The Chennai-headquartered media house The Hindu Group, owners of The Hindu and The HinduBusinessline newspapers, amongst other properties, is making itself more digital-ready and has got itself a Group Editorial Officer (GEO) to help in the digital transformation of editorial operations.

“We have taken another important step in our company’s exciting journey in digital transformation. As you are all aware, these last several months, despite the catastrophic effects of the Covid pandemic, the company has been striving to implement the important goal of transiting from a purely print publishing business to a content management and publishing business.

“One of the goals that we had set for ourselves as we embarked on this journey was to build greater synergy between the business and editorial teams so that our news products can be reimagined, repurposed, and sharpened to help us retain our edge in the public sphere and maintain our lead over the competition,” Malini Parthasarathy, Chairperson of the Board of Directors of The Hindu Group Publishing Private Limited, said in a message to her company colleagues.

Pointing out that the company needs to “focus sharply on the substance and relevance of the content” offered rather than “follow habitual responses to gathering news”  Parthasarathy said to help the company towards the digital transformation of editorial operations, a new role of Group Editorial Officer (GEO) has been created.

The GEO has been named as senior journalist Krishna Prasad and the position was “being created with the broad objective to enable greater synergies across the different print publications and digital offerings, by coordinating content efforts across all publications” of The Hindu Group.

The GEO will play a guiding role on content management and strategy across all the publications, working on a consultative basis with the editors of the various publications, Parthasarathy said in her message.

“He (GEO) will also work closely with the digital editors and the business and technical teams to drive THG’s digital transformation. In effect, his role would be to coordinate with the editors of the various print publications and digital offerings on content strategy and management. He will help situate content optimally across publications and ensure synergy between our product offerings,” she observed.

Prasad is a former Editor in Chief of Outlook magazine and Editor of Vijay Times and brings to his role rich editorial experience in both print and the digital space. His personal blogs Churumuri and Sans Serif have caught the public eye as they often offer interesting insights into otherwise unnoticed political and social trends.

“It is incumbent on us to recognise that our readers and digital subscribers need to be the centre of our universe and we will have to tailor our products to suit a constantly changing set of preferences and tastes,” Parthasarathy said