Otago Daily Times
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 Allied Press Building, Dunedin - the ODT's home. |
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| Type | Daily (except Sunday) newspaper |
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| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner | Allied Press |
| Editor | Murray Kirkness |
| Founded | 1861 |
| Headquarters | Dunedin, New Zealand |
| Circulation | 43,000 |
| ISSN | 0114-426X |
| Website | www.odt.co.nz |
The Otago Daily Times, known as the ODT or - less kindly - the oddity, is a newspaper published by Allied Press Ltd in Dunedin, New Zealand.
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[edit] History
The ODT was first published on November 15, 1861,[1]. It is New Zealand's oldest surviving daily newspaper - Christchurch's The Press, six months older, was a weekly paper for its first few years.
The ODT was founded by W.H. Cutten and Julius (later Sir Julius) Vogel during the boom following the discovery of gold at the Tuapeka, the first of the Otago goldrushes. Cutten was the publisher of a weekly newspaper, the Otago Witness, which was founded in 1851, and the strong political views of co-founder Vogel saw an outlet in the ODT's pages, notably with advocacy for provincial government.
From the start, the ODT held a strong position among South Island newspapers. Most of its Dunedin opposition papers were short lived, with only the Evening Star surviving beyond the early 1900s. The Star's owners bought the ODT and closed the evening paper in 1978 because its readership was declining. As a result the Allied Press, now publishes the ODT and several smaller papers throughout New Zealand, including the Greymouth Evening Star.
The ODT is regarded as the father-figure of the country's four main daily newspapers, serving the southern South Island with a circulation of around 43,000 and an estimated readership of 110,000.[2]
[edit] Policies and personages
In its formative years, the ODT was active in many campaigns for social reform, none more important than the exposure of sweat shop working conditions in Dunedin in the 1880s by Editor Sir George Fenwick and Chief Reporter Silas Spragg, which led to major law reforms.
Sid Scales was a cartoonist for the ODT for 30 years until his retirement in 1981. Since then Queenstown artist Garrick Tremain has been the principal cartoonist. The editor is Murray Kirkness, who took over from long-serving editor Robin Charteris in April 2007.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Reed, A.H. (1956). The story of Early Dunedin. Dunedin: A.H. & A.W. Reed.
- ^ The Otago Daily Times
[edit] External links
- Otago Daily Times official newspaper website
- Allied Press official website of the publisher
- National Library of New Zealand Online Newspaper Archive
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