NBC News is adding two new staffers to its Digital Media department, chief digital officer Vivian Schiller announced today in a memo.
John Keegan joins NBC as Director of Technology for digital media. Keegan, who previously worked at Fox News, will focus primarily on NBC’s web properties, including theGrio and msnbc.com. The Huffington Post’s Craig Kanalley will join NBC in two weeks as Social Media Editor, where he will oversee the use of social media as a reporting platform.
In addition to the new hires, two NBCers — Ryan Osborn and Bonnie Optekman — are being promoted within the department. Osborn, who currently oversees social media for NBC News, has been promoted to Senior Director of Digital Media. Optekman, currently Vice President of News Technology, will take on the expanded role of overseeing NBC’s connected devices and on-demand delivery as her title changes to Vice President, Emerging Technologies.
Read the full memo from Schiller after the jump.
From: Schiller, Vivian (NBCUniversal)
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2011 11:01 AM
To: @NBC Uni News Everyone
Subject: NBC News Digital Staff Announcements
Hi Everyone,
A few staffing announcements from NBC News – Digital Media:
JOHN KEEGAN (@johnkeegan) joins NBC News in the new role of Director of Technology, Digital Media. He comes to us from Fox News, where he oversaw technology for all of their consumer websites, apps, social media etc. John will work closely with the staff of theGrio, our new upcoming web properties, the social media group and our colleagues at msnbc.com, to ensure one state-of-the-art and easy to use delivery of our news to digital audiences. John reports to me.
RYAN OSBORN (@rozzy), who has so brilliantly run all our social media efforts these last two years, has been promoted to Senior Director of Digital Media, with a dual report to Lauren Kapp and me. He’ll continue to oversee our social media efforts — building a cross functional team that already includes our talented community manager, Anthony Quintano Ryan will also oversee a new hire – social media editor – who will focus on social media as a platform for our journalism. In addition, Ryan will work closely with me on other digital opportunities and partnerships to extend the reach of our audience.
Joining NBC News starting in two weeks in the new position of Social Media Editor is CRAIG KANALLEY (@ckanal), who joins us from the Huffington Post, where he serves as Senior Editor of Traffic & Trends and oversees their social media efforts. Craig is one of the best Twitter journalists in the business, helping to shape the role of social media as a reporting platform. He’ll sit with the desk on the third floor and report to Ryan.
Finally, BONNIE OPTEKMAN (@boptekman), known very well to most of you, takes on a new critical role overseeing our efforts to extend NBC News television programming to “over the top” connected devices and on-demand delivery. To reflect this new area of focus, Bonnie’s title changes to Vice President, Emerging Technologies. In this capacity, she’ll work closely with NBCU Distribution as well as across the news division. In her “spare time,” Bonnie will continue to have a role in News IT, keeping us up to speed and up to date.
Please join me in welcoming and/or congratulating our colleagues!
Vivian