NBC News

Joe Michaels, who has been the morning show’s director for 18 years, was given a new job last week that portends more change to come. Michaels will be the senior director, responsible for the installation of a new Today set and graphics style, among other initiatives. NBC has yet to name a new director

The social network is becoming a useful tool for journalists who need to provide quick, 15-second video updates to viewers on what’s going on at the scene.

NBC News and MSNBC have announced that they will partner with the publisher of SCOTUSblog, the all-things-Supreme-Court website, for coverage of upcoming rulings. SCOTUSblog Publisher Tom Goldstein and NBC News Justice correspondent Pete Williams will offer reporting and analysis for this month’s rulings on same-sex marriage, affirmative action, voting rights and genetic patenting, among others.

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.

The primetime news magazine show will end in June.

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.

NEW YORK (AP) — NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel is back quickly and safely from his first trip to Syria since he and his team were kidnapped and […]

Shriver today was named a “special anchor” who will appear on various NBC programming, including CNBC, MSNBC and NBC Sports, and be an editor at large on women’s issues for the network’s digital properties. She had worked at NBC from 1986 to 2004, much of it on Dateline NBC.

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.

About a year ago, NBC News established an account on news reading app Flipboard and has since grown its presence to 1.3 million monthly active readers. Starting today, the news organization will be running its first third-party ads, purchased by General Electric; and NBC News says it is currently talking to other brands about buying in.

NBC News today hired award-winning investigative journalists Richard Esposito and Mark Schone, both formerly of Brian Ross’s investigative unit at ABC News. Esposito has been named senior executive producer of NBC News’s investigative unit, while Schone will be an editor on the NBCNews.com investigative unit.

NBC News executive Alex Wallace, who oversees the troubled morning show, made the comment Wednesday in response to reports that the network had approached CNN’s Anderson Cooper about the Today job.

“Just when you think somebody might figure out when it’s on and want to see it the next week, they move it to another place,” said the former Nightline anchor who contributes to the NBC newsmagazine. “That’s not helpful, and I think Brian [Williams] deserves more support than that.”

NEW YORK (AP) — David Axelrod, former strategist and aide to President Obama, has landed a new job at NBC News. The network said Tuesday that Axelrod is joining as […]

Vivian Schiller, chief digital officer of NBC News, says the news organization is in the midst of the “reinvention” of its Web site which will launch this spring as a “rich journalism destination,” with enterprise, investigative reporting and a significant increase of “Web native video” news reporting. Watch the video here.

“It is a privilege to have spent two decades here, but it is now time to head in a new direction,” said Capus, who did not announce future plans. His influence at the news division was curtailed last year when Comcast Corp., NBC’s new corporate parents, appointed Pat Fili-Krushel to oversee news operations. NBC News oversees not only the network newscasts, but also the cable networks CNBC and MSNBC.

Former Today show co-host Ann Curry is being further marginalized by NBC by not being allowed to appear live on the network, sources say. Although she’s been filing reports for NBC News programs including Rock Center with Brian Williams, sources said she’s been barred from doing live interviews.

ABC had a very good 2012 year for Good Morning America — usurping the decades-long leader NBC’s Today. Going into the December holiday period — where all TV viewing takes a dip — ABC’s GMA had around 430,000 viewer lead over Today.

Brian Williams is about to start distancing himself from his struggling NBC news magazine show Rock Center With Brian Williams, sources say.

The D.C. police confirmed reports Wednesday that they are looking into an incident in which David Gregory, the host of NBC’s Meet the Press, displayed what he described as a high-capacity ammunition magazine. In its firearms regulations, the The D.C. Code stipulates that “No person in the District shall possess, sell or transfer any large capacity ammunition feeding device” whether or not it is attached to a firearm.

Ian Rivers was part of the NBC team led by the network’s chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel. They were kidnapped in Syria on Thursday, and Engel and several other members escaped unharmed on Monday. “We’re thrilled that he found his way to safety,” said NBC News communications director Erika Masonhall today.

NBC was able to keep the abduction of chief Middle East correspondent Richard Engel in Syria largely a secret until he escaped late Monday because it persuaded some of this country’s most prominent news organizations to hold back on the story.

After being held prisoner for five days by unidentified captors, the NBC News team was freed unharmed. Engel said he believes the kidnappers were a Shiite militia group loyal to the Syrian government, which has lost control over swaths of the country’s north and is increasingly on the defensive in a civil war that has killed 40,000 people since March 2011.

Peter Alexander has been named NBC White House Correspondent, joining Chuck Todd and Kristen Welker on the beat effective immediately. In addition, Chuck Todd will extend his tenure as NBC […]

An NBC executive who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the plan is not finalized said Monday that Jim Bell will be replaced as the show’s executive producer. Veteran NBC News executive Alexandra Wallace will oversee management of Today and a search is under way for Bell’s successor.

NBC News is planning an all out social media blitz across platforms — including its websites, Zeebox, Xbox and Twitter and Facebook — for Election Day in an effort to capture as many second- and third-screeners as it can for up-to-the-minute accounting, analysis and interaction.

In a letter sent Friday night to Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, NBC told the Obama campaign to cease using network footage in a new 30-second spot, released shortly after Wednesday’s debate, in which Andrea Mitchell is shown on air citing an independent analysis that Mitt Romney’s tax plan would cost $4.8 trillion over 10 years.

Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman is suing NBC over the network’s botched editing of his 911 tape. Zimmerman’s attorneys are about to file a complaint against NBC and its top executives, naming news president Steve Capus and correspondent Ron Allen, who was the reporter on the scene for the broadcast on Today on March 27.

NBC’s Meet the Press accuses CBS of some trickery in the Nielsen ratings and in scheduling designed to make its Face the Nation seem more popular than it actually is. CBS detects the aroma of sour grapes. The incident is a vivid illustration of a newly competitive era on Sundays.

Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, sent a message to the managers of NBC’s affiliated stations Wednesday, which acknowledged that they had been hit with a storm of criticism from their viewers over its decision not to observe a moment of silence during the Today show on Sept. 11 — and apologized for putting the stations through that.