The provincial press and politics: NSW, 1841-1930

Politics and its various forms of expression spelt survival and, indeed, sustenance, for some provincial newspapers in colonial times. This paper sets out to examine how the New South Wales provincial press of the nineteenth century and early twentieth interacted with and impacted upon the political movements and processes of the day. Comparison will be drawn between the NSW provincial press and the frontier press of the United States and also the early provincial press of New Zealand. Some of the major issues on which the NSW papers sought to lead public opinion are examined. The editors and papers that were more overtly 'political' than others are discussed, as are the less overtly 'political' roles adopted by the papers - such as advancing the local district materially - because they, too, impacted on the political process