‘People will regrettably leave our business’: News Corp dumps editors, restructures publishing teams
News Corp has announced sweeping staff cuts and major restructures, with executive chairman Michael Miller confirming a number of people will leave the business.
However, despite rumours these redundancies will be made on Friday, News Corp has shot down the speculation, calling it “incorrect”.
“A number of roles will change and some impacted people will regrettably leave our business,” Miller said in an email to staff on Wednesday.
“I would like to personally thank those colleagues for their contribution and professionalism. We will try to minimise these impacts as much as possible and will treat our affected colleagues with the utmost of respect.
“As we are now living at a time when the way news and information is created and consumed is changing faster than it has ever changed, we too must continue to evolve.”
Under the restructure, The Australian will be swept into a division headed up by Nicholas Gray as managing director and Michelle Gunn as editor-in-chief. Aside from The Australian, this division will also feature mastheads’ Vogue, The List, and The Wish, and will be titled ‘The Australian and prestige mastheads’.
All the other daily state-based mastheads, such as the Courier Mail, Herald Sun, and the Daily Telegraph, will be under the ‘state and community mastheads’ division with News Corp’s regional and community publications. This division will be headed up by MD/publisher Mark Reinke.
The Daily Telegraph’s current editor-in-chief Ben English will lead editorial across this division, plus the NCA newswire, while The Herald Sun’s Sam Weir will lead the Hobart Mercury and Weekly Times.
The ‘free news and lifestyle mastheads’ division, which will include news.com.au, as well as their Checkout vertical, will be lead by Pippa Leary as managing director and publisher, while Mick Carroll, current editor of the Saturday edition of the Daily Telegraph, and the Sunday Telegraph, will be editor-in-chief.
Jason Scott, currently managing director of news in Queensland, will become executive editor of the Sport Network.
News Corp’s current national executive editor Peter Blunden will step down from this role, but stay on the board and move to a three-day-a-week advisory role. News.com.au’s current editor-in-chief Lisa Muxworthy has been made redundant, along with Editorial Innovation Centre director John McGourty.
News Corp has not revealed how many job losses will occur across the company, but Miller told staff: “Over the next two weeks, we will provide you with more information – and we will inform all of you what these changes mean for you and how teams will operate.”
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Nathan Jolly is the Deputy Editor of Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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I hear there is more to come – poor behaviour that would make Nine’s board blush has finally been called out…
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What is this, March 2020?!
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It seems crazy that Lisa Muxworthy has been booted for an aging print guy, who by all accounts is a good operator but the main thing going for him is that Michael Miller likes him.
I feel bad for everyone else who has to wait two weeks to figure out whether or not they have a job.
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What about the sales team? Will Danny still take me out to lunch?
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I hope that bald strategy guy in Melbourne is ok
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Here we go again. Me plus other hundreds lined up like sheep to the slaughter. Started a decade ago.
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I don’t understand the logic here. Print media has been declining for years and has had numerous chances to enhance its offerings. Yet, the editor of one of our few growing news channels was the one to be let go?
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Because no one seems to be able to answer .. what season does a Sycamore tree shed it’s leaves? Is it autumn?
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News doesn’t do redundancies on Fridays. They will want people off the books for July 1, so they have until Tuesday to do that.
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Of course News Corp leads the charge in replacing editors with AI.
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It’s no coincidence that this comes immediately after their plans to use AI to generate content were made public.
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Sounds like a lot of deck chairs being swapped around on the Titanic
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All the HR office doors will be slamming shut every 20 mins.
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It’s absolutely fascinating how some of the people at News are like cockroaches, consistently surviving nuclear fallout again and again…especially one of the newer additions to the Australian’s executive team. Some really interesting stories about that one. The Australian is so keen to point the finger at 7 and 9, but it should probably look inward first.
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