Paul Murray is a former working journalist and later editor ofThe West Australian 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.[1]
Murray was born inMount Lawley in 1950, and grew up in the easternPerth suburb ofGuildford in theSwan Valley. His father, Keith Murray, was a journalist atThe West Australian for a decade from 1948[2] and his older brother Kim was a reporter at theDaily News. He attended Guildford Primary School and thenGuildford Grammar School.[3] He initially studied geology at theUniversity of Western Australia, then worked as a mine geologist in Kalgoorlie before changing career.[3][4]
He took a cadetship atThe West Australian in 1970 and through the 1970s worked variously from itsFremantle,Kalgoorlie, Perth,Sydney andMelbourne offices. He worked at theWestern Mail from 1981, before returning toThe 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 quitThe West ten years later to become a morning talk-back announcer on Perth commercial radio station,6PR, before leaving in 2006 over a contract-renewal disagreement (he rejoined in 2011).[5] In 2006 he returned toThe West Australian as a columnist and feature writer.[3]
During his tenure as editor ofThe 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.[3] 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, theUniversity of Western Australia'sLovekin Prize in 1985, and theDaily News Centenary Prize in 1986, as well as theBeck Prize for political journalism in 1986.[3]
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