New Era of News Begins As the West Australian and Seven Perth Join Forces Under One Roof
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POWER PERTH HOUSE TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015 SPECIAL EDITION New era of news begins as The West Australian and Seven Perth join forces under one roof A PERFECT MATCH P10 NOBODY KNOWS NEWS LIKE US P12 WINNING WEB P14 CEMENTING A NEW FUTURE P16 TELETHON TREASURES P28 Years since Fat Cat 2 44 made his TV debut 2 INSIDE The TVW evolution 4 Sporting force 8 Dynamic duo 10 Integrated news power 12 Building a future 16 Early memories 20 On the record 24 Aerial view 26 Telethon phenomenon 28 Recipe for success 30 The West Australian editor-in-chief Bob Cronin, centre, and editor Brett McCarthy oversee news conference at Newspaper House. Picture: Iain Gillespie THE WRITER Brave new media world Pam Casellas has been a professional television critic, commentator and interested There is incremental change, 800. It puts our rivals in the was a raw 19-year-old, he was Fifty years ago film took days observer of the local and the kind that moves slowly and shade and sets up an enviable offered a job in television, a to arrive by plane in Perth national television industry no one really notices the competitive advantage. matter he discussed with his before it went to air. Press for 35 years, as well as a difference. And then there is A redesigned newsroom cadet counsellor. He was advised photographers transmitted devoted consumer of countless change that is so profound that enveloping a “superdesk” thus: “Son, this TV thing is a their pictures back to the office, television hours. the old ways are gone for ever complements a highly nine-day wonder . .” in painstakingly laborious and As a reporter for The West and the new reality is a field of sophisticated studio built within While the media has always erratic fashion, via a “pic-gram” Australian she followed the dreams and opportunities with Newspaper House. It is from been a rollicking, ever-changing unit attached to a public many changes to the industry in no limits. here that Seven News bulletins beast, neither he nor his telephone. Reporters, for whom terms of ownership, structure Welcome to this brave new are now presented. The studio counsellor could have imagined the prospect of a mobile phone and technology, as well as the media world where the skills, opens up new opportunities for the scope of change. was science fiction, dictated waxing and waning of diff erent experience, passion and a bigger local production slate The inky smell and thumping their stories to copytakers. programming trends, including commitment of two once- across all platforms. machines of a 1950s printing In 2015, the media world is the fi rst mini-series and the separate news-gathering Bob Cronin, editor-in-chief of room have been tamed into a instant and voracious. To emergence of reality TV. organisations come together to The West and a newspaper man cleaner, quieter, computerised prosper it needs skill, transform how information in all his life, sees it as a perfect place where the old crafts are commitment and passion. this State is presented to readers marriage of news gathering, long gone. In a television studio, Welcome to our new media and viewers. where the stories which are the cans of film, the world, where print and The West and Seven Perth, better covered on television will cumbersome cameras and television are combined in colleagues since 2011, are now be shown there and those which room-sized editing machines bringing you the news in a way firmly united in a shared have their most impact in words have been replaced by digital you had never imagined newsroom to bring their will be in the newspaper. technology and robotic cameras. possible. combined talents into a bright Where staff can move between new media world, the first of its the two media, if they wish, or A redesigned newsroom enveloping a ‘superdesk’ Cover picture: Geoff rey Thomas, Basil Zempilas, Rhianna King, complements a highly sophisticated studio built Rick Ardon, Mark Duffi eld, within Newspaper House. It is from here that Seven Susannah Carr and Angela Tsun inside the newsroom at the The News bulletins are now presented. West Australian and Seven Perth offi ce in Osborne Park. kind in Australia and rare in the stay where they are the most Picture: Mogens Johansen world, the busiest and the most comfortable. Where the most technologically advanced up-to-date technology allows the THE TEAM newsroom in the country. ever-increasing movement of FEATURES EDITOR The new opportunities across news between the various Mark Mallabone 9482 3574 all platforms — print, television, platforms, with ever-increasing [email protected] online, radio, regional speed. Where staff will, in time, newspapers and regional TV — have the skills to contribute to EDITOR are immense. It’s a media all platforms, from reporters in Jenni Storey 9482 3787 monster, in one place, with all country towns to photographers ADVERTISING the efficiencies that come with from the cabin of Seven Perth’s Terence Tay 9482 9706 that and the multitude of skills helicopter. that exist in a combined staff of Back in 1962, when Cronin at Titles in the West Regional ut 22 newspaper network 3 Integrated newsroom paves way to future KERRY STOKES CHAIRMAN, SEVEN WEST MEDIA The West Australian and Seven Perth are integrated single newsroom with important parts of the fabric of the lives state-of-the-art digital technology that of all West Australians. allows us to gather and deliver news to Four years ago, West Australian the people of Western Australia on any Newspapers’ acquisition of the Seven device: from newspapers to online to Network was a significant step for the broadcast television. company and those it serves: our readers It’s perhaps the most exciting and our audiences. It was a development that secures The West’s transformational move for The West. future in this great State. The decision to bring together two great The West’s strengths in publishing media companies created a new company combined with the Seven Network’s that has Australia’s best-performing strong media platforms — including media businesses. It was a bold step leadership in broadcast television, a forward and today that company, Seven market-leading magazines publishing West Media, has the scope and scale to business and commitment to securing its continue to build our businesses and future through the development of its invest in our companies, our content and presence in online and new people. communications technologies — provides Today, we embark on an important next significant opportunities for us to engage step: the bringing together of The West with you, our audiences. and Seven Perth in the one place. It is our people, and their talent, Under the leadership of Tim Worner, creativity and commitment that drives the chief executive of Seven West Media, Seven West Media, and it is you, our and Chris Wharton, chief executive, readers and our audiences, who define us. Seven West Media WA, a great group of We do not take your engagement with us people has created a world first: an lightly. d Kerry Stokes AC says the integrated newsoom is a world first. s We have successfully delivered e, d m” Channel 7’s new media studio m There's more to us than meets the eye. • Construct Only y • Design and Construct • Management Contracting • Fit-out • New Build • Refurbishment www.broad.com.au Years since the fi rst 4 20 Today Tonight went to air 1 2 3 1. Linotype operator J.S. Ashton helps produce The West Australian circa the 1960s. 2. Captain Menzies, C.G. Friend, Sir Charles Gairdner and James Cruthers watch the first broadcast at TVW-7 in 1959. 3. The Goss press at West Australian Newspapers. 4. Laying out page plates at WA Newspapers. 5. TVW-7’s first TV program, featuring Leave It to Beaver at 8pm. 6. The original home of The West Australian — Newspaper House in St Georges Terrace. 6 5 4 Partnership comes full circle There is much in history which the Nullarbor to examine this thing purchaser of the first TV licence in Ltd, to form Seven West Media. unites The West Australian and called television, and report back to WA, a Mr J.A. Redmond, an Now that formal association is a Seven Perth, the company which his board on whether the new Irishman who’d seen television physical one, after Seven Perth’s began life as TVW-7 in 1958 as a medium would work in WA. He was overseas, handed over his five 100-plus staff moved to The West’s fledgling TV pioneer under the filled with enthusiasm, not just for pounds. Newspaper House in Osborne Park, auspices of WA Newspapers Ltd, an television itself but for the role he As the first broadcast approached, forming what is Australia’s first, ambitious gleam in the eye of its thought WA Newspapers Ltd should The West Australian remarked in an and one of only a few in the world, managing director, James take in setting up the company to editorial that the arrival of fully integrated print and television Macartney. run it. television would make a profound newsroom. He had no real idea what this The board agreed and in June 1958 change to people’s lives. A lot of rot, In the wider media world, the new-fangled medium was really like announced the formation of a new it said, had been talked about TV’s speed of change has been just as when the board of WAN, made up of company called TVW Ltd.