The Standard has had 16 editors in its history: Henry Laurie (1872-1881), Henry Davis (1882-1892), Thomas Burden (1892-1905), Britton Harvey (1905-1919), Ernest Abbott Martin (1919-1942), A.G. Millett (1942- 1946), Bruce Bocaut Morris (1946-68), Ron Oakley (1968-80), Jim Clarke (1980-85), Richard Goodwin (1985-88), John Allin (1988-1990), managing editor Ted Cavey (1990-95), Ian Pech (1992-2000), Rick Bayne (2000-2007), Steve Kelly (2007-2015) and Greg Best has been editor since 2015.

Some of our former editors reflect on their time at the helm of The Standard:

Editor 1980-85, general manager 1988-91

Former member for Wannon and prime minister, the late Malcolm Fraser, noted The Standard reflected the pulse of the community.

Warrnambool was a vibrant city in the 1980s, with the building of a new art gallery and the performing arts centre, development of Gateway Plaza, the arrival of Deakin University and more.

And The Standard was an integral member of the community.

The newspaper delivered more than news. To some, particularly long-term residents, it helped bond the region in good times and bad.

There was no worse time than February 16, 1983 when winds and fire devastated the region, killing 10 people and thousands of stock.

As the maelstrom consumed farms, properties and bush, many readers phoned The Standard or came in seeking up-to-date information.

The Ash Wednesday fires developed quickly and all reporters and photographers were dispatched across the district.

An aircraft was chartered to obtain pictures and to gain a regional overview. The editorial team worked long into the night and deadlines were pushed out.

Even before the battle had been won, The Standard journalists started working in their own time to produce an Ash Wednesday special edition to assist victims.

Production workers joined the effort and advertising and administration staff provided snacks to sustain them.

Newsagents agreed to sell the special edition without taking a commission and the team's efforts raised $15,000 for local Ash Wednesday victims.

Judges of the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award said The Standard's coverage of the fires was outstanding and awarded the journalists a high commendation.

During this period The Standard also won two Walkley Awards, the highest awards in Australian journalism.

While coverage of the horrors of Ash Wednesday will forever be etched on my mind, the strongest lasting impression from my editorship is the versatility, skill and passion of The Standard journalists.

Acting editor 1980

Editor then managing editor 1990-95

When Melbourne's The Age, where I was a journalist, acquired The Standard in 1980 I was offered the editorship since the current editor was retiring.

Unfortunately, Melbourne commitments meant I had to decline but I agreed to stand in as acting editor until a permanent appointment could be made.

I didn't really know what to expect and was a little underwhelmed to find the outdated and inadequate equipment - primitive wind-up phones, an antique teleprinter etc.

I was even more taken aback when I asked main photographer Steve Hynes if he could get a picture of an international statesman out of The Standard's photo library because a world story was breaking.

Steve looked blankly at me.

"You mean you don't have a picture of this famous man in the photo library?" I asked him.

"No. I mean we don't have a photo library," Steve replied.

However, what I quickly found was what The Standard lacked in modern equipment, it more than made up for in newspaper professionalism and tenacious news gathering.

Journalists who were to become stalwarts - notably Peter Collins, Frank Beattie and Peter Fletcher - led a team of committed editorial staffers determined to bring out the best possible newspaper.

The result: a tightly-written, well sub-edited product featuring a mix of excellent news content and informative feature articles.

Photographers Hynes and Mark Wilson completed the coverage with vital visual images.

In fact, I was reluctant to leave when the time came.

But I was delighted the same high standard had been maintained (and the equipment modernised) when I returned as editor 10 years later.

And I am equally delighted that, despite the rugged competition newspapers now face, tradition has been valiantly pursued to this day.

Editor 1992-2000

Managing editor 2000-2006, general manager 2006-2009.

I think my time in management at The Standard came at the end of the golden years for newspapers.

I arrived as editor in 1992, aged 33, from The Adelaide Advertiser. At that time The Standard was owned by The Age and it placed a high priority on editorial strength, vigour and independence.

We had a superb team of reporters, photographers and subeditors, and I had great mentors and support in my role. I felt the newspaper was highly valued in the community.

Within two years The Standard reached its highest-yet daily circulation of 13,300. That was when the city's population was about 26,000, I think. Of course, many copies were sold throughout the region - not just Warrnambool. When I arrived at The Standard, the textile industry was still the city's major industry.

But the days were numbered for the Fletcher Jones factory and the woollen mill.

One of the difficult things to manage as editor was keeping a relationship with the management of both, as their businesses declined and many of our readers lost their jobs.

Another big story of the mid-'90s was the council amalgamations under the Kennett government that resulted in fewer, and much larger, local government bodies.

There was a lot of excitement when a $1 million reward was posted for anyone who could find the remains of the fabled mahogany ship.

We had many stories about new theories of its location and the interesting characters involved in the search.

The '90s were also a time of massive technological change in the newspaper business.

In 1992 the newspaper was still composed by the "cut and paste" method. Journalists were using computers to write stories, which were then output to photo-typesetters in long columns of text. Production staff would wax the photographic paper, cut it, and make up the pages.

If we wanted to use photographs of national or international events, we had to call The Age early in the evening. They would print pictures for us and put them on the evening train to Warrnambool.

In mid-1992 we leased a "gram" machine. It was like a high-definition fax machine and we could get pictures scanned and sent to us from The Age and Australian Associated Press. It was unreliable and the pictures weren't always high quality.

One of the main reasons we got it was so we could cover the Barcelona Olympic Games. For the opening ceremony we took a big gamble and set up the printing press to do a colour front page. To do colour, we had to get the picture sent through in four CMYK colour separations.

Neither the picture technology nor the press were really suited to printing full colour. Unfortunately our front page picture of fireworks at the opening ceremony turned out to be a purple and pink blob that was barely recognisable!

But things began to change quickly after that. We purchased our first computer pagination system in 1993 which allowed sub-editors to compose full pages on-screen, complete with text, headlines and photographs.

A couple of years later there was a big investment at the McMeekin Road press site which allowed more and better colour printing.

The combination advances in desktop publishing and improvements to the printing process allowed The Standard to produce more special magazines, tailored to reader and advertiser interests.

Then, in 1995, there also was a new thing called the internet. Standard.Net was set up as one of the first service providers for those in the region who wanted access to the World Wide Web.

Another massive change came about for the Sydney Olympic Games. Now a part of Fairfax Media, we invested in the first generation of digital cameras. A full set of camera gear cost $30,000.

Just after this I became general manager, and Rick Bayne took over as editor.

The highlights of eight years managing the business included purchase of The Moyne Gazette, and starting three weekly free newspapers in the region: The Warrnambool Extra, The Colac Extra and The Corangamite Extra.

Business was booming for newspapers and special magazines. Our press site was printing many small publications for Fairfax Media, including TV liftouts for the Newcastle and Wollongong newspapers in NSW.

All up, we had more than 130 people working in the Warrnambool business.

The newspaper's original Koroit Street offices were getting too small, so in 2007 we sold the building and moved to leased offices in Raglan Parade. Unfortunately, not too long after this the tide seemed to change.

The impact of free news and advertising online began to impact profitability. Present management and staff have done an outstanding job in ensuring The Standard has survived as a daily paper.

The best memories I have of 24 years at The Standard are of the wonderful, talented people I worked with. They are the ones who really gave the newspaper its character and made it a success.

Editor 2000-2007

It was always challenging and often exhilarating as you had to respond quickly as things happened.

As a local paper, we always focused on local news but in instances like the 9/11 attacks and 2004 tsunami, the biggest worldwide stories won out. Of course, we'd always look for local angles as follow-ups.

On the local front, personal stories resonated most with readers and me.

While the rise of social media has changed the status of The Standard, it's still an integral part of the community and I hope it has success for many years to come.

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