Globe

The first attempt by the Christchurch morning paper, The Press, to enter the evening newspaper market took place in 1864. The owner of The Press, James Edward FitzGerald, launched the Theatre, which was published at six o’clock each evening. As well as advertising performances at the Royal Princess Theatre, it contained any significant news that had appeared since publication of The Press in the morning. The Theatre did not last long; it was replaced in 1864 by the Evening Post, a more substantial but also short-lived publication.

In 1874 another effort was made by The Press to gain a foothold in the evening market. On 1 June 1874 the first issue of the Globe was published, in direct competition with the Star, the evening arm of the Lyttelton Times. A handbill advertising the Globe stated it would ‘aim at becoming a first-class family newspaper’ and that it was needed because ‘of an ever-increasing demand for the immediate publication of the latest telegraphic and other intelligence’. The Globe was published daily, cost a penny, and hoped to appeal to people whose daily travel and working hours meant they did not have time to read a newspaper until the evening.   

The key person behind the establishment of the Globe was Charles Alexander Pritchard. Pritchard did not come from a newspaper background but had begun investing in the Press Company in 1871 and eventually gained a majority interest. After the Globe had been running for several months Pritchard took over personal ownership of the newspaper, although it continued to be printed and distributed by The Press.

In 1883 Pritchard sold the Globe back to The Press. Around this time The Press also purchased another Christchurch evening newspaper, the Telegraph, which had been established in the early 1880s.  The Globe was merged with the Telegraph and publication continued under the masthead of the Telegraph. In 1893 the Telegraph was in turn replaced by Truth, an evening paper established in 1887 by Cecil Gurney according to Guy Scholefield (Newspapers in New Zealand, 1958).

Truth was renamed the Evening News in 1909, possibly to distinguish it from the Wellington weekly, NZ Truth. In 1912 the editor of the Evening News, Edward C Huie, resigned and became the driving force in a vigorous new rival, the Sun. The Evening News was no match for the Sun and closed in 1917, ending the chain of Press-owned evening newspapers that had begun with the Globe.