What has happened to your familiar weekly Waiheke newspapers, Gulf News and Waiheke Weekender?
One minute you were reading the tabloid-size Gulf News, the next thing you know, it’s a broadsheet – a fatter paper with a wider distribution – the Gulf News & Waiheke Weekender combined.
In the language of hamburgers, we’ve gone from slider to smash-burger-fat-boy with all the trimmings. Both have kept their tasty ingredients, their contents, and their chefs. Nobody is leaving. This is about more, not less. And it’s free!
Look at it this way. Gulf News readers have $3 a week they don’t need to spend on us. These dollars will, we hope, wind their way into local businesses. It is as if we are shouting you, our dear friends, a coffee every fortnight.
As our circulation is bigger now, I’d better introduce myself to new readers. I’m not the editor, but I write editorials every fortnight for Gulf News, taking turns with publisher Liz Waters.
Liz knows what she is doing, having overseen island newspapers since the days a seaplane landed on Surfdale Beach with the paper to print them on.
I’ve worked in the media for almost as long. My first paper was an ink-splattered affair, printed on a hand-cranked Gestetner machine at high school in 1981, a few years after Liz and David Waters bought shares in Gulf News, a paper which itself dates back to 1973.
I called my newspaper Jam (packed with news!), and sold it for 30 cents at school.
Every issue sold out, and we spent the profits on a very fancy lunch in the last week of school.
My friends and I filled it with news, interviews and columns. The most popular thing in our paper was ‘Dear Agnes’ – an anonymous advice column.
I knew it wasn’t our poetry, artwork, netball coverage, student polls, book reviews or even my interview with Dave McArtney and the Pink Flamingos which resonated with readers. It was that dratted ‘Dear Agnes’ column which had students lining up to buy our rag. ‘Agnes’ became a minor celebrity at school, even though nobody knew who she was and her advice could be harsh. It required pulling up socks, mainlining school spirit and jumping into the freezing sea of life.
Here’s a sample of her tough love: “To ‘True Love’, ‘In Love’, ‘Deprived of Love’, ‘Love Sick’, ‘Smith’ and others who are in love with their teachers – crushes are a part of growing up. DON’T EXPECT THE TEACHERS TO RESPOND.”
Since Jam, I’ve worked at Metro and North & South magazines as a writer and art director (designer).
And to tell you the truth, as the media landscape transformed around me, the most important things stayed the same.
When I put my name to a story, it has to be true, or else I look like a dork. This is the central condition of journalism, as true today as it was in the days of the school’s inky Gestetner. At Metro and North & South, it was the editor’s job to make sure we weren’t sued. Every issue contained thousands of facts, and the editor’s system of proofing and checking was designed to make sure none of those facts were wrong.
At North & South, each story was read seven times by four different people before it went to print.
Gulf News & Waiheke Weekender is part of this tradition, one which I am proud to be part of. Every issue of these newspapers contains hundreds of facts. Everything is carefully checked, and not by AI, which has no role in this business.
When we get things wrong (and we are human, so it happens), we print a clarification or correction where warranted, like all real media outlets.
Although I’ve worked in the media all my life, I’ve met plenty of self-appointed experts who like to tell me how the media works. They spend hours online ‘doing their own research’ to find the right ‘facts’ to agree with their theories.
People who are lucky enough to work in the media love it for the same reason I loved making Jam.
They want to contribute to their community. They love keeping people informed and are not scared of holding powerful figures to account.
The news helps us to understand our world. Waiheke news helps us to understand Waiheke.
As the English editor Alan Rusbridger wrote in his book Breaking News: “Reliable, unpolluted information is as necessary to a community as a legal system.”
When the Gulf News & Waiheke Weekender tells you who scored a goal in a rugby match, or who is running for the local board, you can rely on us. Because we put our name on our stories. And we don’t ask a robot to write it for us.
Mānawatia a Matariki! Reflecting on the abundance of the year that has been and the growth for the year to come, e ko koia, e one e.
• Jenny Nicholls
© Waiheke Gulf News Ltd 2025
