The New Zealand Herald

For the officer of arms, see New Zealand Herald Extraordinary.
The New Zealand Herald
Type Daily newspaper
Format Compact (weekdays)
Broadsheet (Saturdays)
Owner(s) NZME.
Editor Shayne Currie
Founded 1863
Political alignment Centre, Centre-right
Headquarters Auckland, New Zealand
Circulation 162,181 (December 2012)[1]
583,000 readership
(December 2008)[2]
ISSN 1170-0777
Website nzherald.co.nz
Front cover of the Auckland edition, Friday 2 June 2006.

The New Zealand Herald is a daily newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand, owned by New Zealand Media and Entertainment. It has the largest newspaper circulation of any in the country, peaking at over 200,000 copies in 2006, although numbers had declined to 162,181 by December 2012.[1] Its main circulation area is the Auckland region. It is also delivered to much of the north of the North Island including Northland, Waikato and King Country.[3]

History

The New Zealand Herald was founded by William Chisholm Wilson, and first published on 13 November 1863. Wilson had been a partner with John Williamson in the New Zealander, but left to start a rival daily newspaper as he saw a business opportunity with Auckland’s rapidly growing population.[4] He had also split with Williamson because Wilson supported the war against the Māori (which the Herald termed "the native rebellion") while Williamson opposed it.[5][6] The Herald also promoted a more constructive relationship between the North and South Islands.[5]

After the New Zealander closed in 1866 The Daily Southern Cross provided competition, particularly after Julius Vogel took a majority shareholding in 1868. The Daily Southern Cross was first published in 1843 by William Brown as The Southern Cross and had been a daily since 1862.[7] Vogel sold out of the paper in 1873 and Alfred Horton bought it in 1876.[8]

In 1876 the Wilson family and Horton joined in partnership and The New Zealand Herald absorbed The Daily Southern Cross.[8][9]

The Wilson and Horton families were both represented in the company, known as Wilson & Horton, until 1996 when Tony O'Reilly's Independent News & Media Group of Dublin purchased the Horton family's interest in the company. The Herald is now owned by New Zealand Media and Entertainment. That company is owned by APN News & Media, which is in turn largely owned by Ireland-based Independent News & Media.

Gordon Minhinnick was a staff cartoonist from the 1930s until his retirement in the 1980s. Laurence Clark was the daily political cartoonist from 1987 to 1996, and continued to publish cartoons weekly in the Herald until 2000.[10]

The Herald is traditionally a centre-right newspaper, and was given the nickname "Granny Herald" into the 1990s. This changed with the acquisition of the paper by Independent News & Media in 1996, and today, despite remaining free enterprise oriented on economic matters such as trade and foreign investment, the Herald is generally editorially progressive on international geopolitics, diplomacy, and military matters, printing material from British newspapers such as The Independent and The Observer but more recently, conservative newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph.[11] The Herald's stance on the Middle East is supportive of Israel, as seen most clearly in its 2003 censorship and dismissal of cartoonist Malcolm Evans following his submission of cartoons critical of Israel.[12]

On 10 September 2012, the Herald moved to a compact format for weekday editions, after 150 years publishing in broadsheet format. The broadsheet format was retained for the Saturday edition.[13]

A couple of months after the compact launch, the company announced it would be restructuring its workforce, cutting eight senior roles from across its range of newspapers, including the Herald.[14]

Domestic stance

On domestic matters, editorial opinion is centrist, usually supporting socially conservative values. In 2007, an editorial strongly disapproved of some legislation introduced by the Labour-led government, the Electoral Finance Act, to the point of overtly campaigning against the legislation.[15]

Herald on Sunday

A compact-sized Sunday edition, the Herald on Sunday, was first published on 3 October 2004 under the editorship of Suzanne Chetwin and then, for five years, by Shayne Currie. It won Newspaper of the Year for the calendar years 2007 and 2009 and is New Zealand's second-highest-circulating weekly newspaper after the more established and conservative broadsheet, The Sunday Star-Times.

The Herald on Sunday has the fastest-growing circulation and readership among major New Zealand newspapers.[16] It is now edited by Miriyana Alexander.

As of March 2011 the newspaper had an estimated readership of 380,000 and circulation of roughly 100,000.

In 2010, the Herald on Sunday started a campaign to reduce the legal blood alcohol limit for driving in New Zealand, called the "Two Drinks Max" campaign. The paper set up a campaign Facebook page, a Twitter account, and encouraged readers to sign up to the campaign on its own website.[17]

Outsourcing

In March 2007, APN NZ announced it was considering a plan to outsource the bulk of the Herald's copy editing to an Australian-owned company, Pagemasters. APN confirmed the outsourcing decision to affected staff on 19 April 2007.

Website

The online news service,[18] originally called Herald Online, was established in 1998 and attracts over 2.1 million users per month.[19] It was redesigned in late 2006, and again in 2012 (sept/aug).

The site was named best news website at the 2007 and 2008 Qantas Media Awards, won the "best re-designed website" category at the 2007 New Zealand NetGuide Awards, and was one of seven newspaper sites named an Official Honoree in the 2007 Webby Awards. Of the more than 8,000 entries submitted for the Webby Awards, fewer than 15% were distinguished as an Official Honoree.[20]

Regular columnists

Arms

Arms of The New Zealand Herald
Notes
The arms of the newspaper, The New Zealand Herald, consist of:[21]
Crest
On a wreath of the colours two Trumpets in saltire Or bound together by a Maori Taniko in the shape of the letter H proper.
Escutcheon
Per chevron Azure and Gules in chief on a Pale Or between a representation of the Constellation of the Southern Cross and a Lymphad sails furled oars in action Argent a Sword point upwards Gules in base a Caduceus Or.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "ABC statistics". New Zealand Audit Bureau of Circulation. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  2. ↑ "Nielsen Media Research National Readership Survey Results (Q1 2008 – Q4 2008), Average Issue Readership All People 15+". Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  3. ↑ "NAB - New Zealand Herald". Newspaper Advertising Bureau. 2012. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
  4. ↑ "The Daily Southern Cross". National Library of New Zealand - Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "New Zealand Herald". Papers Past. National Library of New Zealand. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
  6. ↑ "New Zealander". Papers Past. National Library of New Zealand. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
  7. ↑ "The Daily Southern Cross". National Library of New Zealand - Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Daily Southern Cross". Papers Past. National Library of New Zealand. Retrieved 23 March 2012.
  9. ↑ Horton, Michael (1 September 2010). "Horton, Alfred George". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
  10. ↑ "Bio". Klarc.co.nz. Retrieved 20 February 2009.
  11. ↑ Porter, Andrew (5 April 2010). "General Election 2010: battle lines are drawn". The Daily Telegraph (London). Retrieved 31 January 2012.
  12. ↑ "Furore over sacking of Kiwi cartoonist". Scoop.co.nz. 1 September 2003. Retrieved 31 January 2012.
  13. ↑ "New look Herald smaller and bigger". The New Zealand Herald. 9 July 2012. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
  14. ↑ "Eight jobs to go in Herald restructure". 3 News NZ. 9 September 2012.
  15. ↑ "Editorial: Democracy under attack". The New Zealand Herald. 12 November 2007. Retrieved 27 January 2010.
  16. ↑ "Newspaper Circulations". Kiwiblog. 15 February 2011. Retrieved 31 January 2012.
  17. ↑ "Editorial: Two Drinks Max: Sign up and make us safer". The New Zealand Herald. 24 October 2010.
  18. ↑ "nzherald.co.nz". nzherald.co.nz. 17 March 2011. Retrieved 31 January 2012.
  19. ↑ "Nielsen//NetRatings, NZ Market Intelligence, February & March, 2008".
  20. ↑ "Herald website judged best news site". The New Zealand Herald. 19 May 2007. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
  21. ↑ Tonson, A.E. (1970), New Zealand Armorist 3, p. 18

External links