News Ltd head reveals secret of online success

The head of Murdoch's online empire has told fellow journalists how news.com.au survived the dot.com downturn.

Brian Buchanan, editor of news.com.au - with responsibility for all editorial staff across News Ltd's sites - said he and his team had to change their focus to justify their continued existence.

Writing in Australia's journalism industry magazine, Walkley's, Mr Buchanan said: "The initial site identity reflected the heady days of the Web last year with an emphasis on e-commerce sites and activities. In the midst of this, the news site, news.com.au, still managed to expand significantly. It had started out in 1996 as The Australian Online, representing the national broadsheet, then became The Australian News Network when it was asked to also represent the other leading daily and Sunday newspapers in the group.

"From there it became news.com.au to better signify its role as a 24-hour-a-day breaking-news site, as well as the sole provider of online content from the newspapers. It also started daily use of audio and some video to exploit the services the Web can offer and to push its identity as being separate from the newspapers."

But when the downturn arrived the focus had to change from being a standalone service to integration within the News Ltd fold. It was now the site's role to help its sister newspapers, reflecting their content on the web once more.

Part of this shift in strategy has meant creating ÔmastheadÕ sites for the company's main newspapers.

News.com.au is still the key online site with its breaking news, audio and the key reports from the papers.

"An example of its role and the immediacy the net offers was one recent, eventful day with the interest rate cut, the GDP ‘recession’ data and the Telstra record profit coming within hours of each other," Mr Buchanan said. "These were all swiftly put online, then fleshed out with fuller reports and audio."

And another of Australia's top online journalists has warned that the future of net newspapers depends on how closely they work with their sister print editions.

Mike van Niekerk, online editor of Melbourne's daily The Age, said co-operation is the key.

"In the short life-cycle of electronic newspapers, the initial impulse was to shovel content from the print edition onto the web site - a task performed in isolation at night by production sub-editors using a specialised content management system," he said.

"Site managers soon realised an online publishing cycle need not be tied to the distribution of a print newspaper - the net offers continuous publishing. Wire agency updates were pressed into service on front pages as breaking news - which is about as far as most global newspaper sites have gone."

For the past year at theage.com.au, an online reporter has worked with an online news editor to cover local news. Since mid-March, as part of a broader newsroom restructure, the online news editor has been installed at a news desk alongside print news editors. The aim is better co-ordination of breaking news in print and online, less duplication of reporting in both media and more effective targeting of stories written for either.

The online news editor continues to manage the look of the site - republishing it through the day to reflect international, national and local breaking news. But he or she attends news conference and discusses news judgments with fellow news editors as the day progresses.

"In time," said Mr van Niekerk, "both newsrooms will fluidly produce journalism that will make the best use of print and online at the same time, for a changing readership: the smh.com.au (Sydney Morning Herald site) attracts 1.45 million visits a week, and theage.com.au just under a million. Inevitably, they will stay loyal to a news outlet that can satisfy their need for quality journalism in print and online."

For more information, see www.walkleys.com/magazine.

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