Media archive
New Zealand media archive search: newspapers, magazines and public notices
Published reporting is often the only record that connects a person to a trade name, a failed venture or a former town. The archive is where that connection is still recoverable years later.
What the archive holds
The archive is a licensed full text collection of New Zealand published material: metropolitan and regional daily newspapers, trade and professional magazines, academic and legal journals, and news wire copy, held back over several decades rather than the rolling window a public website keeps. Searching is by keyword, name, publication and date range, and each hit returns the article text with its publication, date and headline.
Alongside editorial copy the collection carries the notices pages, which are frequently the more useful half for an enquiry. Bankruptcy and insolvency notices, mortgagee sales, tender and liquidation notices, and births, deaths and marriages notices are all published material, and all of them place a named person at a date and often at a place.
Why it matters in a locate or a due diligence file
Register data tells you the position now. Media archive material tells you how the subject arrived at it. A company that failed in 2009, a director who was reported under a different spelling of their name, a business sold under a trading name that never appeared on the register, a family notice recording a change of surname: these are the details that break a stalled trace, and none of them appear on a title or a credit file.
For counterparty and due diligence work the archive supplies the reputational record: what was reported, when, and by whom. It is published journalism rather than a screening decision, so it is read as evidence to weigh, and the article and its date are what you keep on the file.
What a media archive search returns
- Full text newspaper, magazine, journal and news wire articles naming the subject.
- Publication, date and headline for every match, so the item can be cited on the file.
- Public notices: bankruptcy and insolvency, mortgagee sales, tenders and liquidations.
- Births, deaths and marriages notices, useful for name changes and family connections.
How it fits the rest of the enquiry
The archive is a corroboration source, not a starting point. Run it once you have a name and a rough period, and read what it returns against the dated records: a reported business failure sitting beside an insolvency entry and a title sold in the same year is a coherent picture, while a single article on its own is a lead to test.
This source is queried as part of a consolidated skip tracing enquiry, on the same authorised-purpose declaration and the same audit record as every other source. There is no separate account, no separate invoice and no minimum spend against it. What you pay is the monthly subscription plus the searches you run, set out on the pricing page.
Searches that use this source
Questions about media archive
How far back does the media archive go?
Coverage varies by title. The major New Zealand newspaper and magazine collections run back over several decades, and depth is deeper than any publicly available website archive. The result shows the publication and date for every item so you can see the coverage you actually have.
Is a published article evidence?
It is evidence of what was published, with a date and a publication behind it. It is not a finding of fact, and it should be read alongside register and credit records rather than relied on alone.
Can I search public notices such as bankruptcy notices?
Yes. Notices pages are part of the collection, including insolvency and bankruptcy notices, mortgagee sales, tenders and liquidations, and family notices.
Is the archive search logged like the other sources?
Yes. The terms searched, the user, the time and the declared authorised purpose are written to the audit log in the same way as every other source.
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Tell us who you are and what you need to search, and we will set up your account. Verification is part of the process and usually straightforward. Most accounts are verified and issued within 2 business days.