New Zealand Truth
| Format | Tabloid |
|---|---|
| Editor | Cameron Slater (2013–2014) |
| Founded | 1905 |
| Political alignment | Centre-right |
| Ceased publication | 2013 |
| Headquarters | Auckland, New Zealand |
| Website | truth |
New Zealand Truth was a tabloid newspaper published weekly in New Zealand. It was founded in 1905 by Australian John Norton in Wellington, as a New Zealand edition of his Sydney Truth, aiming a sensational blend of sex, crime and radical politics at mainly working class readers.
According to newspaper historian (and former NZ Truth journalist) Redmer Yska, English-born Norton was 'a combustible mix of tycoon, journalist, do-gooder and chronic, falldown pisshead.' Norton was on hand on 24 June 1905 when the first copies of the 'Maoriland' edition rolled off the presses in Luke's Lane, an alley that still runs at right angles to Wellington's Courtenay Place. Inaugural editor, Australian Robert Merrick, claimed 40,000 readers by 1907, with circulation in 'every Miners', Gum Diggers' and Timber-Getter's camp'. Three years later Frederick Dawson, a former editor of Norton's Queensland and West Australia editions of Truth took over. He would remain in the job until 1920. Norton meanwhile died of alcoholism, in 1916.
The leader writer (and, briefly, editor) from 1913 to 1922 was Robert Hogg a Scottish-born journalist and socialist. According to Yska. Hogg 'turned NZ Truth into a fiery and enthusiastic mouthpiece for revolutionary socialism'. That would change in 1922 when John Norton's son Ezra became the Sydney-based owner and proprietor, appointing a string of New Zealand-based editors. Under the populist Norton, the 'worker's paper' became the streamlined family-friendly 'national paper'. Norton's most successful editor was Australian Brian Connolly and over 16 years (1935 to 1951), he would return the paper to its working class roots, albeit with a conservative streak.
In 1951, Norton sold out to a New Zealand consortium led by the paper's legal representative James Dunn and his former Scots College schoolmate Cliff Plimmer. Over the next few decades, the New Zealand owners would refashion NZ Truth into what Yska calls 'a shrill megaphone for a conservative establishment holding back political, social and cultural ties that increasingly threatened to sweep it away.'
Over the decades, NZ Truth variously employed well-known New Zealand authors, including Robin Hyde in 1928.
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