Born in Dubbo in 1947 Mr Brown attended South Dubbo Public School and in 1960 he enrolled at Dubbo High School where he completed his intermediate certificate.

In 1963 he went to Newington College for two years before attending Sydney University in 1965, pursuing an arts degree.

With an education and some city living under his belt, the university graduate returned to his home town in 1969 as a reporter for the Daily Liberal.

"I began working thanks to John Armati, the proprietor of the Daily Liberal then, who gave me a job as a favour to my dad who was a fellow Rotarian and I fell in love with the job," he said.

"I stayed there until I was called up for national service, went in very reluctantly, and came back in July of '71 and did another six months and then resigned in order to finish my arts degree."

At the end of 1972 Mr Brown was employed by the Sydney Morning Herald where he remained until this year.

"I have always been very conscious of the Daily Liberal and periodically I've sent reports back including one story I got in the Middle East when I covered the Gulf War in 1991, and I sent back a story on a Mudgee girl who was caught up in the conflict over there."

Mr Brown said his time at the Daily Liberal was a wonderful foundation "to spring from''.

"It was great training and people tend to, in their ignorance, downgrade local papers, but in fact they are the same issues as are covered in metropolitan papers," he said.

"It's just on a smaller scale and the personalities and the issues are just as important for the local community."

Mr Brown said there would still be a prominent place for regional newspapers despite technology impacting the traditional format of newspapers.

"In the long run metropolitan newspapers will have been downgraded or put out of business by the technological revolution, I think it is the regional papers like the Daily Liberal that will continue."

"I just have a feeling the long- term future of the regional papers will remain, but I guess we will just have to wait and see."