Walsall Observer
{{Short description|Defunct British weekly newspaper}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}}
{{More citations needed|date=December 2009}}
The Walsall Observer was a weekly newspaper, published in Walsall in the West Midlands of England from 1868 to 2009.
History
Founded October 24, 1868British Museum Dept. of Printed Books Catalogue. Supplement: Newspapers published in Great Britain and Ireland..., 1905; p. 330 by brothers John and William Griffin 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.House of Commons. Parliamentary papers Volume 21; p. 416 By 1990 it had become a free newspaper.Benn Business Information Services. Benn's Media Directory, 1990 p. 190 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 charged, was reduced to a situation where "the paper largely regurgitates submitted material and press releases with little or no challenge.".House of Lords Select Committee on Communications. "The ownership of the news: Evidence, Volume 2" The Stationery Office, 2008; p. 106, 146 In 2009, owners Trinity Mirror closed it down along with several other Midlands weeklies.
Former reporters for the Observer include David Ennals, Baron Ennals; Steve Green; Jane Kelly; Ruth Elliott-Smith and Richard Tomkins.