It was first published in 1858 as
The Hemel Hempstead Gazette and West Herts Advertiser, this was renamed in 1899 as
The Hertfordshire, Hemel Hempstead Gazette and West Herts Advertiser and it was published under this title until 1973. From 1973 it was known simply as the
Hemel Hempstead Gazette, and from 1991 as
The Gazette. The paper generated two sibling titles, the
Berkhamsted & Tring Gazette and a
free newspaper,
Herald Express, all of which come from the same offices. The paper covers a range of local stories, including reports about crime and violence, planning applications affecting
green belt land, stories related to the
killer clown craze and film premieres. In 2005, the
Newspaper Society praised the
Hemel Hempstead Gazette for its coverage of the
Buncefield oil depot explosion. In 2014, the
Gazette covered a local controversy about the proposed construction of a
Lidl supermarket in Berkhamsted. The public debate attracted attention from national media such as the
Daily Mail and was featured on an edition of
ITV London News. In 2018, the
Gazette was reprimanded by the
Independent Press Standards Organisation for a news item on its
Hemel Today website which falsely reported that a former mayor of
Dacorum Borough Council had committed suicide after suffering from the effects of the
menopause. The story related to another woman of the same name, and the
Gazette apologised to the former mayor. ==Publication, production and ownership==