Kōrero: Newspapers

Future New Zealand premier John Ballance stands hatless in the doorway of his newspaper office, together with his staff, in this photo from about 1870. He and a partner founded Whanganui's Evening Herald in 1867, and Ballance served as the paper's manager and editor until the 1880s. By then he was also a local MP. He became premier in 1891. Ballance was a skilled and often controversial journalist, and one of several New Zealand newspapermen who followed this career path into high political office.