Nine is discontinuing its sub-editing agreement with Pagemasters and bringing editorial production at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review in-house to be done in their newsrooms.
This means that a number of new staff will be hired in the coming months to bolster editorial production at each of the mastheads in Sydney and Melbourne. The equivalent of 24 new positions will be created by the changes, with sub-editors to work onsite in the newsrooms by September 30.
Executive Editor of The Herald and The Age James Chessell said: “This is great news that reflects the importance of The Age and The Herald’sjournalism as well as the mastheads’ strong financial position.
Subscribers expect quality and having our production resources as part of the same team will improve our ability to edit and present our journalism.”
Financial Review Editor-in-Chief Michael Stutchbury said: “This decision is warmly welcomed by the Financial Review as we believe it will allow us to redouble our efforts to build cross-platform production expertise and boost the quality of our products for subscribers,”
Pagemasters will continue to provide some production services to the mastheads covering racing pages, TV listings, advertising feature page layouts and comment moderation.