AUCKLAND, Today: The Post is looking for a new editor, with Tracy Watkins set to leave later this year after a standout 25-year run with Stuff Group.
Watkins will take up a role with Business New Zealand, wrapping up a media career that has spanned four decades, including senior roles across political reporting and editing.
She joined Stuff in 2001 and went on to become one of the country’s best-known political journalists, spending 20 years in the Press Gallery, including more than a decade as political editor.
Watkins later moved into senior editing roles at the Sunday Star Times and The Post, helping steer the title into a fast-growing national news brand focused on power, politics and economics.
“This has been the hardest decision of my life because this has honestly been the best job in journalism,” Watkins says. “We have a brilliant senior team who have grown an audience of the country’s most infl uential people through political news and analysis that you just can’t get elsewhere.
“But after such a long media career, I am ready for a change. Can you call it a mid-career pivot after 40 years?”
“This has been the hardest decision of my life because this has honestly been the best job in journalism,” – Tracy Watkins, Editor, The Post
Stuff Owner and Publisher Sinead Boucher says Watkins leaves behind a strong legacy, especially in repositioning The Post from a Wellington paper into a national brand.
“Tracy has set The Post up as a truly infl uential national brand, a must-read for political and business leaders with more than 70% of its high-powered readership now outside of the Wellington region,” she says.
“Her successor will inherit a brand that has the power to set the news agenda, an ability to produce quality journalism without fear or favour and a stable of some of New Zealand’s best reporters and commentators.
“This is an excellent opportunity for one of the best business and political brains in journalism to step into the role and continue the fearless, independent journalism The Post is known for.”
Stuff’s Managing Director of Masthead Publishing Joanna Norris says Watkins has left a high bar for whoever takes the role next.
“She has a highly attuned journalistic and political nous and she has been a brilliant colleague and leader, always challenging and lifting the bar to ensure her team produces journalism of extraordinary ambition and quality.”
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