The Leader is Wagga's free weekly community newspaper. Published every Wednesday, it is distributed to residences in the city of Wagga Wagga. The paper, which was launched in May 1979, continues to be the main source of community news for Wagga's residents and is widely support by local business communities. In May 2004, it celebrated its 25th anniversary. The award-winning newspaper is one of the largest free weekly community newspapers in southern NSW. It is a member of the Country Press Association and has had considerable success in Country Press awards over the years, winning awards for photography, feature writing, headline writing and advertising.

The Henty newspaper, The Observer, was first published in 1906. It later changed its name to The Henty Observer and Culcairn Shire Register (at least by 1914) and was a twice weekly newspaper but soon changed to a once a week publication. In September 1947, the newspaper became the The Henty-Culcairn Observer, then simply The Observer in September 1950.
There was another name change in 1981 to The Eastern Riverina Observer. Following a merger with the Holbrook, Billabong and Upper Murray Chronicle, the newspaper became the Eastern Riverina Chronicle in 2003.

The entity that became Australian Community Media (ACM) began its existence as The Land in 1911. In subsequent decades, The Land acquired various other community newspapers and the resulting media company was renamed Rural Press Limited in 1981.

On 6 December 2006 it was announced that Rural Press Limited and John Fairfax Holdings would merge to form a new company estimated in value at $12 billion. The merger with Fairfax was completed on 8 May 2007. Papers from Rural Press were published under the Fairfax Regional Media brand, which later became Australian Community Media. Fairfax Media merged with Nine Entertainment in 2018 and Nine sold ACM to Catalano and Thorney in 2019.