Deborah Turness, the CEO of ITN and a former president of NBC News, has been named the new CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, succeeding Fran Unsworth.
Turness, who will be paid £400,000 ($540,000) per year, will oversee a team of 6,000 journalists who are transitioning to digital, moving out of London, and laying off hundreds of employees as part of a multimillion-pound cost-cutting initiative. Her pay will be £60,000 ($80,000) higher than Unsworth's.
BBC Director General Tim Davie said she “brings a wealth of experience, insight, first-class editorial judgement, and a strong track record of delivery.”
“She is a passionate advocate for the power of impartial journalism and a great believer in the BBC and the role we play, in the UK and globally,” he added.
Turness said: “In the UK and around the world there has never been a greater need for the BBC’s powerful brand of impartial, trusted journalism. It is a great privilege to be asked to lead and grow BBC News at a time of accelerated digital growth and innovation, when its content is reaching more global consumers on more platforms than ever before.”
She comes from ITN, where she was only in charge of the ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 news providers for seven months after Anna Mallett left for Netflix.
Turness was previously President of NBC News and subsequently NBC News International before joining ITN, and she is also a former Editor of ITV News. She was the first woman to hold the position in both circumstances.
She will succeed Unsworth, who served in the position for three years and will also be a member of the BBC Board of Directors. Her title varies from that of Director of News and Current Affairs Unsworth, which the BBC claims reflects the corporation's "ambition to continue to build the BBC’s global news brand and grow its news services."
The position is perhaps the most important in UK journalism, and it comes at a politically heated time for the BBC, which has faced criticism from all sides of the political spectrum about its impartiality, a topic that Davie has stressed since taking over a year ago.
Unsworth has also lately stated that online trolls and pressure organizations are targeting BBC journalists more than ever before. Unsworth resigned after a scandal in which she was allegedly directed to prevent the appointment of former Huffington Post UK Editor Jess Brammar because of Brammar's anti-government remarks in the past.
As part of Davie's Across the UK initiative, the BBC News division is undergoing a dramatic transformation, transferring dozens of employees outside of London and adopting a "genre-led" approach to storytelling rather than focusing on specific shows. Hundreds of people have been laid off.
