News Corp promises high quality in its digital push
News Corp will seek to realign itself as a digital publisher of high-quality journalism.
News Corp will seek to realign itself as a digital publisher of high-quality journalism across specialist teams led by Peter Blunden in a newly appointed role of national executive editor.
News Corp Australia, publisher of The Australian, announced a series of new appointments to reshape the company, including the establishment of specialist network teams to work across titles to produce quality content.
The announcement came as the executive chairman of News Corp Australasia, Michael Miller, said the company was calling off talks with Antony Catalano’s Australian Community Media to sell its regional and community portfolio of more than 100 newspapers.
Rather than proceed with a sale, Mr Miller said the company would retain its titles focused on digital mastheads.
It is still unclear if or when 60 community titles will restart hard-copy editions that ceased printing in April due to the dramatic falls in advertising during COVID-19. In recent times News has launched 16 digital-only mastheads in locations such as Canberra and Wollongong, and many suspended community titles are likely to continue as digital-only.
Mr Miller said the new specialist editorial teams would mean that while previously News Corp had been “a network of newspapers, now we will be Australia’s leading journalism network” with the appointment of Blunden as national executive editor, also chair of News Corp’s editorial board.
“This quality journalism will be better resourced than anything we have done before and will be developed, published and shared on all formats to grow audiences and subscriptions,” he said.
The leadership teams will comprise Matthew Kitchen, who has been appointed national sports editor, and James Law, who will be the national editor of NewsWire, the new internal newswire service.
Lillian Saleh will be the national editor of network news and Kathy Lipari has taken on an expanded role as national editor, News360 and commercial editorial.
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