Nine races to fill leadership vacuum as Chessell moves on
James Chessell's decision to seek a new challenge in corporate affairs consulting leaves a major void at Nine and sets the stage for the biggest shake-up at its newspapers since the Fairfax merger in 2018.
There was intrigue in the air at Nine Entertainment Co’s Sydney and Melbourne offices on Friday when journalists from its metro newspapers were summoned to a town hall meeting at 11am with executive editor Tory Maguire, and editors of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, to discuss seemingly anodyne changes to its editorial operations.
A small crop of journalists on the floor expected something more serious — and just hours later, it came.
Shortly after Capital Brief made enquiries and then broke the news that Nine’s publishing boss James Chessell would step down, the media giant's chief executive Mike Sneesby rushed out a message to the company’s all-staff publishing channel on Slack confirming the move.
Chessell had for years been a titanic figure within the company’s two largest metro newsrooms, which he previously ran as executive editor. He was a key player behind the scenes backing the masthead's high impact investigative reporting, headlined by Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters' series on disgraced soldier Ben Roberts Smith, which the company recently successfully defended in court in a landmark defamation trial.
