Worrall Community Newspapers, Inc.
Walter Worrall began climbing the newspaper business ladder in 1947, working as a printer, ad salesman and publisher. In 1968 Worrall purchased the News-Record of Maplewood and South Orange, from Gregory Hewlitt. Before purchasing the News-Record, Worrall worked 10 years as a compositor and eight years as sales and business manager with The Citizen of Morris County. In 1971, Worrall purchased the West Orange Chronicle, East Orange Record and Orange Transcript from Charles Moreau.
Worrall enlarged the holdings of his publication company by purchasing Moreaus original two newspapers, The Independent Press of Bloomfield and The Glen Ridge Paper in 1977. The company grew again in 1982 when the Nutley Journal and Belleville Post debuted and nine newspapers from Essex and Union County were added to the fold including the Irvington Herald, Vailsburg Leader, Union Leader, Springfield Leader, Mountainside Echo, Kenilworth Leader, Roselle Park Leader, Linden Leader and the Roselle Spectator.
Walter Worrall now retired but the family legacy lives on. His children, David, Nancy, Raymond and Peter, run the business. In the 1980s, his sons, David and Raymond, became publishers of the newspapers in Essex and Union counties, respectively.
The newspaper companies were merged and became known as Worrall Community Newspapers. In the 1990s, after a restructuring of the company, saw David being named as Publisher of the entire operation. Raymond is Vice-President of Operations, Nancy is Business Manager and Peter is Systems Manager. Each of the siblings have learned about the workings of the newspapers by working in almost every capacity with the family business; from selling advertisements, reporting and even delivering the newspapers.
Worrall Community Newspapers continued to grow in the 1990s with the birth of the Hillside Leader, Clark Eagle and Rahway Progress in 1990, and the birth of two more newspapers in 1994 in Elizabeth and Summit in Union county as well as keeping up with ever growing and changing technology. In 1998, Worrall Community Newspapers merged several newspapers, before adding a Cranford Edition of the The Eagle in 1999.
In June 2008 the company joined the four Union County newspapers into a brand new weekly newspaper named Union County LocalSource. Currently Worrall Community Newspapers serves 24 communities with its newspaper editions and their websites http://essexnewsdaily.com and http://UnionNewsDaily.