B&TB&TB&T
  • Advertising
  • Campaigns
  • Marketing
  • Media
  • Technology
  • Regulars
    • Agency Scorecards
    • Best of the Best
    • Campaigns of the Month
    • CMO Power List
    • CMOs to Watch
    • Culture Bites
    • Fast 10
    • New Business Winners
    • Spotlight on Sponsors
  • Jobs
  • Awards
    • 30 Under 30
    • B&T Awards
    • Cairns Crocodiles
    • Women In Media
    • Women Leading Tech
Search
Trending topics:
  • Cairns Crocodiles
  • Nine
  • Seven
  • Cannes Lions
  • WPP
  • NRL
  • State of Origin
  • B&T Women in Media
  • Thinkerbell
  • imaa
  • Agency Scorecards
  • Pinterest
  • AFL
  • Anthony Albanese
  • AI
  • Spotlight on Sponsors
  • The Growth Distillery
  • TV Ratings
  • Radio Ratings
  • Sports Marketing

  • About
  • Contact
  • Editorial Guidelines
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise
© 2025 B&T. The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd.
Reading: How To Build A Brand Newsroom
Share
B&TB&T
Subscribe
Search
  • Advertising
  • Campaigns
  • Marketing
  • Media
  • Technology
  • Regulars
    • Agency Scorecards
    • Best of the Best
    • Campaigns of the Month
    • CMO Power List
    • CMOs to Watch
    • Culture Bites
    • Fast 10
    • New Business Winners
    • Spotlight on Sponsors
  • Jobs
  • Awards
    • 30 Under 30
    • B&T Awards
    • Cairns Crocodiles
    • Women In Media
    • Women Leading Tech
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Editorial Guidelines
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise
© 2025 B&T. The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd.
B&T > Marketing > How To Build A Brand Newsroom
MarketingMedia

How To Build A Brand Newsroom

Lauren Quaintance 1
Published on: 11th March 2015 at 9:50 AM
Lauren Quaintance 1
Share
5 Min Read
SHARE

Since Tourism Australia’s outgoing CMO, Nick Baker, said they were building a “newsroom” it’s been a massive buzzword around the industry. Lauren Quaintance, head of content at content marketing agency, Storyation explains what this means and what brands can learn from it.

Mention the word newsroom to most people and they’ll likely think of a chain-smoking Carl Bernstein tapping away frantically at his typewriter in the 1976 classic All the President’s Men. Or the irascible television anchor Will McCoy in the HBO series The Newsroom yelling at reporters chasing the latest scoop.

Almost no-one will think about General Electric or ANZ bank. And yet the term “brand newsroom” is now one of the biggest buzzwords in modern marketing.

That’s because brands have realised that in a digital and social media age consumers are more empowered than ever – and useful, entertaining or inspiring content is welcomed where advertising is resisted.

I’ve been lucky enough to work in some of the best  publisher newsrooms of recent times – including The Sydney Morning Herald and London’s The Sunday Times. So what can marketers who want to build a brand newsroom learn from traditional publishers who have been doing it for generations?

A Newsroom is Not Just a Physical Place

It used to be that newsrooms were messy, noisy places – desks were stacked high with papers, fingers clacked on keyboards and phones rang incessantly. Nowadays newsrooms are smaller, quieter and more orderly places but, more importantly for brand publishers, they are not necessarily just a physical room. Building a brand newsroom is as much about a method of organisation that facilitates publishing at speed and scale.

One of the most successful digital publishers, Mashable, ran a completely virtual newsroom for almost five years and still relies heavily on remote employees and freelancers.

Balance Data With Instinct

One of the biggest changes in media newsrooms in the past decade has been the rise of data. With digital has come an avalanche of information about page views, engagement and sharing that has led to a performance-based newsroom culture that is more sharply focused on its audience than ever before. That said, media newsrooms strike a balance between learning the lessons from those results and trusting well-honed publishing instincts about what will set audiences alight.

The Editor Is All Powerful

Few marketers seem to understand the role of the editor. An editor is the figurative head of the newsroom. They are the defender of the publication’s vision and they are the ultimate arbiter of whether a story idea is unique or interesting enough to deserve publication and whether the audience will care. (A sub-editor or copy editor o n the other hand check copy for factual and grammatical errors).

This role is arguably more important in a brand newsroom where there’s a greater risk of “editing by committee” as multiple stakeholders all make a contribution and ultimately dilute the impact of a story idea.

Good Ideas Are Hard to Find

Journalism is an ideas business and there is simply no excuse for not having story ideas – lots of them. Journalists are curious by nature and they read widely looking for new takes on old topics or unanswered questions that provide a unique angle. Newsrooms are organized to facilitate the generation and production of ideas so reporters are assigned rounds or topics and build up contacts and speak to those people regularly to find news and insights. Short, sharp meetings at key times of day are designed to surface and refine the best ideas and monitor stories in the pipeline. This is probably the single biggest leap that brands need to make: to create a culture and design processes that ensure the strongest ideas are developed (and the weakest ideas are left on the table).

Lauren Quaintance is head of content for Storyation and she will be speaking about “How to Build a Brand Newsroom” with Amanda Gome, ANZ’s Head of Digital and Social Media, at Content Marketing World in Sydney on March 18. www.sydneycontentmarketingworld.com

Join more than 30,000 advertising industry experts
Get all the latest advertising and media news direct to your inbox from B&T.

No related posts.

TAGGED: ace metrix, Arty Labs, southwest
Share
By Lauren Quaintance 1
* Named one of the top 15 women in content marketing globally by the editor of the US-based Content Marketing Institute's Chief Content Officer magazine in 2015. * High profile as a keynote speaker at Content Marketing World, CMS Asia, Mumbrella360 and BEFest and experienced and experienced media and marketing awards judge who has served on jury panels for ADMA's Australian Creativity and Effectiveness Awards, BEFest and Publish. * Co-founder of boutique content marketing firm based in Sydney with a roster of blue chip clients including Tourism Australia, BUPA, Tourism New Zealand and Australia Post. * Editorial lecturer for two-year Copywriting Course at Miami Ad School (Sydney) * More than 15 years media experience in Australia, NZ and UK including editing and managing high-circulation magazines Good Weekend, the(sydney)magazine, Metro and Sunday magazine. * Experience as an award-winning journalist who was twice named New Zealand's Magazine Feature Writer of the Year and has won prizes for travel, historical and investigative journalism. * Significant expertise in managing launches and relaunches of digital, newsstand, newspaper products including magazines, sections, websites and tablet apps. * High-level academic qualifications and prestigious fellowships from international universities including Columbia University (USA) and Oxford University (UK).

Latest News

Mindshare & Kaimera Drive Off With MG Media Account After Incumbents Decline To Re-Pitch
18/07/2025
Jake Stringer flying up above his old club.
TV Ratings (17/07/2025): Jake Stringer Puts On A Show Against His Old Side
18/07/2025
Fever Tree Global Creative Account Goes To Pitch
18/07/2025
Where Did The Bookies Go? Rugby League 26 Launches Without Gambling Sponsors
18/07/2025
//

B&T is Australia’s leading news publication magazine for the advertising, marketing, media and PR industries.

 

B&T is owned by parent company The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd.

About B&T

  • About
  • Contact
  • Editorial Guidelines
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise

Top Categories

  • Advertising
  • Campaigns
  • Marketing
  • Media
  • Opinion
  • Technology
  • TV Ratings

Sign Up for Our Newsletter



B&TB&T
Follow US
© 2025 B&T. The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Register Lost your password?