Gordon Campbell scooped up for editorial role
Image credit: NewsTalk ZB
Scoop has gained a new editor in Gordon Campbell, who joins the independent news site after a two-year stint as a research officer for the Green Party. Before working in politics, Campbell contributed as a features writer for The Listener, and he cites his extensive coverage of the Ahmed Zaoui case as one of the highlights of his career.
“As a new company formed to give Scoop a new lease of life, Scoop Media Services couldn’t be happier to welcome Gordon as our new editor,” said Craig Pellett, the chair of the board overseeing the company, in a release posted on Scoop.
Interestingly, Campbell recently wrote a post on Alastair Thompson’s decision to depart from Scoop to join Kim Dotcom’s political experiment called the Internet Party.
“Some of the fallout from his involvement with Dotcom has been at a personal cost for Al, some of it damages Scoop’s reputation. Obviously, this incident has not been helpful to the role envisioned for Scoop by its new investors,” said Campbell in the article.
Thompson’s involvement with Dotcom has however been short-lived, with recent reports suggesting that he has resigned from the Internet Party to rejoin the Scoop team.
Given that Campbell’s article also said that “Scoop has always struggled, financially” and that “for much of its existence, it has had to rely on the willingness of the extended Thompson family to keep it afloat,” the new editor will welcome news of the founder’s return to the publication.
New seat carved out for Hurley
Bauer’s acquisition of several of APN’s magazines may have resulted in quite a few job losses, but the changes haven’t equated to bad news for everyone. As part of the restructuring process, Kaylene Hurley will be stepping into the newly created role of group sales direct for weekly titles.
Having previously served as Bauer’s sale director for premium and lifestyle titles between 2009 and 2011, Hurley is no stranger to senior roles at the media conglomerate. In addition to this, she also familiarised herself with the weekly magazine market during a stint as the advertising sales director at New Zealand Women’s Weekly between 2004 and 2007.
According to the Bauer’s commercial director Paul Gardiner, Hurley will be responsible for providing strategic direction for Woman’s Day, New Zealand Woman’s Weekly and NW. He says that her central aim will be develop brand communities of the titles, with special emphasis on digital.
Back to the homeland
Boutique PR agency Lily & Louis has appointed Aimee Nicholls as business director in response to a successful 2013, which included Heletranz, Pumpkin Patch, Fujifilm and Ooby Ryn account wins.
This move sees Nicholls returning to New Zeland after a four years in New York, where she first worked as a marketing and event associate for UBS Investment Bank (for one year) before moving into a senior account supervisor role at Formula PR, a position she held for over three years.
Her last role in New Zealand ran between 2007 and 2009, when she worked as an account manager at Goode PR.
As a business director for Lily & Louis, Nicholls will provide senior-level strategic counsel to clients, supervise programme creation and execution, mentor junior-level employees, and contribute to new business and growth efforts.
TRN does a digital yahoo
To align its offering with an increasingly digitised industry, The Radio Network has appointed Marcus Forbes to the newly created role of head of digital content.
Forbes sharpened his digital skills by working for Yahoo! NZ over the last seven years, first as an editor-in-chief for six years and then as the general manager of media for nine months.
TRN’s group GM of product and digital Carolyn Luey says the role has been created to focus on the company’s digital content propositions across all of the brands, including iHeartRadio.
“Marcus has a strong track record of growing audiences and engagement through development of strong content propositions through his roles at XtraMSN, Yahoo!Xtra and most recently Yahoo! NZ. He has significant experience in creating editorial solutions for commercial clients and advertisers. The fact he will be able to hit the ground running makes a huge difference,” says Luey.
Forbes says that he found the chance to work on the iHeartRadio platform instrumental in deciding to apply for the role.
“TRN is creating the future for radio and I want to be part of that. iHeartRadio has been so successful overseas and we are only just beginning here. It is a unique platform for clients to reach that critical 18-39 year old market,” he said in a release.
The loss of Forbes’ expertise comes at bad time for Yahoo! NZ. Late last year, 87,000 Yahoo Xtra email accounts were compromised when a wave of spam attacks flooded inboxes throughout New Zealand. This debacle led to Yahoo! NZ shutting down all the spammed accounts until passwords were changed.
“Marcus has made a significant contribution as a senior leader in the Yahoo New Zealand business, we are sorry to see him depart and sincerely wish him the best in his future endeavours. We are currently considering options for replacing the role of general manager of media, however there is nothing further to announce at this time,” said a spokesperson for Yahoo! NZ.
PRINZ hooks up with Getty
This week, it was announced that Getty Images will be the official photographer for the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand (PRINZ) for 2014.
The one-year deal means that PRINZ will give the stock image provider photographic coverage of key events, including its annual conference and awards in May, an event for senior practitioners in November and selected networking events.
“The partnership with Getty Images is very timely as the profession addresses the challenge of incorporating visual imagery into its communication model,” said PRINZ CEO Simone Bell in response to the agreement.
This agreement sees Getty joining other long-standing PRINZ partners iSentia, Perceptive and Aon.
Musical chairs
In December last year, MediaWorks announced that Sacha McNeil would be taking Rachel Smalley’s place on Firstline. This change was made because Smalley took up a position at NewsTalk ZB, where she currently hosts Early Edition, which runs before Mike Hosking’s breakfast show.
It has now been announced that Smalley will be taking on an additional role, as she will be returning to the world current affairs by joining TVNZ’s Q+A.
This means that Smalley will present the show alongside Susan Wood, TVNZ political editor Corrin Dann and deputy political editor Michael Parkin. In her capacity as a member of the news and current affairs team at TVNZ, she will also have the opportunity to file stories for Sunday on TV One.
Since Kiwis will be heading to the polls this year, Smalley will undoubtedly draw on her journalistic experience – which has seen her cover elections in Britain, the United States, France and New Zealand – as she takes on her new role on TVNZ’s leading political show.
