Digital news pioneer leaves Fairfax WA

Allen Newton, Editor-in-Chief of Fairfax’s online news website WAtoday, has left the organisation. Newton spent nearly three years in the role, joining Fairfax from News Ltd where he was the founding editor of PerthNow and where he went on to become Managing Editor of PerthNow and The Sunday Times.

Newton said it had been an amazing time of transformation.

“When I joined Fairfax, WAtoday was in a state of disarray, but I leave the business in a much better shape than I found it,” Newton said. “One of the key achievements I made was to bring together some of the disparate elements of the Fairfax business in Perth. Working with Martin Boylen who was then General Manager of radio stations 6PR and 96fm we moved WAtoday back into the radio stations’ Hay Street offices where we were joined a little later by the WA reporting team from the Australian Financial Review.

“The move proved highly successful, creating a synergy between WAtoday and the Fin Review and 6PR that in my view was greater than the sum of the parts,” Newton said.

WAtoday’s Chief Producer, Simon White, has been appointed Acting Editor. Newton said it is his intention to spend a few days in the garden before starting to look around for new opportunities.