News

‘iPad has taken us from The Flintstones to The Jetsons’

The iPad has helped take News Ltd’s online journalism “from the Flintstones to the Jetsons”, The Daily Telegraph’s editor Garry Linnell has said.

His comments came in a video interview with Mumbrella as the publisher took the unprecedented step of making the editors of its four biggest metro newspapers available for interview at the same time.


For those using devices that don’t support Flash you can watch this video on YouTube.

The move was to coincide with the launch if iPad apps for the daily papers.

Linnell told Mumbrella editor Tim Burrowes: “We’ve gone from being the Flintstones to being the Jetsons in one big step. We’re now in that headspace where we know we want to publish great stories and it’s the story telling is the one thing that hasn’t changed.”  

And he added that rather than fearing technology as they had initially, journalists were embracing it. He said: “15 years ago when online first began emerging seriously people put their head in a bucket of sand, they didn’t want to know about it, because it was seen as a threat, whereas this change is being embraced. They want to write for different platforms and produce for different platforms.”

Michael Crutcher, editor of Brisbane’s Courier Mail, also said that journalists were jumping into the new technology. He said: “We’re able to tell stories in different ways now. The journalists are really keen to learn more.”

And Simon Pristel, editor of Melbourne’s Herald Sun, added: “We’ve had to fundamentally change the whole training process. The old cadet style doesn’t work for us any more. Trainees are coming in with video experience and they’re teaching us things.”

Pristel said that the iPad also offers the opportunity for newspaper publishers to regain ground lost to other media. He said: ‘Others have come in and stolen the agenda from us – radio and television – this is an opportunity for us to come back and steal back our ground and hold onto it all day.”

Melvin Mansell, editor of the Adelaide Advertiser, added: “We’re challenging TV and radio with live video. If you’ve got a big news event, already people know that if you come to Adelaide Now you’re going to see it which is causing a bit of grief for TV and radio stations.”

Pristell also claimed that News Ltd’s policy of putting editors in charge of both the print and online products works better than other publishers such as Fairfax, which sees its major mastheads the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age with two different managements for the print and online editions.

He said: “Unlike other media companies in Australia the editors of each of the brands are responsible for all the platforms so you haven’t got a separate person looking after each platform which means brand attributes the readers love in print, they’ll also got those same attributes in the website and the app as well.”

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