[4][5] The newspaper was supported by campaigning journalist Paul Foot and former Holborn and St Pancras MP Frank Dobson.

It carries significant influence locally, due to its high news content, investigations and large circulation.

[9] A campaign was launched that was backed by journalists at the Hornsey Journal and Islington Gazette and NUJ members in Nuneaton, Leamington Spa, Rugby, Haverfordwest, Ammanford and London's suburban papers.

[11][12] The paper launched with eight full time admin and editorial staff, and others contributing their services, including sub-editor and designer Renee Oldfield, formerly of the Enfield Gazette, and her husband Irving, retired chief press officer at the National Coal Board, competing against its long established competitors, the St Pancras Chronicle and the Hampstead and Highgate Express.

[8] Gordon gradually built on the tiny circulation of the former Camden Journal by combining the usual local paper fare of fetes, deaths and marriages with hard-edged campaigning news stories highlighting social inequity, particularly on issues of class and race.

The 'Not Just One Day' edition, edited by Anna Lamche, had articles written by regular journalists Frankie Lister-Fell, Izzy Rowley and Charlotte Chambers, in addition to contributions from notable women such as Hampstead and Kilburn MP Tulip Siddiq, Liberal Democrat politician Luisa Porritt, author Kathy Lette, Camden Council leader Georgia Gould, journalist Joan Bakewell, author Bonnie Greer, writer Joanna Briscoe and Green Party Co-leader Sian Berry AM.

[14] Current journalists at the Camden New Journal include Dan Carrier, Anna Lamche, Frankie Lister-Fell, Izzy Rowley, Charlotte Chambers, Steve Barnett and Tom Foot.

[citation needed] Former contributor Rose Hacker was believed to be the world's oldest columnist; her column ceased with her death in 2008 at the age of 101.

Gordon, who was Jewish, subsequently moved to Cheetham, north Manchester where he attended a secular school before being offered a place at Gateshead Yeshivah.

After spending three years of National Service in the pathology labs of the Royal Medical Corps, he worked on a series of local newspapers, including the Brighton Evening Argus and the Daily Herald.

The Chinese authorities found notes about the Cultural Revolution, on which he planned to write a book, while Gordon was working in a commune.

[7] The Camden New Journal's deputy editor, Richard Osley, wrote, "As editor of one of the last independent titles in the UK, he was proud of the newspaper's freedom from large groups and championed a co-op style structure, warning that papers would struggle to survive if they had to answer to faraway group executives or distant shareholders seeking dividends each year.

He proposed the idea of an outside body of trustees to represent the community and to ensure the newspaper followed, as faithfully as possible, the aims and principles that led to its birth in 1982.

The Extra was formed by former Camden New Journal editor, Eric Gordon, after seeing a gap in the market for a 'local, free to read and stubbornly independent' newspaper in the West End, and in 1994 the first stand-alone edition was launched.

The newspaper was free from dispensers across Covent Garden, Soho, Marylebone and Mayfair, as well as being sold at selected newsagents for 17p.