Brian Hurst Email & Phone Number

Cleveland, Redland City, Queensland, Australia

The role of the job was to: Ensure news was delivered to all platforms in an accurate, creative and timely fashion, identifying ways of increasing the digital audience through network sharing, cross-promotion and social media.  Manage the transition from the traditional print-orientated newsroom to an integrated, multimedia newsroom, in line with the direction of Fairfax Regional Digital Media. As part of a national team, to maximise traffic across the network, preparing monthly traffic reports for the relevant sites.  Work as part of the digital editorial team to ensure the ongoing success of FRM’s digital assets. Commission and curate comprehensive and original news content, boosting quality and depth.

Redland City

The role of the job was to: Manage the overall financial performance and trading state of the site, ensuring that decisions made are within budget parameters. Produce weekly profit and loss reports to provide insights into the site’s estimated trading results.  Human resource management including recruitment, signing off on payroll, performance reviews, training/development and OH&S. Oversee the accounting functions including authorisation of accounts payable and debtors’ days outstanding, and acting as a signatory for company orders. Compose monthly actuals reports and production reports, entailing cost analysis summaries showing budgeted cost per page, including hours per page, material and equipment costs. Manage key client relationships, style criteria, printing quality and timeframes, monitoring content, design and layout and working with editors to ensure readers' expectations are consistently met or exceeded. Produce management reports on advertising estimates, staff movements, trading conditions, competitor activity, initiatives by title, market share and general commentary.

Cleveland, Redland City

Responsible for content creation, and publication of two newspapers and websites.Story developmentCommunity liaison Staff development Managed the transition from centralised production to site-based production, developing workflows and assisting with staff training to introduce new systems to produce editorial pages and advertising material on site (which afforded more control locally). Staff objections were handled and staff were coached in their performance; old work practices were limited and a culture of quality service for internal and external customers was developed. Took on responsibility for the production department in order to develop new ways of producing newspapers and advertisements. All set goals were achieved. The pages-per-hour targets were achieved (and exceeded on many occasions), resulting in lower costs and improved quality. Recognised the future potential of Facebook in its early days and identified the benefits of engaging with the audience via this platform. Pushed for the development of the masthead Facebook site, which was launched in August 2009, beginning the process of audience engagement beyond the newspaper. The site proved to be a success and has grown to be one of the biggest free non-daily mastheads.

Cleveland, Redland City, Queensland, Australia

Responsible for content creation, and publication of two newspapers and websites.Story developmentCommunity liaison Staff development