Sitting down with a newspaper and a cup of coffee was once a daily ritual for Australians. 

Local community newspapers weren't just for news, they were a means to keep up with local events, obituaries and the local TV guide.

In Mount Isa, in north-west Queensland, there hasn't been a printed local newspaper for two years. 

The North West Star, owned by Australian Community Media, was founded in 1966 and published daily. 

In 2015, the paper transitioned to publishing triweekly, but it halted physical publication in April 2020. 

Now in an age where newspapers are thought to be a dying medium, a new player is on the scene. 

Matt Nicholls, who began editing and publishing Cape York Weekly two years ago, has announced he'll soon be publishing a free, weekly publication focused on Queensland's north-west. 

"The north-west needs a newspaper. There's been a real gap in the market; the online is great, but it's not for everyone. And there's things you can do in print that you can't do online," Mr Nicholls said. 

"TV guides, puzzles, comics, more photos; there's a real art form to a newspaper," he said. 

Mr Nicholls, 35, has been a journalist working for various commercial publications for the past 14 years but cut his teeth as a young print reporter in Mount Isa when he was 21. 

After spending the last eight years in Queensland's Cape York, he has returned to the north-west to get his second newspaper off the ground and onto newsagency shelves.  

"It's been heartbreaking to hear the stories of the newsagencies," Mr Nicholls said. 

"I travelled through places like Hughenden, Richmond, Julia Creek and Cloncurry, talking to newsagencies along the way. They've been absolutely torn to shreds by the rising freight costs of getting newspapers to their stores." 

He said he's confident the north-west publication would be sustainable. 

"I'm not reinventing the wheel," he said. 

"Free newspapers exist in other parts of Australia." 

"You really do need advertising support [but] we're not going to have a big fancy office. We're going to have people working from home." 

"I'm hoping to get at least one full-time person and some part-time people. It will depend on revenue and support." 

Newsagency support 

Last September, residents across north-west Queensland were bitterly disappointed when the few remaining printed national and state mastheads halted their delivery to the region.

News Corp stopped distribution of eight of its mastheads, including the Courier Mail and Daily Telegraph, to parts of regional Queensland. 

Mount Isa newsagent Peta McRae recounted that for residents of the aged care home a few hundred metres away from her business, fetching the Courier Mail and enjoying a coffee in the sun with other residents was a morning ritual. 

Sometimes, it was their only form of social interaction for the day. 

"Quite often we hear, 'Why didn't we know about this?' Nobody told us.' So, there's really been a loss of the medium to get important messages out to the community," Ms McRae said.  

Neil Warner operates Julia Creek's newsagency, 250 kilometres east of Mount Isa. 

The outback town has a population of 549 people and residents have expressed to Mr Warner that they've missed out on notifications of local events and obituaries without a physical newspaper. 

"You can get information about what's going on in Ukraine or the Prime Minister tripping around the world, but people aren't getting local news about what's happening in north-west Queensland," Mr Warner said. 

"It's very rarely we get a mention in any of the papers. Unless it's sensationalism of some description," he said. 

Mr Warner said that many of his customers don't use the internet and can't access news online. 

"People my generation, they're really not into looking at social media, especially for news." 

Some 260 kilometres east along the Flinders Highway, Rosie Sealy from Hughenden News & Gifts agrees with Mr Warner that there remains a portion of the population that want a newspaper in their hands, rather than online. 

"Every day, multiple times a day, you're explaining that we just don't get them anymore," Ms Sealy said. 

"In these small communities there's always something happening, so to see the content of local events and photos, it just keeps everyone in touch." 

For the community

Mr Nicholls said the first edition of the North West Weekly is due to be published July 28. 

"People will pick up that newspaper every single week and have real community pride," he said. 

"The north-west is a great place to live, and we need to be shouting that from the rooftops."