Editorial technology upgrades at Queensland Newspapers Pty. Ltd., 1985-2002

This study reports on digital production facilities' installation and development at Queensland Newspapers Pty. Ltd. (QNPL), between 1996 and 2002. QNPL is Australia's fifth largest capital city newspaper organisation and part of the News Limited group, controlled by Rupert Murdoch's transnational News Corporation. The study documents the architecture of the infrastructure, which was needed so that large-scale pagination and Internet communications could be implemented at the journalism workface. This documentation parallels digital architecture within News Limited Australia-wide since 1995 and shows how News Limited was able to achieve national production efficiencies using digital networking between editorial sites, initially in capital cities. Of extra interest is the fact that central elements of these digital networks, pagination software, and practices - especially Microsoft Windows-driven pagination packages - were implemented and tested in Queensland before they were implemented at other News Limited enterprises and this makes the QNPL experience of special importance. Coincidentally, as this article is being published, QNPL has just announced that implementation of personal desktop email and Internet access for all its journalists is nearly complete, having commenced roll-out more than five years before