, 14 January 1878
The New Zealand Herald was founded by
William Chisholm Wilson (1810–1876), 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. After
The New Zealander closed in 1866,
The Daily Southern Cross provided competition, particularly after
Julius Vogel took a majority shareholding in 1868. First published as
The Southern Cross (without
daily in its title) in 1843 by
William Brown, it became a daily publication in 1862, with its name modified to
The Daily Southern Cross. Vogel sold out of the paper in 1873 and
Alfred Horton bought it in 1876. In 1876 the Wilson family and Horton joined in partnership and
The New Zealand Herald absorbed
The Daily Southern Cross. In 1879 the United Press Association was formed so that the main daily papers could share news stories. The organisation became the
New Zealand Press Association (NZPA) in 1942. In 1892, the
New Zealand Herald,
Otago Daily Times, and
Press agreed to share the costs of a London correspondent and advertising salesman. 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. At some point, the company was purchased by APN NZ, a New Zealand subsidiary of
APN News & Media. In April 2007, APN NZ announced it was outsourcing the bulk of the
Heralds
copy editing to an Australian-owned company, Pagemasters.
The Herald is now owned by
New Zealand Media and Entertainment, formed in 2014. That company was owned by
Sydney-based
APN News & Media and the Radio Network, formerly owned by the
Australian Radio Network. In November 2012, two months after the launch of its new compact format, APN News and Media announced it would be restructuring its workforce, cutting eight senior roles from across the
Heralds range of titles.
Notable contributors • Dita de Boni was a columnist for the newspaper, writing her first columns for the NZ Herald in 1995. From 2012 to 2015 she wrote a business and politics column until – after a series of articles increasingly critical of the Key government – the
Herald discontinued her column for financial reasons. •
Gordon Minhinnick was a staff cartoonist from the 1930s until his retirement in the 1980s. •
Malcolm Evans was dismissed from his position as staff cartoonist in 2003 after the newspaper received complaints about his cartoons on the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict. •
Laurence Clark was the daily political cartoonist from 1987 to 1996 and continued to publish cartoons weekly in the
Herald until 2000. •
William Berry, editor of the New Zealand Herald in 1875 and the Daily Southern Cross in 1877 • William Lane, Leader writer from 1900 then appointed editor in 1913.
Format 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
Weekend Herald. == Political stance and editorial opinion ==