Looking at the newly launched Catholic news site Crux, you’ll find plenty of stories on the travels and exploits of Pope Francis. This makes sense — he’s the head of the church and easily one of the most charismatic leaders operating on the world’s stage.
What you won’t readily find is an indication of who or what is behind the new site dedicated to “Covering all things Catholic.” Only if you scroll to the bottom of the homepage, tucked in the footer, will you see the text: “A Boston Globe Media website.”
It’s been almost a year since Red Sox owner John Henry completed his purchase of the Globe, and he’s pushing forward on a plan he hopes will help broaden the company’s readership beyond people who want a printed newspaper on their doorstep. Crux, as the site’s branding makes clear, is aiming for a readership far outside the 617 area code to the more than 1 billion Catholics worldwide.
Crux joins a small, and growing, network of sites connected to the paper, including Boston.com, BostonGlobe.com, BDCWire, and the most recently launched Beta Boston. For newspapers like the Globe, diversification typically means finding a way to spin off parts of the existing business to niche audiences inside a geographic boundary. Crux shares a strategy more common with online publishers who want to tap digital audiences through interest areas.
“We saw an opportunity to fill a need,” said Globe editor Brian McGrory. “There’s a real hunger. We’re at a unique moment.”
That moment was kicked off by the arrival of a new pope who has captured the world’s attention with everything from his statements on gay priests to his choice in soccer clubs. Crux will focus on Francis and his efforts to transform the church, but will also have features on Catholic life and culture, as well as stories that explore spirituality. “We want to be surprising, we want to be unpredictable, and at the same time we want to be a site of interest and common sense on the Catholic church,” McGrory said.
According to McGory, the Globe is invested in expanding its digital readership in topic areas that are connected to Boston, but not necessarily bound to the city. Crux will already have a built in local audience thanks to Boston’s large Catholic population. The Globe has its own history with the church, having won a Pulitzer Prize for uncovering the history of sex abuse in the Boston archdiocese.
The idea for Crux was born at a Red Sox game, according to Jason Schwartz’s Boston Magazine profile of Henry:
The site was built with social sharing in mind, and that means making a site that works well on mobile devices, said David Skok, digital advisor for the Boston Globe. Skok said they wanted to focus on the article page as the point of discovery since so many new readers find websites through shared links.From start to finish the site took 10 weeks to build, and Skok expects they’ll continue to tweak things as they learn about the audience. It’s likely Crux will not be the last new launch from the Globe, Skok says, comparing the paper’s digital expansion to the relationship between Quartz and The Atlantic.
“You have to go out on your own and create your own audience with the hope being that if we get to a point in six months, a year, down the road, the people who read Crux may not even know it’s affiliated with the Boston Globe,” said Skok. “That to me is a big success.”