Thomas Hunter promoted to editor of The New Daily
Thomas Hunter
Online news website The New Daily has promoted deputy editor Thomas Hunter to the role of editor, following the departure of Daniel Sankey last month.
A month ago, Sankey announced he was moving to News Corp Australia to be editor of the publisher’s most read website News.com.au after editing the new start-up news website, funded by Australia’s biggest superannuation funds, for only three months.
New Daily editorial director Bruce Guthrie said they interviewed a number of candidates but chose to go with an internal appointment. “In the end we were in the enviable position of having several terrific candidates to choose from, but Thomas was the stand-out,” said Guthrie.
Hunter is former AM news director for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald who has previously worked as an online reporter at The Age and before that a reporter at independent news website Crikey.
“We are about to move into a second exciting phase of The New Daily and Thomas will drive that process, introducing a number of innovations,” said Guthrie.
“We hit or bettered all our first quarter targets, so there is no better time to be taking over.”
The website has drawn criticism since it launched with many fearing it may be biased towards its superfund owners, with The Australian reporting last week the Australian Securities and Investments Commission chairman admitting it had been monitoring the site for any signs of “irregularities”.
The Australian also quoted ASIC chairman Greg Medcraft as saying: “The articles currently on the site appear to be neutral, and are not biased towards the interests of the industry superannuation sector.”
Nic Christensen
