny a copy, one-third cheaper than the other dailies. Ceased two years later – with circulation that never exceeded 50,000 – when sold for £31,000 to Pictorial Newspapers Pty Ltd, registered publisher of Sun News-Pictorial. The Farmers Union lost 12s in the £. |
| 1926 | Sept | Murdoch leads Melbourne syndicate to buy Perth West Australian and issues shares to locals to appease concern about interstate control. |
| 1926 | 3 Sept | The Shakespeare family, with Thomas Mitchell Shakespeare at its head, launches the Canberra Times as a weekly (eight months before the “temporary” Parliament House is opened in Canberra); paper’s motto: “To serve the National City and through it the Nation.” |
| 1927 | 3 May | Canberra Times becomes a bi-weekly. |
| 1927 | Ailing Morning Star sold to HWT subsidiary. | |
| 1928 | 20 Feb | Canberra Times becomes a daily. |
| 1928 | Murdoch-led syndicate buys South Australia’s oldest, sickest paper, the Adelaide Register, tarts it up, cuts cover price and pressures long-time owner of successful Adelaide Advertiser, Sir Langdon Bonython, to sell for £1 million; Register closed 1931. | |
| 1928 | 18 July | Death of Sir James Oswald Fairfax (1863-1928), Partner John Fairfax & Sons, 1889-1916; director, John Fairfax & Sons Ltd, 1916-28. |
| 1929 | 29 Sept | Sunday Guardian, Sydney, launched. |
| 1929 | 1 Oct | Sun Newspapers Ltd amalgamates with Samuel Bennett Ltd (flagship: Evening News) to form Associated Newspapers Ltd. |
| 1930 | 27 March | Death of G.E. Fairfax, a Fairfax director, 1916-20; Warwick Fairfax appointed managing director of John Fairfax and Sons Ltd. Holds this position, then chairmanship (with two-month break in 1961) for 47 years. |
| 1930 | The owners of the Adelaide News need the Herald & Weekly Times to save them during the Depression and Keith Murdoch extracts control of the News as the price. | |
| 1930 | Jan | Associated Newspapers Ltd acquires Daily and Sunday Guardians, Sydney. |
| Year | Date | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 1931 | 20 Feb | Final issue of Young Daily Witness, New South Wales; Young Witness continues. |
| 1931 | 11 March | Birth of Rupert Keith Murdoch, only son of Keith Murdoch. |
| 1931 | 31 March | Final issue of Evening News, Sydney |
| 1931 | 27 Sep | Final issue of Sunday Guardian, Sydney; absorbed into Sunday Sun from 4 October. |
| 1933 | 3 June | Keith Murdoch knighted on recommendation of Lyons Government. |
| 1933 | 10 June | Frank Packer launches Australian Women’s Weekly. |
| 1933 | 28 Aug | Merger of Brisbane Courier and Daily Mail to form the Courier-Mail. |
| 1934 | 12 April | Death of Robert Clyde Packer, father of Frank Packer. |
| 1935 | 1 July | Australian Associated Press established. |
| 1936 | March | Frank Packer buys and rejuvenates Daily Telegraph. |
| 1936 | April | Melbourne Star closes, again leaving the city with no direct afternoon competitor to the Herald. |
| 1937 | 30 Sept | First issue of Illawarra Star, Port Kembla, NSW; bi-weekly (Mon./Thurs. afternoons). Later became a daily. |
| 1938 | Australian Newsprint Mills established by eight major newspaper publishers; biggest interests held by Herald 7 Weekly Times and Fairfax. First paper produced February 1941. | |
| 1939 | 19 Nov | First issue of Sunday Telegraph, Sydney. |
| 1940 | 13 Jan | Final issue of Sydney Morning Herald evening edition, for country readers. |
| 1940 | 13 April | Final issue of Evening Star, a Townsville daily. |
| 1940 | 1 July | Wartime newsprint rationing comes into effect. |
| Year | Date | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 1941 | 27 Feb | National Security Act passed; controls newspaper production and importation of newsprint. |
| 1941 | 12 May | Daily Mirror established as Sydney afternoon newspaper after several changes of heart on the part of the Government (because of newsprint rationing). |
| 1941 | 31 July | Final issue of Evening News, a Rockhampton daily. |
| 1941 | 20 Oct | Sydney Morning Herald adopts new page size. |
| 1941 | 26 Oct | First issue of Army News, Darwin; weekly; daily after bombing of Darwin, 19 February 1942; ceased 1 January 1946. |
| 1942 | Oct | Formation of Newsprint Pool. |
| 1942 | 15 April | Sir Keith Murdoch becomes chairman of the Herald & Weekly Times Ltd. |
| 1944 | Sydney Morning Herald makes Page 1 its main news page. | |
| 1944 | April | Climax of intense dispute between Chief Censor, Garnet Bonney (backed by Arthur Calwell, Information Minister) and all Sydney newspapers proprietors. Papers defy censor; police stop deliveries, resulting in famous picture of policeman pointing revolver at newspaper delivery truck driver; resulting political compromise leads to defeat for Calwell; sharpens his hatred of press owners. |
| 1944 | 9-20 Oct | Sydney newspaper strike and composite newspaper publication. |
| 1945 | April | Government grants publishers a 45 per cent increase in the base year consumption of newsprint. |
| 1945 | 7 Aug | Sydney Daily Telegraph publishes special edition about dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. |
| 1945 | Prime Minister Curtin dies (July); and World War II ends in Europe (May) and the Pacific (August) | |
| 1945 | 1 Oct | First issue of Central Western Daily, Orange, NSW; results from amalgamation of two tri-weeklies, Orange Leader and Western Advocate, Orange. |
| 1946 | 8 Feb | “Town Talk”, the first regular front-page column to appear in an Australian newspaper, makes debut in Sydney Daily Telegraph; David McNicoll was the columnist. |
| 1946 | Sept | Sydney Sunday papers raise cover price from threepence to fourpence because of newsprint shortage. |
| 1946 | Consolidated Press establishes a studio at its offices so its journalists could provide Radio 2UW with a 24-hour news service. | |
| 1947 | 17 Nov | Sun, Sydney, changes from broadsheet to tabloid format. |
| 1948 | 23 Aug | Fairfax launches fortnightly Home |
| 1949 | 23 Jan | Fairfax launches Sunday Herald |
| 1949 | Sir Keith Murdoch personally controls Adelaide News having convinced the HWT boards to sell its stake to him in return for first option on his holding in Brisbane’s Courier-Mail. British Mirror Group buys Melbourne Argus after failed negotiations in which Prime Minister Chifley had an unofficial hand | |
| 1949 | 3 Oct | Lithgow Mercury, NSW, becomes a daily |
| 1949 | 10 Dec | West Australian is last metropolitan daily newspaper to make Page 1 its main news page. |
| 1949 | Dec | Chifley Labor Government voted out of office; Menzies begins what becomes a 17-year reign as Prime Minister. |
| 1950 | 9 Jan | Wollongong’s Illawarra Mercury becomes a daily. |
| 1950 | 29 Sept | Merger of Home and Woman’s Day magazines to form Woman’s Day and Home. |
Updated 25 January 2012
