New Zealand Listener - November 5, 2016

NOVEMBER 5 2016 http://www.listener.co.nz 37

in good splash headings. The Auckland Star

had garnished up its pages for the fight, but

kept fairly close to the old-time New Zealand

traditions in the presentation of news.”

The mass circulation NZ Herald, still

burying its news deep inside its pages, exem-

plified that tradition. It sniffly described the

Auckland Sun as offering a “style of jour-

nalism unfamiliar in New Zealand”. Both

of Auckland’s daily papers would soon be

forced to move downmarket as a vicious

newspaper war unfolded.

V YING FOR SCOOPS

This time it would be a circulation-hungry

NZ Truth – not the Sun – that set the agenda.

In 1928 and throughout 1929, Truth vied

week by week with the Sun, Auckland Star

and Herald for “scoops” in the case of the

mysterious death of teenager Elsie Walker,

whose body was found at a Tamaki quarry.

She had died of a head injury.

Elsie, 17, disappeared from her home near

Tauranga in 1928 and was not found until

five days later. Police fumbling dragged out

the investigation as public interest mounted,

and newspapers outdid each other to paint

a picture of a sinister abduction of an inno-

cent. The case was never solved, but the

finger was pointed at her cousin William

Bayly, who was later hanged for the murder

of two of his neighbours.

The Herald, which had all but ignored the

case, ended up devoting half a broadsheet

page a day to what became the biggest crime

story of the inter-war period.

ALEXANDER TURNBULL LIBRARY: PACOLL-8163-04, 1/2-043333-F,

1/2-043599-F, PACOLL-6260 -1-25: PAPERS PAST

O

ver 21 years, the

Christ church and Auckland

Sun newspapers provided

a springboard for New

Zealand letters. Their literary

pages ofered space (and money)

to a generation of rising poets,

short-story writers and essayists.

Crime writer Ngaio Marsh was

irst published in the Sun in the

early 1920s; a young Denis Glover

later won a limerick competition.

Eileen Duggan, Rex Fairburn,

Robin Hyde, RAK Mason and future

Listener editor Monte Holcroft

would all be published there.

12 3

(^45)
Pioneering Sun:

1. Newspaper trailblazer
Ted Huie. 2. Writer Robin
Hyde labelled its reporters
“bush-rangers”. 3. Crime
writer Ngaio Marsh irst
appeared on its pages in
the early 1920s. 4. Journalist
Pat Lawlor said the Sun
“revolutionised” papers.
5. Poet Eileen Duggan was
also published there.

The Sun had other things on its mind,

its energies increasingly devoted to staying

afloat as the global economy tanked.

In 1929, the Brett Company, the Auckland

Star’s wealthy publishers, went south and

bought out Huie’s evening competitor, the

Christchurch Star. It was not a good omen.

In September 1930, Auckland’s Sun folded,

with the loss of 100 jobs. New Zealand

Newspapers, the powerful entity that now

owned the Auckland Star and Christ church

Star, paid $6 million for the paper. The Press

published its first news photograph that

same year.

The sudden closure of the Sun at a time

of economic downturn would lead to bit-

terness and recrimination. Huie talked of

his disappointment the Auckland business

community hadn’t supported the paper

“more liberally in the matter of advertising”.

Robin Hyde, in her book Journalese, went

further: “Important advertisers whose sup-

port would have spelt the difference between

success and failure had been influenced by

strategies less like war with the gloves off

than like a chunk of lead comfortably con-

cealed in the opponent’s boxing glove.”

CITY RIVALRY

Wellington-based journalist Lawlor chose

to reprise the long-running rivalry between

the capital and Auckland: “If ever there was

a parochially minded population, it is to

be found in this Auckland city. There is but

one moon the world over, but in Auckland

it is an Auckland moon. Same with the sun

• therefore Auckland resented the appear-
  ance of another Sun made in Christchurch.”
  NZ Truth was more accurate: “... the Sun
  was pitting itself against two of the sound-
  est and most capably managed newspapers
  in the Dominion that, over a long period,
  had built up a very big reserve for just such
  an emergency. They could, and did, set a
  financial pace which the Sun could not foot,
  and in addition to this there was the fact
  that the storm clouds of depression were
  starting to gather.”
  Huie returned home. Although he worked
  to keep the Christchurch Sun afloat, it would
  be sold to NZ Newspapers in 1935. An era of
  transformation in local journalism was over.
  Lawlor deserves the last word: “[The
  Sun] completely revolutionised the local
  newspaper world by its progressive meth-
  ods. Here was a newspaper of originality ...
  Practically every worthwhile development
  in the presentation of news was introduced
  by the Sun; in fact its example was followed
  (often feebly imitated) by papers in other
  centres.” l

To see digital editions of the Sun, go to

paperspast.natlib.govt.nz.

Launching pad

for writers

The NZ Herald sniy

described the Auckland

Sun as ofering a “style of

journalism unfamiliar in

New Zealand”.