Sophia Phan has been appointed as growth content editor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in what is an ambitious, long-term strategy to grow the audiences for the metro mastheads.
Phan will join the recently created premium content team, reporting to the head of premium content Chris Paine.
She will lead the mastheads’ team of social media editors and producers to ensure the unique properties of the Herald, The Age, WAToday and Brisbane Times are more accessible than ever before to younger audiences.
In the new role, Phan will work closely with editors right across the newsroom, to ensure best-practice off-platform thinking is embedded in all commissioning and editing.
She will help co-ordinate and target the resources of the premium content team.
Executive editor Tory Maguire said the appointment will build on the strategy to invest in the areas with the greatest potential for growth and will ensure the mastheads’ quality news-breaking journalism is re-packaged in innovative ways across myriad social, audio and video platforms to best target a youth audience.
“Over many years, Sophia has proven invaluable in all our digital planning and execution for major events and breaking news, and in many ways has been performing this job unofficially for quite some time,” said Maguire.
“Her appointment to this new role will make a material difference to our ability to grow our audience and is a tangible example of our commitment to ensuring our mastheads are amongst the best at finding a different audience for our journalism,” he added.
Phan said of her appointment: “Our award-winning journalism is the best in the country. I’m excited to work with our talented teams to showcase our stories and reach new and younger audiences across a breadth of platforms.”
Both The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age recently launched a new podcast examining mental illness among Australia’s youth called Enough.
Read more: The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age launch mental health podcast, Enough