Malcolm Ross (journalist)

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Malcolm Ross (13 July 1862 – 15 April 1930) was a New Zealand journalist, mountain climber, and World War I war correspondent. He was born in Saddle Hill, Otago, and began his journalism career with the Otago Daily Times in 1882. In 1889 he left to work for the Union Steam Ship Company but returned to full-time journalism in 1897, moving to Wellington to cover Parliament.

Ross loved the mountains and, with his wife Elizabeth, explored the Southern Alps. He helped found the New Zealand Alpine Club in 1891 and climbed Mount Cook for the first time in 1906, the fourth ascent of the peak. He wrote about mountaineering and published A Climber in New Zealand (1914). He also contributed to The Press, The Age, and The Times.

In 1899 he spent three months in Samoa covering local leadership clashes, which brought him into contact with politicians like William Massey. When World War I began, he was chosen as New Zealand’s official war correspondent. He went to Samoa to report on the occupation and then arrived at Gallipoli in June 1915, delayed because his reports had to be sent by ship rather than cable. In 1916 he moved to France to cover the Western Front and became an honorary captain in the NZEF. He reported on major battles such as the Somme, Flers–Courcelette, Passchendaele, and Le Quesnoy. His long, descriptive style and late delivery drew criticism, though he remained in the role through the war.

After the war he did not take the offer to write an official history and returned to journalism, working in the parliamentary press gallery until his retirement in 1926. He also helped publish works about the war; his son Noel, who served with the NZEF, died in 1917. Ross died in Wellington in 1930, survived by his wife Elizabeth, who was also a journalist. Malcolm Peak in the Southern Alps is named after him.