The Truth is hard to find

The Truth is hard to find

The New Zealand Truth has been one of New Zealand's most popular – and notorious – newspapers. Substantial holdings of it, along with many other New Zealand papers, are held in the Alexander Turnbull Library, but it doesn't have any issues from its first year of publication.

In fact, when 2008 National Library Research Fellow Redmer Yska started work on his history of New Zealand Truth in March, he was amazed to learn that no copies of its first year of publication were held in any public collection. The Auckland Museum has copies from mid 1906 onwards, but the first 55 copies are missing, and the Turnbull's holdings are microfilm copies of the Museum's collection.

Yska is hoping that someone might still have copies of these early papers, as they would provide valuable information about an important chapter in New Zealand’s newspaper history.

In its early days the Truth raised Edwardian eyebrows with its sex stories, and Yska believes that local libraries were possibly too scandalised to buy and keep the newspaper for posterity.
He said: "For so much of the 20th century, this weekly tabloid newspaper orchestrated and shaped public opinion in much the same way that prime time television news shows like Close Up or Campbell Live do today.

"Founded in June 1905, the New Zealand Truth was soon the country's best selling paper, as it became the voice of the 'ordinary New Zealander'. By the 1950s, one in two New Zealand households bought it. Respectable readers always claimed an interest in the recipes and racing pages – never the spicy scandals and divorces!"

Yska is a Wellington-born writer and historian who began his career as a reporter for the New Zealand Truth. The National Library Research Fellowship is awarded annually for research use of the Alexander Turnbull Library's resources.

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