Rebekah Wade named CEO of News International
News Corporation has appointed editor of The Sun Rebekah Wade to the new position of chief executive officer of News International.
She will take responsibility for the day-to-day operations of News International and its titles The Sun, News of the World, The Times, The Sunday Times and free newspaper thelondonpaper.
Her appointment takes effect on September 1 and she will continue to report to James Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of parent company News Corp Europe and Asia. He also now takes the title executive chairman of News International.
News International has seen a number of shake ups since the departure of chairman Les Hinton to New York to become chief executive of Dow Jones, owner of Wall Street Journal, in December 2007. At the same time Murdoch stepped down as chief executive of BSkyB to take up his News Corp role.
It’s long been thought that Wade has been groomed for a senior role within News Corporation by chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch. She has edited The Sun for more than six years and is a former editor of News of the World. The new editor of The Sun is yet to be named.
The appointment comes as News International, like other traditional publishers, considers how to generate more revenue from its digital operations. Rupert Murdoch has signalled that charging for access to some content on newspaper websites is a possibility.
