Community newspaper The Akaroa Mail celebrates 150 years

Newspapers in New Zealand and around the world are under increasing pressure with many businesses facing restructures, going digital or closing all together but a free newspaper on Banks Peninsula is celebrating its 150th anniversary.

The Akaroa Mail was first published on 21 July, 1876, and prints 10,000 paper copies every fortnight.

Owner and editor Michael de Hamel has been running The Akaroa Mail for the last 41 years, having started at a time when the local manual telephone exchange operator would get phone calls to him by ringing the local shops and asking if they had seen him.

“In the early days if someone wanted me on the phone and I was walking around Akaroa, someone would dash out of a shop and say, ‘Hey Michael you’re wanted on the phone’,” he said.

de Hamel said he always aimed for stories focused on local issues and events, with the job providing constant surprises.

“I found on one occasion a World War Two German aeroplane in someone’s basement here in Akaroa, it was a training glider admittedly, rather than a full aeroplane, but nevertheless there are things that happen which constantly raise the eyebrows,” he said.

de Hamel is not the only long-lasting editor, with one of his predecessors Ethel Jacobson running the paper from 1903 to 1953 after taking over from her father Howard Jacobson.

In the early days the paper would cover visitors to Akaroa in details, with reports of who had arrived by ship or who was staying at the local hotel, and cases at the Akaroa magistrates’ court.

To celebrate the 150th anniversary, the Akaroa Museum has put together an exhibition about the paper’s history.

Museum collections manager Daniel Smith said the first edition on 21 July, 1876, looked quite different to modern versions.

“There weren’t a lot of headlines. The whole page was entirely full of advertising. The second page has a column introducing the newspaper and its endeavours to follow local issues and then page three and page four were principally full of advertising as well. It was very much a commercial newspaper in that respect but I think that has also been its value over the years as well, it has been a really important commercial directory,” he said.

Smith said The Akaroa Mail had always played an important role in recording the goings-on and the people of Banks Peninsula.

“All the community organisations regularly get named and individuals get named. You know you are part of the community once your name has been in the Mail. It’s a really important role in that way. It is part of the glue that keeps the community together,” he said.

Smith said researchers regularly requested to look at old council documents and he often suggested they look at the related edition of The Akaroa Mail.

“The Akaroa Mail always has a fuller record of the meetings and includes what the debate is about. You get much more context for what happened,” he said.

Auckland University of Technology head of journalism at Greg Treadwell said surviving 150 years was a triumph for any newspaper in New Zealand.

He said a good local newspaper could help to keep a community strong.

“I can’t say enough how important it is for a community to have a reliable verified news organ. Community news hasn’t translated to online particularly well, I’m not saying there aren’t some successful start ups and some models that will work, but news deserts are a real thing and spreading rapidly in New Zealand so if you are a community with a paper like The Akaroa Mail count yourself lucky,” he said.

People could pick up a paper copy of The Akaroa Mail at places like the library and local businesses or subscribers could get it by post.

de Hamel was pondering whether to introduce digital access but for now he was happy to continue with the support of the local advertisers offering everything from dry firewood to places to sell possum fur.