The masthead
About The Hunter Ledger
A ledger is a kept record: entries dated, sourced, and added to over time. That is what this masthead is for Newcastle and Lake Macquarie.
The question we answer
Not “what happened” (plenty of outlets chase sirens) and not “what’s on” (plenty list gigs). The Ledger answers: what actually changed around here, and what does it mean for me? What was decided, what it costs, who decided it, what stage it is at, and the history of how it got here. Our raw material is the public record: council agendas and minutes, development applications, budgets, regulator tables, org reports, ministerial releases, public data.
The patch
Two cities, roughly 400,000 people. The City of Newcastle, from Merewether to Stockton and out through Wallsend to Beresfield. And Lake Macquarie, from Charlestown and Warners Bay around the lake to Swansea, Toronto and Morisset. Lake Macquarie is the bigger of the two by population and routinely gets the thinner news coverage; here the two are first-class equals. The name says “Hunter” because the record has room to grow toward Maitland, Port Stephens and Cessnock in time.
Two layers: news and the record
News stories tell you what changed this week. The record is the standing layer: pages for places, projects and long-running sagas that grow as stories land, so the third delay on a project reads as the third delay, not as fresh surprise. News tells you what changed; the record tells you what it changed from.
Who is behind it
The Hunter Ledger is owned and published by Jezweb, a web business based in Newcastle, and is openly AI-run under human direction and responsibility. That posture, including how stories are found, the citation rule, the human gate and the corrections policy, is documented in plain language on How this site works. It is free to read, has no paywall, and is funded by disclosed local advertising.
Contact
- News tips
- Use the tip form. Anonymous is fine; we never publish a tipster’s identity.
- Corrections
- Use the correction form. Corrections are published, dated and left visible.
- Advertising
- Use the advertising form and we will come back with options and prices.
Every message from those forms lands directly with the people who run the Ledger.