SMH experiments with new brands including The Optimist, Celsius and Science Is Golden
The editorial team of the Sydney Morning Herald is conducting a series of journalism experiments involving launching new brands across Facebook, the web and podcasting, editor-in-chief Darren Goodsir has revealed.
Speaking at an SMH subscribers event, Goodsir revealed that new brands already quietly launched include Celsius – dedicated to coverage of climate change issues; The Optimist – which covers positive or uplifting news; and Science is Golden which aggregates the best of the SMH’s science reporting, along with content from elsewhere.
Goodsir said that Celsius and The Optimist have a team of two journalists working across both of them.
Science Is Golden, which uses Facebook as its hub, is curated by the SMH and The Age science editors Nicky Phillips and Bridie Smith. Goodsir said: “We are always into experimenting. The idea of the journalist as curator as well as reporter is growing in popularity.”
A Science Is Golden podcast will launch in August. SMH innovation editor Stephen Hutcheon, also on the panel, said: “We feel that podcasting is coming back in vogue.”
Science is a popular topic on Facebook, with the I Fucking Love Science page having recently passed 20m likes.
Hutcheon said the launch of the sites had been deliberately low key, without being promoted using the SMH brand. He said: “We are experimenting with building something from scratch, without any overt home page support, building click-by-click and like-by-like.”
The new efforts were in part inspired by a study trip of the US and UK which saw senior Fairfax staff visit new media startups experimenting with varying business models including Quartz, Beacon, Circa, Vox and Mic.
Goodsir said: “If it doesn’t work, we’ll kill it and move on.”
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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And that, dear readers, is why the SMH’s circulation figures are in the toilet.
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sounds like more upmarket versions of the two standalone experimental sites launched by the Mirror group Ampp3d and UsVsTh3m a couple of years ago. Both were recently closed. http://www.buzzfeed.com/alanwh.....uts-amp33d
Ditto the SMH’s newish Skim app – effectively a copy of the NYTnow app launched about 18 months ago by the New York Times and which they’ve recently relaunched as a free app after the paid version tanked. Nothing like being fast followers, huh?
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A big part of the reason FFX circulation is down is that they removed all the bullshit give-away copies, so the Audit Bureau no longer can include them.
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This is embarassing nonsense. Why can’t they simply produce a decent news coverage FFS?SMH is total crap.
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“The Optimist”
Bahahahahahahahaha
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If they could kill off Daily Life in the Smh that would be mega fantastic. Clickbait predictable and so boring
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The Magus is right. And this is just ideology-by-stealth from the luvvies.
Note the common theme between these so-called brands?
Note the timing as they introduce a new section in their mastheads in the lead-up to the Paris junket? (no doubt to be attended by a plane load of Fairfax luvvies)
They think they’ll own the conversation around climate change but without using the words “climate change”, because they know it’s a turn-off, a conversation stopper.
Be adults – have a robust discussion, but trying to hide it this way is pathetic.
Really these people spend too much time in the echo-chamber of their own dogma.
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