UK: Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph Newsrooms Merge

Posted by Sarah Schewe on June 10, 2008 at 1:55 PM

Telegraph Media Group has integrated the news desks of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph; reporters will also write for their website, Telegraph.co.uk.

"We have a huge pool of talented journalists at TMG," said Ian MacGregor, the Sunday Telegraph editor. "They now have the opportunity to play a part across all three publications, as we combine the force of our news desks to deliver first-rate stories, both for our leading website and distinguished newspaper titles."

Special reporters from the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph will collaborate on breaking news and analysis; however, TMG said both papers would retain separate reporting teams and identities.

Several recent changes at TMG have foreshadowed the merger. Last month the science desks of both papers and the website were combined. In April, new positions were created which cover all titles: Adrian Michaels was appointed to the new post of foreign operations to run TMG's world news output and Iain Martin was also hired as head of comment and community. And just nine months ago, Patience Wheatcroft resigned as editor of the Sunday Telegraph, who according to the Guardian had reputedly "been under pressure to integrate the Sunday title and its reporters with sister paper the Daily Telegraph's seven-day multimedia news operation."

Reportr.net interviewed Chris Lloyd, assistant managing editor of Telegraph Media Group, about the integration process in April.

Integrating newsrooms has been a growing trend since 2005, when The New York Times merged print and web news desks.

Source: Guardian.co.uk