Network Rivals Come Together for Common Cause

By Chris Ariens 

ABC, CNN and CBS news executives all headed to NBC’s 30 Rockefeller Center headquarters yesterday to discuss the safety and well-being of freelance journalists who increasingly serve the network news divisions worldwide.

NBC News president Steve Capus — the dean of network news executives — invited his colleagues, from ABC News, Ben Sherwood, CBS News’s David Rhodes and CNN’s Bart Feder to the gathering.

NBC’s Brian Williams wrote on his blog yesterday, “Because competition stops at the water’s edge, and because some things — like the safety of journalists — are more important, I’m proud to say we hosted a great luncheon here.”

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The presentation was by Tina Carr the director of the Rory Peck Trust, an organization named in memory of Rory Peck, a New York-born freelance cameraman, killed in Moscow in 1995.

Other attendees included, Jeffrey Schneider of ABC, Barbara Levin of CNN; NBC News EPs Jim Bell and Bob Epstein, MSNBC president Phil Griffin and NBC News execs Alex Wallace, David Verdi, Cheryl Gould, Chris Hampson, Stacy Brady and Lauren Kapp. Fox News was invited to, but did not participate in the luncheon.

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