Fairfax moves to create Modern Newsroom

Fairfax Media New Zealand continues its newsroom transformation this week, with a proposal to further organise its editorial operations into focused, local teams and specialist national topic areas.

The proposal underpins a fundamental shift in the way its newsrooms are geared to serve its audience.

Sinead Boucher, Executive Editor at Fairfax Media, says teams in this proposed Modern Newsroom structure will be digital­ centric and built around audiences and content ­ not specific products or mastheads.

“The proposal is not about reducing headcount. We are boosting our reporting capability in small and large communities, and by streamlining our print­focused production processes, increasing the ratio of content creators from just over half to almost two thirds.”

Last week Fairfax announced a new editorial leadership team, with roles focused on audiences across local regions and specialist content areas ­ including Life & Style, Business, National News and Sport.

“This proposal would change the structure within our editorial teams, creating a Modern Newsroom and allowing us to be perfectly positioned to deliver content in all its forms to our audiences.”

Sinead continues: “We need digital ­first, socially driven newsrooms that are structured to produce quality journalism for different audiences and across platforms ­ and this is an exciting structure geared towards building a dynamic, responsive newsroom.

“It’s an entirely different way of operating that puts our journalists even closer to the communities they cover.”