June 1994.

Most great ideas begin the same way…within a thought bubble: in the case of your local newspaper – with a cold beer, a colder winter’s day, and someone saying something they probably shouldn’t have.

Picture this. A small pub in Central West NSW. Outside, the wind is doing its best to freeze nostrils shut. Inside, a group of hardy souls are thawing out over beers when a question is casually lobbed into the room:

“Is there anyone here silly enough to move to a warm climate and start a community newspaper in a town called Yamba?”

There was a pause. A long one. Then, from the back of the room, a voice piped up:

“Why not? Has to be better than putting up with this weather.”

And just like that—seed planted, sanity questioned, future forever changed.

The idea wasn’t entirely random. A phone call had come from an old friend of the proprietor of the Oberon Review, asking how one might go about starting a newspaper. Since the Oberon Review itself had been built from scratch, he seemed the logical person to ask. Advice, however, was clearly overrated.

“Why don’t we just start the paper ourselves?” came the response—possibly followed by a long stare into the middle distance and thoughts best left unspoken.

Nice thought. Terrible timing. But from that moment on, a local paper for Yamba was inevitable.

After a 900-kilometre drive from south to north (and several “are we mad?” moments), the homework was done, the plan emerged, and the Lower Clarence Review began to take shape. Premises were secured. A computer—state of the art at the time—was fired up. A typist was hired. And off they went, gathering local news for the very first edition.

The start-up phase could only be described as character-building. The hours were long. Convincing locals that this newspaper thing might actually work was longer. Distribution across the valley was a logistical nightmare that still gives people twitchy eyes to this day. But on they pushed.

Back in Oberon, the “mother office” kept the home fires burning, supporting the Yamba venture as best it could while everyone involved learned new meanings of the words “exhausted” and “committed.”

The year was 1994. The brave souls involved included John Warden (proprietor of the Oberon Review), Melissa Lutton (staff member and future legend), with help from Martin (Melissa’s fiancé), and local recruits Margaret Wall (typist), Jonathon Smith (journalist), Shannon Sullivan and Josephine (sales reps).

Once the wheels were in motion, nothing was stopping the juggernaut. The paper was gathered and set in Yamba, laid out in Oberon by Sue Hawken, Maureen Lawson and Ann Mazzitelli (who now runs the CVI and is a partner), artwork flown to Port Macquarie overnight, corrected, printed, returned to Yamba, then inserted and delivered by dozens of families throughout the valley.

All of this happened before today’s technology made everything instant. In fact, we were among the first to compile a newspaper on a desktop PC—cutting edge, slightly terrifying, and occasionally held together by hope.

A day in the life of a newspaper is something most readers never see. To make it truly community-owned, locals were encouraged to contribute stories, photos and news. That sense of ownership became the heart of the paper.

Thirty years on, the CVI is still going strong—delivering local news, supporting advertisers, employing hundreds of people over the years, and creating countless success stories. From kids delivering papers with their parents to staff who grew into business owners themselves, the memories are many.

One owner, Melissa Lutton, even took the paper global—laying it out from Rio, New York, London, Morocco and beyond while travelling the world on what can only be described as heroic budgeting. For a year, your local paper was produced in Rio de Janeiro—well before the internet made that sort of thing sensible.

To tell the full story would take a book. But the heart of it is simple: every town deserves its own newspaper and its own voice.

And it all started with a cold beer, a colder day, and someone brave—or foolish—enough to say, “Why not?”

This article appeared in the Clarence Valley Independent, 14 January 2026.