Seamus McCauley leaves Northcliffe's Localpeople network

A key figure in Northcliffe Digital's network of local media sites, Localpeople, has left his post.

Seamus McCauley, formerly head of publishing at Localpeople, announced his departure on his personal blog Virtual Economics.

As head of publishing, McCauley was responsible for the regional and community managers of the more than 120-strong network of sites and overseeing launches into new areas.

He helped launch the network in the summer of 2009 when he was strategic analyst with Associated Northcliffe Digital, a position he began in August 2004.

In a blog post, McCauley said he had taken redundancy and was planning "a lovely long rest" to spend time with family.

"Localpeople's been a great place to work, and I've had a lot of fun being part of the team that took it from a piece of market research and a strategy presentation in the DMGT boardroom to a network of 123 local websites. As I pondered to someone the other day, my best guess is that no one, with the possible exception of Arianna Huffington, has enjoyed the opportunity to hire so many new journalists in the last 18 months, and I've loved the job of finding towns in which to launch new websites, hiring and training community publishers for those sites and helping drive forward a genuinely exciting new venture at the intersection of journalism and social media," he writes.

Northcliffe had not responded to a request for comment at the time of writing.

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