News Corp will send its biggest team to an overseas Commonwealth Games to deliver extensive around-the-clock content

The biggest team of editorial staff to cover an overseas Commonwealth Games will soon head to Birmingham, producing a daily eight-page print liftout and special digital editions.

Eliza Barr, theNSW chief court reporter for local and regional publications, is part of the bumper team of journalists leaving for Birmingham later this month. Picture: Britta Campion

News Corp will dispatch the largest group of editorial staff to an overseas Commonwealth Games ever when reporters leave for Birmingham later this month.

Led by the company’s national weekend editor Mick Carroll – who has been appointed and Commonwealth Games editor – the group will include 17 reporters and photographers who will produce a daily eight-page print liftout and 20-page digital edition, The Games, to be released each morning at 8.30am (AEST).

Carroll said the Commonwealth Games – from July 28 to August 8 – will be a “practice run” ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, both of which will have extensive digital coverage while working around a challenging nine-hour time difference.

“We built up a lot of goodwill with Tokyo because we committed such a big editorial team when a lot of other media companies withdrew and particularly when it came to covering the minor sports,” he said. “We are also taking Nathan Dukes, an art designer with us, so we can produce the digital print editions and print editions on the ground over there, it’s the first time we’ve done that.”

Carroll said Australians continue to have a “soft spot for the Commonwealth Games” despite it not drawing as much attention as the Olympic Games.

The Commonwealth Games have produced some of the nation’s top sporting talents including Hayley Lewis and Lisa Curry, he added.

Carroll said reporting from the team will go beyond the sports events and feature content such as the A-listers, including members of the royal family, who will be attending key events.

“There will be live results, interviews with athletes and analysis from sports experts and a lot of photograph specials celebrating the events from the day as well as a guide for what will happen overnight for the next day,” he said.

“It will be first time since the Rio Olympics that athletes will be able to experience a proper international Games where they can go out at night and stick around after their event.”

Among the team of reporters will be News Corp’s NSW chief court reporter for local and regional titles, Eliza Barr, who will be embarking on her first international assignment and will predominantly be covering gymnastics and beach volleyball.

“I started at News Corp as a cadet covering local news in the inner west suburbs of Sydney so to have the opportunity to be able to write news for Australians overseas at an event like the Commonwealth Games that has so much international interest and brings together some of the best athletes from all over the world is a dream come true,” she said.

Julian Linden, who has covered 13 Olympics – summer and winter – and three Commonwealth Games will focus on swimming and said this Games “will allow readers to get way more live coverage and better coverage than they’ve ever got before”.

He said in his 30 years as a journalist covering major sporting events many things have significantly changed.

“We produce so much more content because you have more information,” Linden said. “When I was starting out I used to bring books with me with the records of who won this and that, information is far more instant, back then you didn’t go and look at athletes’ Instagram accounts.

“We can be at a press conference asking questions and before we’ve walked out of the room someone else on the other side of the world has tweeted about it.”

Having recently covered the FINA World Championships Budapest, Linden then went on to report from Wimbledon. He said the highlight of any games he has covered was Cathy Freeman’s victory at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 in the 400 metre event.

Originally published as News Corp will send its biggest team to an overseas Commonwealth Games to deliver extensive around-the-clock content