Paul Murray is a former working journalist and later editor of The 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]
He took a cadetship at The West Australian in 1970 and through the 1970s worked variously from its Fremantle, Kalgoorlie, Perth, Sydney and Melbourne 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, before leaving in 2006 over a contract-renewal disagreement (he rejoined in 2011).[5] In 2006 he returned to The West Australian as a columnist and feature writer.[3]
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.[3] He introduced "Asia Desk", which involved the assignment of a journalist to cover events mainly in Southeast Asia.
