How Australia’s leading newsrooms are redefining digital storytelling with StorifyMe Shorts
How
Nine Publishing Australia
uses StorifyMe?
Summary
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age are two of the most respected news brands in Australia, known for its national news coverage, high-quality investigative journalism and premium storytelling.
Seeking to bridge the gap between social-first vertical video and their owned-and-operated homepages, they partnered with StorifyMe to integrate vertical video directly into their digital ecosystem.
The result was immediate and measurable: the two mastheads saw significant lifts in engagement, with an increase of more than a million video views per month, while Shorts also created a new pathway into full-length premium journalism.
About
Nine Publishing Australia
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age are two of Australia’s leading news brands, with a strong reputation for premium journalism, investigative reporting, and high-quality storytelling.
As audience behavior increasingly shifts toward mobile-native, vertical content formats, both mastheads saw an opportunity to make better use of the premium video content they were already producing for social platforms and bring that experience into their own digital ecosystem.
We were producing a lot of video for off-platform audiences, and we saw an opportunity to engage our own loyal readers in a new and innovative way. StorifyMe allowed us to bring that high-impact video experience directly onto our homepages.
Problem
The editorial teams at the Herald and The Age were producing a high volume of premium vertical video content for social platforms. However, this content rarely appeared on their own homepages in a way that felt native or engaging.
The goal was twofold:
- to leverage existing vertical video assets to engage their own direct audience
- to innovate the homepage experience without disrupting the premium feel of a legacy news site
Solution
For premium news sites, the value lies in the expertise of journalists. The newsrooms used StorifyMe to humanise their reporting.
By using the Shorts format, reporters could:
- take readers behind the scenes by explaining how an exclusive was broken or how a months-long investigation was conducted
- build trust by putting a face to the byline and reinforcing the premium nature of their journalism
- show readers that their reporters were on the ground, reporting locally and from around the world
- bring greater exposure to all parts of their journalism, including podcasts, by featuring short, compelling video clips from the studio directly on the homepage and driving discovery for their audio products
Results
Increased video engagement across both mastheads
The impact of implementing StorifyMe was immediate and measurable. The Herald and The Age saw significant lifts in engagement, with an increase of more than a million video views per month across the two mastheads.
A new path into premium journalism
StorifyMe Shorts also provided another way into their premium journalism, with a large percentage of readers clicking through from Shorts to full-length articles, proving that vertical video acts as a powerful funnel for deep-dive journalism.
Key Impact
Beyond engagement growth, the rollout delivered broader editorial value:
Better use of existing vertical video assets
Premium video content originally created for social platforms became more valuable within the publishers’ own digital ecosystem.
A more native and engaging homepage experience
Shorts helped both mastheads innovate the homepage experience without disrupting the premium feel of a legacy news site.
More human, visible journalism
By putting journalists more visibly at the center of the experience, Shorts helped strengthen trust and create a more personal connection between readers and reporting.
Conclusion
By introducing StorifyMe Shorts on their homepages, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age created a more native, engaging way to bring vertical video into their own digital ecosystem.
What began as an opportunity to make better use of off-platform video content became a new way to humanise journalism, increase engagement, and drive readers deeper into premium editorial content.
With more than a million video views per month and strong click-throughs into full-length articles, StorifyMe Shorts proved to be a powerful new storytelling layer for modern newsrooms.