John Moody, executive vice president at the FOX News television channel, will head the operation, News Corp. said in a statement.

"In this new role, Moody will collaborate with news chiefs across all News Corporation properties to improve news gathering efficiencies and identify areas of cost savings," the statement said.

It said Moody "will also investigate the company's worldwide contracts and reliance on global news services."

"The creation of a new unit designed to share valuable news content and harness the power of News Corporation's vast editorial resources is vital to our success as a global media entity," Murdoch said.

Moody said he was "honored to embark on this new venture at a critical time in our industry when change so often begets opportunity.

"News Corporation has embraced innovation like no other company in today's media landscape," he said.

News Corp. did not provide any other details about what it described as the "formation of a new portal that will allow its worldwide editorial properties to share content and resources across the entire company."

News Corp.'s newspaper and television interests span the globe, and include The Wall Street Journal and Times of London. The company also owns social network MySpace and has interests in book publishing and movie production.

Moody's nomination is the second major shake-up at News Corp. this month.

On April 1, Jonathan Miller, a former head of Time Warner online unit AOL, was named to oversee MySpace and other digital businesses as chairman and chief executive of the newly created Digital Media Group.

"Our focus moving forward is twofold: to enable our digital businesses to flourish as individual entities and to bolster the digital strategies of our core media properties by treating them as central to, and not separate from, the enterprise," Murdoch said in announcing Miller's appointment.

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