Workers at the group’s Blenheim printing site were thrown into chaos overnight, with today’s editions of The Press, The Dominion Post, Southland Times and Timaru Herald all failing to go to press.

According to Fairfax, a number of other publications were delayed and publications such as the Marlborough Express and the Manawatu Standard had to put out slimmed-down versions.

Fairfax NZ chief executive Allen William: “We sincerely apologise to all our readers and advertisers who have been affected today.

“We take great pride in producing our titles and staff across New Zealand worked through the night to fix the problem but we ran out of time. The failure to produce these papers is unprecedented and we are doing all we can to get our system working again.”

Fairfax recently revealed it was cutting 27 staff from the Marlborough Express, which will no longer printed in Blenheim after November as printing presses are moved to The Nelson Mail.

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