Darren Goodsir made editor-in-chief of Sydney Morning Herald with brief to push independence
Darren Goodsir
Fairfax Media has named Darren Goodsir as the new editor-in-chief of the Sydney Morning Herald, with the announcement stressing his credentials to maintain the newspaper’s independence.
He replaces Sean Aylmer, who spent a year in the role before being appointed to run Fairfax Media’s business group after the sudden return of Brett Clegg to News Corp.
Goodsir is a former editor of the Herald’s website smh.com.au. Most recently he was the masthead’s news director.
In this evening’s announcement, comments from both Goodsir and his boss stressed the importance of the paper’s independence. Fairfax Media’s board is seen as being under siege from 15 per cent shareholder Gina Rinehart who has so far declined to commit to editorial independence if she joins the board.
Garry Linnell, Director of News Media at Fairfax, said: “Darren is an outstanding newsroom leader and was a clear choice for the role. He has an instinctive understanding of our audiences and what they expect from the Herald – across all of its publishing platforms.
“He is also an intuitive newsman who has earned an enormous amount of respect from his peers throughout the industry. Everyone knows Darren as the sort of editor who will fiercely defend the independence of the Herald and its journalists.”
Goodsir said: “The SMH has a proud tradition of being an independent source of news and I am committed to giving our readers the very best journalism in the nation.”
Goodsir started his career as a copyboy at News Limited, going on to work at The Daily Mirror, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, and The Australian. He also worked on The South China Morning Post in Hong Kong before joining Fairfax’s Sun-Herald in 1997.
He went on to work on the SMH and launched Fairfax’s opinion website the National Times in 2009.
Tim Burrowes and Megan Reynolds
Good luck to him. For all our sakes let’s hope he does well….
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Both great choices – Darren and Sean have good chops across print and digital, an eye for the craft and work well with others. IMHO all criteria for success in today’s newsroom.
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Great choice for Editor. Darren has always had a good nose for news and is also an all around nice guy.
I love the SMH and hope both he and Sean can help the newspaper survive.
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I have recently had the pleasure to work with both of these fine journalists – who are both re writing the rule book on how a news room needs to operate in a ad cash strapped future. FFX editorial is in bloody good hands……across print, online and MOBILE.
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