USA Today will be merging its newspaper and online newsrooms, USA Today President and Publisher Craig Moon and USATODAY.com Senior Vice President and Publisher Jeff Webber announced on Tuesday.
USA TODAY Editor Ken Paulson announced that USATODAY.com Vice President and Editor-in-Chief Kinsey Wilson had been promoted to Executive Editor of USA TODAY, joining current Executive Editor John Hillkirk in that role. Hillkirk and Wilson will share oversight of daily news operations and content development, reporting directly to Paulson.
Moon and Webber, in a statement, said the move to combine the newsrooms was a response to the growing importance of the Internet as a vehicle for news delivery. The new structure will allow both operations to begin working together to make the transition from a world of stand-alone news products to one in which news was available where, when and how consumers desire.
"The goal in combining the two newsrooms is to create a single 24-hour news organisation that will inform and engage readers on multiple platforms," said Paulson. "That means going beyond arm's-length collaboration. Starting today our goal is to begin conceiving and planning our coverage as one unit, thinking more strategically about the deployment of our newsgathering resources in a world in which news has become an on-demand commodity."
Wilson said news operations would be combined in stages as staffs become more familiar with the demands of publishing to multiple platforms. "We will start by looking at areas such as travel, entertainment and breaking news, where we already have a good history of collaboration, and see how we can integrate our operations more effectively. We'll build from there," he said.
Hillkirk said the merger of the staffs will enhance the journalism in both the newspaper and online. "By combining the newsrooms, we will be able to improve our report to readers both in print and online. This will allow us to develop a better understanding of the expanded storytelling capabilities," he said.
Webber, to whom Wilson previously had reported, will continue to oversee the business operations of the website.
USA Today is the topselling newspaper in the United States. It is published via satellite at 36 locations in the US and at four sites outside. With a total average daily circulation of 2.3 million, the USA Today brand also includes USA Today Sports Weekly, a magazine for enthusiasts of professional football and baseball; USATODAY.com, a news and information website; and USA Today Live, the television arm.
USATODAY.com, which launched April 17, 1995, ranks among the most popular newspaper websites. Updated 24 hours per day, seven days per week, the website had 10.4 million unique visitors according to October 2005 Nielsen NetRatings. These unique monthly visitors access USATODAY.com News, Money, Sports, Life, Technology, Weather and Travel sections which combine the best of USA TODAY news and information and the latest breaking news with cutting-edge interactive features, information graphics and multimedia functions including audio, video and live webcasts. USA Today and USATODAY.com are published by Gannett Co Inc.
