Armed with highly detailed data, a newsroom chief knows who is reading what, for how long, and with what level of engagement; long gone are the days when an editor relied solely on their “tummy compass” to decide which stories deserved their greatest focus, and the most prominence.But it’s reassuring to know that Lisa Muxworthy, who this month was appointed editor-in-chief of news.com.au — Australia’s number one commercial news website — believes that the seemingly limitless readership data and an editor’s intuition are two sides of the same coin.“You still need an editor’s instinct to know how to use the digital data to optimal effect,” the 45-year-old tells Media.“News is still all about what’s worthy, what’s important, what matters. And while the numbers that are available to us are incredible in terms of the insight they give us into the demographics of our readership, as an editor you still have to trust your gut.“You can use the numbers to guide you, but you’ve got to have that human touch. It’s about how we sell that story to our readers — how we take it to them, how we are able to give them what they’re looking for.”Muxworthy, who served as the website’s editor for four years before taking over as editor-in-chief following the departure of highly regarded NewsCorp journalist and editor Kate de Brito last week, says that many people are surprised to learn that the average reader of news.com.au is in their forties. While this shows that the website has attracted and maintained a loyal following over the past two decades, Muxworthy says that she sees it as a “growth opportunity” to pursue a greater share of younger readers. “My big plan is around our younger audience — Gen Z and Millennials. Out of six million Australians in the Millennial age bracket, we reach 3.2 million, so it’s a huge opportunity for us to chase more of them,” she says.“It’s a careful balance, of course. We’ve got 11 million Australians reading us each month so you don’t want to totally change the way we are because we are going so well, but I think there’s an opportunity to grow our younger audience.”Muxworthy is also eyeing off fresh ways to deliver content to the website’s readers, perhaps with more podcasts, and increased audio to go with news stories. “It’s exciting for a newsroom to know that there are many ways to reach an audience. Yes we have our home page, but what are the other ways we can bring readers along,” she says.Muxworthy, who began her career with NewsCorp as a reporter at Sydney’s Hornsby Advocate in 2001, before earning her first editorship a few years later at another of the city’s local newspapers, the Southern Courier, says she loves the way that news.com.au can serve its time-poor audience.“We tend to tap into that psychology that people don’t have enough time. If it’s a TV show, for example, we tell them that this is the show that everyone’s watching, and this is why you should be watching,” she says.“Because people naturally think — ‘ooh, what am I missing out on’. We can cut things short for them and tell them what everyone’s talking about.”



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