Industry Moves: Guardian Picks Directors To Take Tech To King’s Cross

The newsroom integration plan may be proving controversial with editorial staff, but Guardian News & Media (GNM) has made two director-level appointments “to help drive the company’s digital media strategy and transition to a 24/7 news business”, reports Guardian Unlimited itself. Mike Bracken, director of IT firm Wavex and a co-founder of social hacktivist network mySociety.org, becomes technology director for development in January. GNM’s current IT director Andy Beale, currently overseeing the transfer of equipment from Farringdon Road to The Guardian’s forthcoming integrated newsroom in King’s Cross, is being promoted to technology director for architecture and services. Interesting that this takes place in the middle of the publisher’s 18-month multimedia strategy – as Bracken notes at his blog, the website redesign process already well underway, but still there is a “real sense of possible innovation”.