News Corp’s new “innovation centre” could offer a lifeline to recently laid-off staff as the company signals further consolidation in the face of cost-of-living pressures and the probable ensuing reader churn rates.
Fears of continuing consolidation come after editors were asked in late March to put forward editorial jobs for redundancy as part of a global move to cut costs.
The corner of the business to see the deepest cuts was the company’s NewsLocal service, which publishes digital editions of local news outlets including The Canberra Star, Wentworth Courier and The Launceston News. Among the most high-profile redundancies was Rhett Watson, managing editor and commercial director of News Corp’s national regional and community network.
The News Corp veteran of more than 20 years has since been spotted traipsing the halls of the company’s Holt Street offices, and is expected to link up with former national community masthead network editor John McGourty to work on News Corp’s new “editorial innovation centre”, sources told Crikey.
The innovation centre, known as the “EIC”, was introduced to staff by News Corp Australia’s executive chairman Michael Miller about a month ago. It was described as the home of the company’s multimedia content production led by “our most innovative story producers”, whose job it will be to identify emerging channels and story formats and reaching new audiences with the help of AI.
The announcement places News Corp Australia among some of the earliest mainstream adopters of generative AI in the news media.
The Financial Times was one of the first, after editor Roula Khalaf told readers in May that the paper would begin experimenting with “AI-augmented visuals” with the oversight of editors. Earlier this month The Guardian’s editor-in-chief Katharine Viner announced the paper would also begin experimenting with the technology. (Neither will use it to carry out reporting; both emphasised strict oversight.)
The broader move at News Corp Australia, however, signifies yet further pooling of its editorial resources, which have in recent months seen news and picture editors moved into the EIC to serve several mastheads within the broader business.
In a recent job posting for the head of content innovation and programming, which is no longer accepting applications, the EIC appears set to drive “multimedia support to the production of big stories” and be key in “leading ambitious storytelling alongside our talented newsroom reporting teams”. The centre is also hiring a string of audience growth-focused roles, including a paid analyst charged with converting audiences into paying subscribers.
Such a move was foreshadowed by Miller in March when he told The Australian that the company’s various mastheads — which include The Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun and The Australian — were doubling down on trying to retain the subscribers they already have.
He insisted the company’s churn rates “aren’t worsening” but that it doesn’t “want to be in a situation where we leave remedies too late”.
Crikey has approached Watson for comment.
