Andrew Trench joins Times Media as digital editor

News24 editor-in-chief Andrew Trench is joining Times Media as digital editor, the group announced on Wednesday.

He will drive Times Media’s digital content strategy across its titles, which include Sunday Times, TimesLIVE, SowetanLIVE, Financial Mail and BDlive.

Trench returns to the media house where he started his career with the Sunday Times in 1995 as a reporter, later becoming the newspaper’s London bureau chief. Before joining Media24 in 2010, Trench also edited Times Media’s Eastern Cape title the Daily Dispatch in print and online.

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An award-winning journalist himself, Trench has also led teams that won the Taco Kuiper Award for Investigative Journalism and the Mondi Shanduka Award for Investigative Reporting, among other prizes. In 2009, while at the Daily Dispatch, he received the Vodacom Online Journalism Award.

Andrew Bonamour, CEO of Times Media, said: “Andrew is an editor we’ve had our eye on for some time. He is the most respected digital content leader in the country. We are thrilled that he has decided to join our team, which is highly focused on a digital future for all our top brands.”

Trench follows a number of high-profile digital appointments at Times Media, including Lisa MacLeod as head of digital, Riaan Wolmarans as head of audience development, Percy Goetsch as head of product, and Dan Calderwood as head of multimedia. Calderwood was also recently included in the #Kellman20 list of 20 Influential Millennials to Watch.

The group has seen steady growth in web traffic on all of its news websites. In January 2016, TimesLIVE recorded 2.9-million unique browsers, 42% growth compared with January 2015. According to Effective Measure statistics, this makes TimesLIVE one of the fastest-growing news websites in South Africa.

“We are very excited about the growing popularity of all of our online platforms, and believe that Andrew [Trench] will boost the momentum of our success,” said MacLeod.