On our 60th birthday, a thank you to our subscribers

We began our newspaper with the aim of serving the thinking women and men of Australia. Today we renew our invitation for readers to join us in our company of progress.

Inside the first issue of The Australian, published 60 years ago today, was news reporting and deep analysis of the 1964 presidential election campaign, right next to an editorial about how Australia needed to find its way as a grown-up nation.

How the paper began that day, examining the world but thinking deeply about the idea of Australia, is how this masthead has continued and how it will look to the future. For our purpose has not wavered: we commit to bringing our readers truth and information with vigour and impartiality. But we also are prepared to look further, to discuss the shape of our nation, to interrogate our leaders’ aims, to uphold values that serve the best interests of our community.

We are a national masthead that began as a disrupter, shaking up the parochial local media by providing an outward-looking perspective that had our country’s interests at heart.

Today The Australian is a different kind of disrupter. When social media falsifies the news, we provide a trusted source of truth. When spin takes over the political cycle, we offer alternative points of view. If it takes courage to counter the accepted line, we will be brave.

We began our newspaper with the aim of serving the thinking women and men of Australia, those who would have a profound influence on the future.

Today we renew our invitation for readers to join us in our company of progress.