Sunday Times travel editor: looking out for a hero

By Steve Keenan

There were some serious raising of eyebrows and a dollop of deja vu when I read the job specification to be the new travel editor of The Sunday Times, replacing Christine Walker who is leaving after 38 years at the paper.

The job responsibilities, and the skills/experience required to do the job, run to 14 bullet points. Only the first mentions content (words) - the rest lay out what is expected of the successful applicant.

And it’s quite a list, as you can see below. The new travel editor is, in effect, being asked to make money, increase readership, see through digital development, develop strategy and to speak the languages of editors and developers. And to publish a weekly section.

I confess an interest. For five years at timesonline.co.uk, I ran the online travel content of The Times and Sunday Times. I had two staff and a ‘channel manager’ who liased with commercial and a development team. We had resource to build travel search and created daily content through blogs, video and and social media. Looking back, it was the best of times.

But in June, 2010, timesonline.co.uk was shut down in favour of separate websites for each paper, a paywall was introduced and users charged to access. I don’t know how successful the paywall has been, although this month News UK chief executive Mike Darcey revealed that The Times has 140,000 paying subscribers. It is a strategy that News UK is committed to, with The Sun to also introduce a £2 a week paywall on August 1.

Meanwhile, The Guardian and Mail groups kept their sites free to view, and the digital-first strategy is also paying off. The Guardian yesterday reported a sharp rise in digital advertising revenues, while Mail Online reported record figures and expansion. And Mirror.co.uk is hiring 40 more digital journalists.

The digital operation at The Sunday Times is much leaner these days, however. I had become online travel editor at The Sunday Times but left 18 months ago: most of the 2010 start-up team have also departed, including the editor, deputy editor and head of technology (all to the Mail group). The five-strong ST video team has been disbanded in favour of a smaller, merged team with The Times. Picture desk staff and developers have also gone as both papers cut back on staff.

New editorial and advertising systems are being rolled out which should further the integration of print and digital - but there are a lot fewer people to publish the paper and to create, upload and maintain content. Criticism of the Times and ST iPad apps was reported in the Guardian in March.

The job is being advertised internally until 6pm today - it is expected external candidates will also be approached. I genuinely wish the successful applicant the very best of luck - the travel editor of The Sunday Times is one of the best jobs in established travel media. Yet the job specification is setting a very high benchmark to find somebody who can edit, sell, develop and translate. They’re looking out for a hero.