Nine promotes Sophia Phan to growth content editor for metro mastheads
Nine Entertainment Co has revealed an ambitious long-term strategy to grow the audiences of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, with the appointment of Sophia Phan to the newly created position of growth content editor.
Phan will join the recently formed premium content team, reporting to head of premium content Chris Paine, who was appointed to oversee the evolution of subscriber engagement for the metro mastheads in November last year.
In the new role, Phan will be responsible for leading the mastheads’ team of social media editors and producers to ensure the unique properties of the Herald, The Age, WA Today and Brisbane Times are more accessible than ever before to younger audiences.
Phan will work closely with editors right across the newsroom, to ensure best-practice off-platform thinking is embedded in all commissioning and editing, and she will help co-ordinate and target the resources of the premium content team.
First joining the Herald as social media and online producer in 2013, Phan has held a number of roles with the masthead, most recently as deputy digital editor since 2019.
Executive Editor Tory Maguire said the appointment will build on the strategy to invest in the areas with the greatest potential for growth, and will ensure the mastheads’ quality newsbreaking journalism is re-packaged in innovative ways across myriad social, audio and video platforms to best target a youth audience.
“Over many years, Sophia has proven invaluable in all our digital planning and execution for major events and breaking news, and in many ways has been performing this job unofficially for quite some time,” said Maguire.
“Her appointment to this new role will make a material difference to our ability to grow our audience and is a tangible example of our commitment to ensuring our mastheads are amongst the best at finding a different audience for our journalism.”
Phan added: “Our award-winning journalism is the best in the country. I’m excited to work with our talented teams to showcase our stories and reach new and younger audiences across a breadth of platforms.”
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