News Corp Australia has restructured its business into three divisions and will make a series of redundancies, including the departure of News.com.au editor-in-chief Lisa Muxworthy.
The restructure essentially removes the roles of several senior editorial executives and centralises power along national lines. The Australian Financial Review reports that the restructure aims to save $65 million and could result in up to 100 redundancies across the business.
News Corp Australia executive chairman Michael Miller confirmed that a “number of roles” will be impacted by the restructure in a staff email yesterday.
“I would like to personally thank those colleagues for their contribution and professionalism. We will try to minimise these impacts as much as possible and will treat our affected colleagues with the utmost of respect,” Miller said.
“As we are now living at a time when the way news and information is created and consumed is changing faster than it has ever changed, we too must continue to evolve.”
The business will be now structured into three divisions – The Australian and Prestige Mastheads, State and Community Mastheads and Free News and Lifestyle Mastheads.
Its prestige mastheads division, which includes The Australian, Vogue, The Wish and The List, will be heeded up by Nicholas Gray, who has served as News Corp’s managing director of tech partnerships and subscriptions. The Australian’s editor-in-chief Michelle Gunn will take on wider editorial responsibility for the division.
News Corp Australia’s tabloids The Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun, The Courier Mail and The Advertiser will be combined with regional publications and be led by Mark Reinke, who previously was managing director of consumer. Masthead editor-in-chiefs, including the Telegraph’s Ben English, Queensland editor Chris Jones and the Herald Sun’s Sam Weir have been given wider responsibilities across the portfolio.
News Corp’s client product lead Pippa Leary has been appointed managing director and publisher of Free News and Lifestyle Mastheads with Sunday Telegraph Mick Carroll named editor-in-chief of the division.
Muxworthy is arguably the highest-profile departure. Popular internally, she worked on News Corp’s community newspapers, including the Manly Daily and The Southern Courier before joining News.com.au in 2012 as deputy editor. Under her watch, news.com.au has become the most read news site in Australia.
Also heading for the exit door is John McGourty, the group director of the Editorial Innovation Centre and a former deputy editor of the Daily Telegraph. News Corp’s national executive editor Peter Blunden will also step down from his role and will take on a part-time advisory position.
B&T contacted News Corp Australia for further clarification.
The restructure follows a visit by News Corp chairman Lachlan Murdoch, global CEO Robert Thomson and News UK CEO Rebekah Brooks.
It also comes in the wake of News Corp’s annual D_Coded event, in which the business announced it had overhauled its audience intelligence platform, Intent Connect, with AI tech that enables advanced data collaboration capabilities through planning, booking and measurement. Recently, News Corp signed a content licensing deal with OpenAI.
