Audience is at the core of West Australian Newspapers’ Editor-In-Chief Anthony De Ceglie
Make the audience care. That is The West Australian Editor-In-Chief Anthony De Ceglie’s core mission, underlined as he delivered the second lecture in the Judith Neilson Institute’s event series ‘The Editors’ in Sydney last week.
De Ceglie said: “My job as an editor is to make the audience care.”
“To feel our stories in their bones, and in their guts and in their hearts and in their minds.”
In his speech, De Ceglie touched on the latest Roy Morgan figures, cementing West Australian Newspapers as the fastest-growing cross-platform news brand in the country, with a year-on-year growth of 19.4 per cent, reaching a staggering 4.6 million readers every month.
De Ceglie reflected on The West Australian’s ongoing commitment to covering Indigenous issues, highlighting the paper’s recent dual-language Noongar/English front page and special eight-page wrap to mark the start of National Reconciliation Week – an initiative supported by renowned West Australian organisations and companies.
De Ceglie also highlighted some of the changes he’s made at The West Australian, which have engaged audiences in new ways. From launching a fully-fledged video department that produces Netflix-style multipart documentaries, to a state-wide search for a citizen reviewer to become the sixth member of the new food and wine A-Team.
A key takeaway message from De Ceglie? “We are seriously only just getting started.”
Click here to watch the entire speech.
5 Comments
Are you having a laugh?
but no one reads newspapers, not even their paywall websites, and no one reads The West (bastion of journalistic integrity that it is). The fact that nearly all news outlets incorrectly guessed (read: weren’t able to sway) the result of the last election wasn’t proof enough.
Yep, The West Australian tried as hard as every other right wing paper to convince everyone to keep Smirko and co. and failed spectacularly. Because almost no one is taking note and people can see the obvious bias. There are plenty of credible sources for news now; the monopoly is over.
Printed newspapers is a very tough old school business, but most are moving well into a traditional and digital model. Anthony is doing an outstanding job of bringing attitude and relevance back to The West – we need this to help make WA a great place to live. Love it or hate it you have to credit him for having a go and backing himself in. The numbers would say that people are engaging with what he is doing. A full page ad in The West today would still reach almost one in five adults, how does that compare to your MREC?
Harvey Norman is one of the most successful companies in Australia and they wouldn’t be wasting their money in The West if it didn’t drive real results.
“Make the audience care.” About the things Kerry Stokes cares about presumably. Because they failed spectacularly at reading the room in WA during the election. Saying that, they did seem to recognise the wrong side of history in the last few days and attempt an Italy-in-1943 manoeuvre.