The BBC is more aggressively bringing “open source” reporting and efforts to expose disinformation to its day-to-day reporting, a move that signals a potential shift in journalism’s embrace of new technology. The just-announced creation of a new BBC Verify unit is also an attempt by the news organization to be more transparent in its reporting, said Deborah Turness, BBC News chief executive officer.
The BBC has named Deborah Turness, former president of NBC News International, to the post of CEO, BBC News and Current Affairs. She will join the BBC from ITN, where she is CEO. As CEO of BBC News, she will have responsibility for a team of around 6,000 people, broadcasting to almost half a billion people around the world in more than 40 languages.
Deborah Turness is leaving NBC News after eight years to become the CEO of ITN, the UK news producer. Turness first joined NBC News in 2013, becoming the first woman in U.S. history to be president of a network news division. She moved over to become president of NBC News International in 2017 after the company took a stake in Euronews. NBC sold its stake in Euronews last April to focus on the launch of an international television news channel, named NBC Sky World News. Four months later, NBC abandoned plans to launch the channel, citing commercial challenges related to the coronavirus pandemic.
Noah Oppenheim is taking over as president and current head Deborah Turness becomes the first president of NBC News International. NBC News has launched a new venture that will be called Euronews NBC, which Turness will oversee, reporting to NBC News Chairman Andy Lack.
Hispanic lawmakers hoped a meeting with top executives from MSNBC and NBC News Wednesday would smooth over hard feelings from Donald Trump’s appearance on Saturday Night Live. Instead, it had the opposite effect. NBC News President Deborah Turness committed a major blunder — as far as the Hispanic lawmakers were concerned — when she described undocumented immigrants as “illegals,” a term that many in the Latino community find highly offensive.
NBC News President Deborah Turness had to apologize after infuriating top execs and talent by announcing the network news organization had been asleep for 15 years. Sources say Tom Brokaw, managing editor and anchor of NBC’s Nightly News from 1982 until 2004, Turness’ predecessor Steve Capus (NBC News president from 2005 to 2013 and now executive producer of CBS Evening News) and CNN chief Jeff Zucker “are apoplectic” over Turness’ remark.
Exclusives
In her first year at the network, Deborah Turness is remaking Meet the Press, convinced Matt Lauer to stay on at Today, and is now taking aim at the network’s digital presence. Patricia Fili-Krushel, the chairwoman of the NBCUniversal News Group, conducted a broad search to find a leader to fix the wounded division, which employs 2,000 people: “I felt like NBC News needed new leadership. It needed to move into the future.”
NBC News President Deborah Turness is in Washington this week and will meet with Meet the Press host David Gregory and executive producer Rob Yarin to discuss changes to the format of the show, network sources say.
NBC News boss Deborah Turness is turning her attention to her troubled Sunday talk show, Meet the Press — asking staff to write a mission statement and explain what works and what doesn’t. Turness has been reviewing individual shows one by one with the aim of having staff focus more clearly on winning the ratings wars, sources say.
Deborah Turness, NBC News president for two months, took over a television news division that has dominated its field for years but lately shown signs of staleness.
Alarmed at the direction, NBC chose an outsider to give the division a fresh look; she’s the former editor of ITV News, Britain’s top commercial news produce.
The network said today that Deborah Turness, former editor of ITV News in Britain, will run the network’s news division. Turness replaces Steve Capus, who resigned earlier this year, and will begin her new job in August.
NBC News is on the verge of naming Deborah Turness, the head of Britain’s ITV News, as its next president, according to several people with knowledge of the appointment. Turness, if appointed, would be the first woman president of a network television news division in the United States, succeeding Steve Capus, who stepped down from the position in February after a tenure of nearly eight years.
NBC’s hunt for a new president of its news division has gone beyond not only the company, but the country as well. The position of NBC News president has been open since last month when Steve Capus departed after almost eight years in the job. Among the more interesting names to surface as a successor to Capus is Deborah Turness, the news editor for Britain’s ITV Network. People close to the search said NBC News Chairman Pat Fili-Krushel is intrigued by Turness.
