David Hastings is an Australian/New Zealand journalist and historian. He began working as a copy boy on the Melbourne Sun in 1970 and ended in 2013 as editor of the Weekend Herald. His published histories include Over the Mountains of the Sea: Life on the Migrant Ships 1870–1885, Extra! Extra! How the People Made the News, and The Many Deaths of Mary Dobie: Murder, Politics and Revenge in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand.