The Independent has opened a “web office” in the United States. Andrew Buncombe, the paper’s former Washington correspondent, has become US digital editor.
He joins the current US editor, David Usborne, in New York. And, according to a press release, “a number of new positions will be added in the coming months in both the New York and London offices”.
The announcement coincides with a rise in the Indy’s online traffic. ABC figures for January show that the number of its website’s global monthly unique browsers increased by 53% over the previous year to 52.5m.
Christian Broughton, the Independent’s digital editor, described the increase as “a testament to the excellent teams we now have in place on independent.co.uk and i100.co.uk”.
He said: “The US office has two key targets: to extend our US news coverage for our global audience, and to serve our US audience, which accounts for a third of the total”.