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”.