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Stuff (website)

New Zealand news website

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ7628506
Source-derived summary

Stuff is a New Zealand news media website owned by newspaper conglomerate Stuff Ltd (formerly called Fairfax). As of early 2024, it is the most popular news website in New Zealand, with a monthly unique audience of more than 2 million.

Stuff was founded in 2000, and publishes breaking news, weather, sport, politics, video, entertainment, business and life and style content from Stuff Ltd's newspapers, which include New Zealand's second- and third-highest circulation daily newspapers, The Post and The Press, and the highest circulation weekly, Sunday Star-Times, as well as international news wire services.

Stuff has won numerous awards at the Newspaper Publishers' Association awards including 'Best News Website or App' in 2014 and 2019, and 'Website of the Year' in 2013 and 2018, 'Best News Website in 2019', and 'Digital News Provider of the Year' in 2024 and 2025.

History

Independent Newspapers Ltd, 2000–2003

The former New Zealand media company Independent Newspapers Ltd (INL), owned by News Corp Australia, launched Stuff on 27 June 2000 at a cybercafe in Auckland, after announcing its intention to go online more than a year earlier. The development of Stuff was supported by Mark Wierzbicki, founding Internet Business Manager. Advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi conceived the name "Stuff", and INL had to buy the domain name from a cyber squatter. In its first month, the site had 120,000 unique visitors. At the time, Wierzbicki described the name as a copywriter's dream, although he conceded that "it's not without risk, especially if we stuff up." The start up was built by a group of engineers from a few tech companies in Wellington led by founding CTO and engineering manager Will Everitt and used a software platform from News Corp Australia's news.com.au.

Fairfax Media and Nine Entertainment, 2003–2020

On 30 June 2003, INL sold its publishing assets including The Dominion Post, The Press, and the Stuff website to Fairfax Media.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Stuff (website)” as new Zealand news website. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2024, 2000, 2014, 2019—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2000-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Stuff, website and Zealand can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as new Zealand news website. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7628506. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2024, 2000, 2014 and 2019.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Stuff (website)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Stuff (website) primary sources, Stuff (website) archive and Stuff research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Stuff (website)”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Stuff (website)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.