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 continuousl ...

'' 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, Co ...

in 1950, and grew up in the eastern

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

suburb of

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, England, around south-west of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The nam ...

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 school, independent Anglican Church of Australia, Anglican Mixed-sex education, coeducational Primary school, primary and Secondary school, se ...

. He initially studied geology at the

University of Western Australia University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Crawley, Western Australia, Crawley, a suburb in the City of Perth local government area. UW ...

, 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 Fremantle () () is a port city in Western Australia located at the mouth of the Swan River (Western Australia), Swan River in the metropolitan area of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth. The Western Australi ...

Kalgoorlie Kalgoorlie-Boulder (or just Kalgoorlie) is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder as the surroundi ...

, Perth,

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

and

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

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 6PR Perth, 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 ...

, 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 Beck David Hansen (born Bek David Campbell; July 8, 1970), known mononymously as Beck, is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He rose to fame in the early 1990s with his experimental and lo-fi style, and became known ...

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