The Walsall Observer was a weekly newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

, published in Walsall

Walsall

Walsall is a large industrial town in the West Midlands of England. It is located northwest of Birmingham and east of Wolverhampton. Historically a part of Staffordshire, Walsall is a component area of the West Midlands conurbation and part of the Black Country.Walsall is the administrative...

 in the West Midlands

West Midlands (county)

The West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a 2009 estimated population of 2,638,700. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, formed from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The...

 of England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 from 1868 to 2009.

History

Founded October 24, 1868 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. By 1990 it had become a free newspaper.. 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

National Union of Journalists

The National Union of Journalists is a trade union for journalists in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It was founded in 1907 and has 38,000 members. It is a member of the International Federation of Journalists .-Structure:...

 charged, was reduced to a situation where "the paper largely regurgitates submitted material and press releases with little or no challenge.". In 2009, owners Trinity Mirror

Trinity Mirror

Trinity Mirror plc is a large British newspaper and magazine publisher. It is Britain's biggest newspaper group, publishing 240 regional papers as well as the national Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and People, and the Scottish Sunday Mail and Daily Record. Its headquarters are at Canary Wharf in...

 closed it down along with several other Midlands

English Midlands

The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...

 weeklies.

Former reporters for the Observer include David Ennals, Baron Ennals

David Ennals, Baron Ennals

David Hedley Ennals, Baron Ennals PC was a British Labour Party politician and campaigner for human rights...

; Steve Green

Steve Green (journalist)

Steve Green is a former newspaper reporter turned freelance journalist, who has also written short fiction and poetry...

; Jane Kelly

Jane Kelly

Jane Kelly is a journalist and artist, affiliated with the Stuckist art group. She was dismissed from the Daily Mail after exhibiting a painting of Myra Hindley.-Life and work:...

; and Richard Tomkins

Richard Tomkins

Richard Tomkins is chief feature writer of the Financial Times, a position he has held since 2006. Previously he worked as a columnist writing on consumer culture, as consumer industries editor and as a correspondent in the newspaper's New York bureau, among other positions.In 2003 he was named...

.