Research gold for NZ sports history
Newspapering as a way of life is on its last legs; it's a textbook example of a sunset industry. As boomers, who sustain newspaper circulations, pass through their life cycles, those newspapers that have survived thus far will see their market expire as so many others already have.
Ink-stained fingers over the breakfast table will be well and truly a thing of the past.
As is already apparent, news will be presented in other ways. The hope is that boffins will find a way to ensure accuracy through a means of sub-editing content.
Historians of the future will have 220 years' worth of newspaper files to pour over should they be interested enough to understand why those earlier generations made the decisions they did.
Some old, long-forgotten newspapers may emerge, just as happened recently for the Auckland Public Libraries. A publication titled The Sportsman, An Illustrated Weekly Review of Sport was donated to the library in 1967 and has only recently been made available to researchers.
The newspaper, published on Fridays, only survived three years from 1912-14, but in that time, it proved content rich on all sporting events in New Zealand and Australia. Research done by the Auckland Library's research unit showed that the publication has escaped mainstream recognition among papers from New Zealand's past as it wasn't listed among the usual repositories of information about New Zealand's media.
The publication proved short-lived, the last issue being published in March 1914, so it wasn't as if the lack of sport in World War One contributed to its demise as the war started on August 14, 1914.
The paper was edited by former NZ Herald staff member A.L. Chappell, who, in 1914, took up a position with the Christchurch Sun. He became chief reporter and was later sports editor. Away from his job, he was a chairman of the Canterbury Amateur Athletics Association but also had a long association with boxing, rugby and cricket administration. Later in his career, he was on the staff of the New Zealand Free Lance.
Such was the quality of information available from a perusal of The Sportsman; articles will appear in this column about some of the events and characters covered during the years it was published.
It should be noted that The Sportsman was not to be confused with a later publication, the New Zealand Sportsmanmagazine that was notable for starting the New Zealand Sportsman of the Year Awards, now known as the Halberg Awards, and nor was it connected with the New Zealand Sporting Life and Referee, which had its heyday in the 1930s. (With thanks to librarian Andrew Henry for assistance with information).