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New publisher appointed at digital-only title

Lucy-Thorne-Pic-e14181386888722The launch publisher of a digital-only regional title is to make way after seven months in the role.

Ed Walker is leaving GetReading to return to his previous position as Trinity Mirror’s digital development editor, with current deputy publisher Lucy Thorne, left, due to take his place once she returns from maternity leave.

In Lucy’s absence Neil Macdonald, pictured below right, currently head of web at the Liverpool Echo, has been seconded to the publisher’s role.

The digital-only project was launched last year after Trinity Mirror axed its companion print title the Reading Post.

Ed was seconded to lead the project while Lucy, previously news editor of The Wokingham Times and The Bracknell Times, was chosen to deputise.

As a result of her promotion Natasha Adkins, currently a live news reporter for GetReading, will become deputy publisher.

The new role of assistant publisher has also been created, which will be taken up by Jennie Slevin in addition to her existing duties covering advance content and what’s on.

David Higgerson, digital publishing director for Trinity Mirror’s regional brands, said: “Ed’s brief was to help set up GetReading for the digital future, and help develop a strong team of digital journalists, and he delivered that quickly.

“GetReading has established itself as a place for local people to visit everyday for news, sport and information which matters to them. At the same time, we have dispelled many myths about what digital journalism is.

“GetReading has the highest local audience of any news organisation, and it is growing at a remarkable rate. The hand-in-glove working between editorial and commercial is also paying dividends.Neil Macdonald

“Ed will continue to support the growth of GetReading in his group role and I am delighted Lucy has agreed to become publisher, and that Neil has agreed to steer the ship and continue getreading’s development in the months to come.”

10 comments

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  • July 6, 2015 at 9:02 am
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    Previously…

    Ed left, Lucy’s had a baby, Neil’s moving back, Natasha’s moving up, Jennie’s got a new role and David’s ‘delighted’.

    In tonight’s episode Ed Grundy buys a new pig and rehearsals for the pantomime are in chaos.

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  • July 6, 2015 at 9:09 am
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    At last: a chance for someone far brighter than me to explain exactly how this digital-only title makes money; the actual pre-tax-figure; and the margin as a percentage of overall costs; the projected revenue-profit increases for the next three years. I’ve been waiting a decade-and-a-half for this moment and I’m beside myself with excitement. Post your revelations now.

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  • July 6, 2015 at 9:42 am
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    Good luck Lucy – great appointment, and well done to Ed for some incredible work down there. Also good luck to Neil too, I am sure the upward trajectory will continue.

    The work done in Reading has been incredible from a shell-shocked newsroom after the closure of the print title, to one that has embraced the future as ‘Now’.

    Working at real pace to offer something the audience actually wants and I know the numbers back this up.

    Also great to see just how close the commercial and editorial teams work – side by side, not disjointed.

    Has been interesting to see just what can be done without the shackles of a print product alongside the site. Digital content, for a digital audience and none of the other nonsense in between – obviously this is something of a special case but great to see what can be done.

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  • July 6, 2015 at 10:32 am
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    The EggMan: so, this is a “great” commercial success then. How is it done? The world waits with bated breath for your analysis and the hard figures.

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  • July 6, 2015 at 11:12 am
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    Sorry Dick I don’t have the actual figures, but I know they are solid and improving rapidly.

    I am not entirely sure what you want me, as a non employee, to tell you? Full P&L sheet?

    We can have the great print/digital debate all day but one thing is clear and that is how people want to consume content, and the content they want to consume is not necessarily what we think it is or would like it to be.

    All I know is the team in Reading is working in a way that secures a future for people, they are producing content that people want to read and the figures are backing that up.

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  • July 6, 2015 at 12:35 pm
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    The EggMan: Thanks for the reply. I know the news content I want to “consume” and it’s found on sites such as BBC News and The Guardian. If any local news group exhibited even half their quality I’d visit regularly – but none do. Also, as an ex-magazine editor who worked online for 16-17 years, I’m not anti the technology but have yet to hear any explanation as to how it can make money, which papers still do, albeit on a reduced scale. Online can be a useful supplement to papers, which should be returned to small, locally-based, commercially lean groups to ensure their future. Corporate executives on six-figure salaries (their big bucks still provided by papers) spouting garbage about clicks and content are only leading us one way – the knacker’s yard. The medium-term future is corporate-free and a canny blend of paper and online. Beyond that is anyone’s guess.

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  • July 6, 2015 at 2:04 pm
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    In the meantime, the rest of us will work the realities: Corporate firms own most of the regional press, and at the same time fewer people are buying newspapers. You may find everything you want on the BBC or the Guardian, but many, many, many others find a lot of what they like on newspaper websites. Advertisers advertise on websites because it works, newspaper websites take adverts because they pay the bills. Advertisers like audiences which are engaged about the subjects they are reading, and are paying to reach them.

    Describing online as a ‘useful supplement’ to print ignores everything we see around us. The future is online and it’s the job of those companies you spend much of your day on here slagging off to find a place within that future for local news – not helping by people like you who prefer to snark at every opportunity and hark back to a golden age which, in my 30 years in the industry, was always about 20 years previously.

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  • July 6, 2015 at 3:36 pm
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    Dick, Dick here, calm down my old highwayman. Point one: I’ve only been in papers seven years so I’ve no Golden Age to which I can hark back, perhaps only a tin one. Point two: as a magazine editor I was solicited 16-7 years ago to give my publication an “online presence” (when you blokes were still hot metal?). This I did and all agreed the quality was excellent, though it never made a penny in profit. To me that is failure because I work in business not the charity sector; good editorial – whether newspaper leader or blog – on its own doesn’t buy a bag of chips. Point three: the future of local news may be online but it won’t generate enough money to keep an office cat let alone maintain a website. Hence the big corporates, geared for big profits, will let it go; therefore opportunities arise for sleeker, fit-for-purpose, locally based outfits that invest in journalism, not hopeless overpaid executives and greedy shareholders. To think only corporations can provide a home for such a business belongs to the age of masked men holding up stage coaches with a flintlock. Back to where we started…

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  • July 7, 2015 at 10:12 am
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    Only the most lead-lined of optimists would fail to acknowledge that print is at best moribund and at worst terminally ill.

    Surely the real question is whether the web has a long-term business model capable of funding a reliable and comprehensive replacement?

    From where I sit, I would have to say that the jury is still out on that one. What does not seem to be in much doubt is that cash-strapped newspaper groups have seized the opportunity to slash and burn their newsrooms to bolster their balance sheets.

    The result is that many (though, I must say not quite all) regional paper web portals are frankly a mess. Out of date and irrelevant stories vie for space with countless duplicates. The sites give the impression of being cobbled together by hard pressed staff in what spare moments they have. (Which I suspect is indeed how most sites are put together.)

    In the meantime, managing directors constantly swear their allegiance to on-line. Content management systems sprout like weeds on a garden path, with each new iteration binging more redundancies in already overstretched newsrooms.

    The real truth is that newspaper management are simply reverting to type. In better times, they balanced the books by pushing up cover prices and advertising rates, and latterly they have even printed their titles on the day before dated publication and tried to fool their readers into believing that this, too, is progress.

    I will be much more sanguine about the web as the future of the regional press when I see newspaper groups hiring, not firing, journos. The web is ripe for exploitation to create a vibrant, inclusive and, just possibly, even a moderately profitable regional press. After all, we are being told that almost every day on the pages of HoldTheFrontPage,

    But, I will tell you what: I am pretty certain it will take some better out-of-box thinking than is currently on display.

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  • July 8, 2015 at 12:03 am
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    “Advertisers advertise on websites because it works, newspaper websites take adverts because they pay the bills.”

    Between a third and half of people are already using ad blockers while browsing news websites. That proportion will only grow.

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