F irst News
WEB-FIRST PUBLISHING
WATT restructures
content department
WAT T, publisher of WAT T PoultryUSA, has announced a major
restructuring of its content department – the editors who develop
content for the company’s magazines and Web sites.
“We were structured as a traditional print magazine company,
but in today’s world a large part of our business is online and in
other forms of content such as events, webinars and other offerings,”
explained Bruce Plantz, the company’s vice president – director of
Gary Thornton
Peter Best
Ed Clark
Terrence O’Keefe
content. “We have highly-skilled editors who are experts in their
field, and this new structure lets them focus on the big picture.”
The restructuring is part of the company’s initiative to move to
a web-first publishing model, where news and feature stories will
first appear on the company’s Web sites, then be disseminated in
monthly print magazines.
Major staff changes in this reorganization include:
Gary Thornton, content director – poultry. In this new role,
Thornton will oversee planning and direction for the company’s
News updates available at WATTpoultry.com
BY LISA THORNTON
poultry publications, which include WAT T Poultry USA, Industria
Avicola, Poultry International, and Egg Industry. Thornton has
been with WATT 25 years, and has edited WATT Poultry USA
for 15 years.
Peter Best, content director – international. Best has spent
40 years as editor of Pig International, and is now moving to a
management role where he will advise editors of Pig International,
Feed International and Poultry International. He will also
oversee WATT’s extensive international presence and lead in the
development of an international correspondent network.
Ed Clark, content director – online. Clark currently oversees
the day-to-day update and development of
new content streams for WattPoultry.com,
FeedIndustryNetwork.com, Pig-International.
com and the digital magazine EcoAgri.Biz.
He also manages a number of WATT’s online
newsletters. Clark is a veteran agribusiness
journalist, who has served as editor of Egg
Industry for the past two years.
Lori Weaver In addition to these changes, Terrence
O’Keefe has been named editor of WATT
Poultry USA and Lori Weaver has been named
editor of Pig International. O’Keefe has worked for eight years in
various roles at WAT T Poultry USA and Weaver has been editor of
Feed International and Feed Management for the past two years.
The company is currently in the midst of a worldwide search for a
new editor for Poultry International.
WATT is also implementing major changes in the collection,
production and dissemination of content for its magazines and
Web sites. “These changes are aimed at letting the editors focus on
creating high-value content to serve their industries,” said Plantz.
“We’re creating extremely efficient internal workflows so that we can
produce high-quality publications, newsletters and Web sites.”
JOINT VENTURE
Cobb-Vantress, Hendrix Genetics
form alliance
Cobb-Vantress, USA, and Hendrix Genetics, The Netherlands,
have formed an alliance to strengthen Cobb’s position in the broiler
breeding industry and Hendrix Genetics’ positions in layer, turkey
and swine genetics, and enable the companies to explore further
joint venture opportunities.
The companies are investigating a possible joint venture
in which part or all activities may be combined in the future.
“Combining the efforts of our research and development teams
