With sands shifting at News Corp this week amid the news of a major company restructure, attention has turned to what life will look like in the company’s newsrooms.
Yesterday, Crikey broke the news that editor-in-chief of news.com.au Lisa Muxworthy would be departing the company, with weekend editor of The Daily Telegraph Mick Carroll to take over as the new group editor-in-chief of the company’s free news division, which takes in news.com.au. Anna Caldwell, current weekend editor at Brisbane’s Courier-Mail, will move to Sydney to oversee The Daily Telegraph’s weekend operations.
Among the other changes was the promotion of Telegraph editor Ben English, to head up the company’s national news network, while the Herald Sun’s Sam Weir will also be responsible for Hobart-based The Mercury and rural publication The Weekly Times.
English, a Sydneysider, has been with News Corp for his entire 34-year career, barring a three-month secondment in the mid-1990s to the then recently sold South China Morning Post.
His appointment has triggered apprehension among some staff in Holt Street, with sources telling Crikey there may be a difficult transition, with English’s managing style being “a lot more intense” compared to other News Corp editors.
A News Corp insider told Crikey the company’s network reporters, which includes staff not affiliated with a particular capital city’s newsroom and whose work is used across publications, weren’t happy at all, and that the transition would be “a shock”.
It contrasts with the mood among staff at The Daily Telegraph, with one source saying they were happy “because our editor won out big time”.
The source described English as “more assertive” than his peers and noted there would be a teething period as the tabloid mastheads move separate weekend and weekday rosters to a combined seven-day roster.
“It will be interesting to see what influence Anna has in terms of the weekend Telegraphs,” they said.
“I think English knows weekend papers are a different vibe to weekdays, and Anna has experience leading a weekend paper so ideally he gives her autonomy. There will be an adjustment period for reporters in a seven-day newsroom — the two teams rarely meshed before so there will need to be some bridges built.”
Other News Corp sources told Crikey that while it remained early days at the company, one person was even “excited” by the changes, and some staff are beginning to believe in the realignment project, despite there being “a few raised eyebrows” about Weir’s promotion.
The breakdown of the company’s vaunted Editorial Innovation Centre (EIC), after a high-profile launch in 2023, came as little surprise to staff who worked in it, with a number of sources with knowledge of its operations telling Crikey they were unsure what the centre’s actual purpose was.
Former Daily Telegraph deputy editor John McGourty, who was responsible for the EIC, will depart the company, but Crikey understands senior EIC staff were only informed of the dissolution with 10 minutes’ notice.
Crikey asked English several questions about the company’s restructure, the dissolution of the company’s EIC, as well as the charge the national network newsroom may struggle to adapt to his leadership. He did not respond in time for publication.
