News Corp has swung the axe on planned major job cuts as part of a company-wide restructure today, with a number of leadership jobs lost across the company.
Instead of the company’s usual practice of major announcements in all-staff meetings known as “town halls”, various newsrooms around the business received simultaneous and separate briefings on Wednesday morning, all around 11am Eastern time.
These meetings confirmed that the company’s metropolitan mastheads would move to a seven-day roster, as reported recently in the Nine newspapers.
The restructure will see News Corp divided into three divisions — “fast and free”, which includes news.com.au and the e-commerce platforms, “premium communities”, which includes the capital city mastheads and sport, and “prestige”, which accounts for national broadsheet The Australian, as well as titles like Vogue Australia.
Headlining the major editorial changes is the departure of much-loved news.com.au editor-in-chief Lisa Muxworthy. Current weekend Telegraph editor Mick Carroll will take over as group editor-in-chief of the new free news and lifestyle division, responsible for news.com.au. Kerry Warren is the editor of news.com.au and under the changes, the site no longer has an editor-in-chief position, a News Corp spokesperson confirmed. Crikey understands some staff were incensed at the decision, which will see the company’s current managing director of client product, Pippa Leary, as Carroll’s 2IC. Anna Caldwell will replace Carroll as weekend Telegraph editor.
News Corp’s executive chair, Michael Miller, was in the news.com.au meeting to announce the decision, where one source says he “began to shake with rage when questioned by staff on the decision”. A News Corp spokesperson told Crikey at no time did Miller “shake with rage” and said he was “calm at all times”.
An unnamed News Corp source, speaking to Crikey, said: “Replacing a digital media giant of Lisa’s exceptional talent with the guy who runs a newspaper fewer and fewer people read, with its shitty website no-one reads, tells you everything you need to know about News Corp.
“To dump an accomplished woman who’s better at her job than anyone else in this country… is disgusting.
“That Michael Miller thinks this is a sound strategy definitively proves he doesn’t know news.com.au, and worse, he doesn’t care about what it’s taken to get it to number one. This decision is outrageous and stupid. Classic News Corp.”
Under Muxworthy’s leadership, news.com.au rose to the top of the digital news website rankings, where it has stayed for the last 16 straight months.
Also gone after just one year is the company’s highly publicised Editorial Innovation Centre (EIC). In June last year, a number of internal staff, as well as external recruits, were brought together to form the new sub-department, which was set to “be the home of News’ multimedia content creation led by our most innovative story producers”, according to Miller.
The likes of former local mastheads lead John McGourty, as well as news.com.au editor Oliver Murray, were among the various high-profile recruits to the EIC, but sources say many staff were not entirely clear on its actual purpose.
“It was always a constant mystery what the EIC was — to myself, to my boss”, one source told Crikey.
McGourty, who will also depart the company alongside other senior EIC staff as part of the centre’s dissolution, apologised to staff for the leaks that have fed rampant speculation and reporting over the past few months over the cuts.
One source told Crikey McGourty admitted the company needed to “do better”, saying he understood “how anxious everyone has been”.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Mick Carroll would replace Lisa Muxworthy as editor-in-chief of news.com.au. The story has been updated to reflect that in fact Carroll takes over as a group editor-in-chief of the new free news and lifestyle division, responsible for news.com.au.
