Scope and Terminology

To build a comprehensive historical directory, we must first define what constitutes a newspaper in New Zealand.

What do the libraries say?

The National Library of New Zealand references the Library of Congress definition:

A newspaper is a serial publication, appearing usually at least weekly, which serves as a primary source of information on current events of general interest. While format can vary widely, newspapers are normally published without a cover, but with a masthead or banner, and are normally larger than 12 by 17 inches.

On a practical level, a publication is considered a newspaper if it meets at least six of the following seven criteria:

• it is a source of information on current events of general interest
• it is printed at least weekly
• it was originally printed on newsprint
• it does not have a cover
• it does have a masthead
• it is A3 or greater in size, and
• it has four or more columns on a typical page.

This generally describes the newspapers on this website.

Scope of the Website

This website attempts to list serial publications that:

• are published for a New Zealand audience
• serve a recognisable community
• provide a source of information on current events of general interest
• are printed at least fortnightly
• are printed on newsprint
• do not have a cover
• have a masthead
• have text arranged in columns

Newspapers, Mastheads, and Editions

Most entries listed in this directory represent full Newspapers. Related publication variants are handled as follows:

• Editions & Special Issues: Variant forms published at regular intervals (such as weekend, weekly, or overseas editions). These are displayed on the primary newspaper page under Mastheads & Alternate Editions.
• Mastheads: Subordinate titles or name shifts used during a long-running publication's history. Rather than separate pages, these are listed as historical masthead entries on the main newspaper page.

Continuations

Some Newspapers on this site are described as Continuing or Continued by another newspaper. Generally, this means the newspaper has changed its name. For example, the Bush Advocate is Continued By the Dannevirke Advocate.

In many cases it is difficult to say whether one newspaper has ceased and been continued by another newspaper, or whether there is only one newspaper that has adopted a new masthead. When making this call, we consider several factors including:

• the similarity of the titles,
• the overall frequency of changes in title, and
• whether the owner, publisher, or target audience has changed.

Newspaper titles

When a newspaper has used several different mastheads over a period of time, it raises the issue of what that newspaper should be called. For example, why do we call Gisborne's first newspaper the Poverty Bay Standard and not Standard?

Generally, this is a judgement call, but when there is more than one possible title we prefer titles that:

• are still in use,
• were used for a long time,
• were the preferred usage at the time, and
• include placenames.

Where two newspapers (or Editions, or Mastheads) have the same title, we'll sometimes add a qualifier in square brackets after the title, such as Evening Star [Dunedin].

Data and Sources

The data in this website is based on a subset of the New Zealand National Bibliography. It was tidied up and annotated with references to online sources when possible (both manually and automatically) and published as the original Newspapers of New Zealand website until it was taken down after Google retired some programs in 2020.

The base data was from the Publications New Zealand Metadata Dataset created by the National Library of New Zealand and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence.

While the PublicationsNZ data is quite comprehensive, there are some omissions, inconsistencies, and mistakes. These are tidied up as they are discovered. Generally, the data for older records (pre-1950) is very good, but some more recent records (particularly for free community newspapers) can be patchy.

How to Contribute

We welcome contributions from researchers, archivists, and librarians!

Reporting Data Errors & Corrections

If you notice a missing newspaper, an incorrect date, or a broken link, you can report it on our GitHub Issue Tracker.

Contributing to the Website

To contribute to building the website or directly edit data, visit our GitHub repository.