Former Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker is joining NBC News as senior vice president and No. 2 executive to news division President Steve Capus, the network said Tuesday.
(MSNBC is a joint venture between NBC and Microsoft.)
It’s the first television job for Whitaker, who has been working as the head of new ventures at Washingtonpost.Newsweek.Interactive for the past year. He’ll have oversight of NBC News newsgathering efforts worldwide, and help develop specials and online content.
Whitaker worked as a summer intern at Newsweek while at Harvard in the late 1970s and did a variety of jobs at the magazine before serving as its editor from 1998 to 2006.
While there, he supervised the growth of Newsweek’s Web site, which is affiliated with NBC News’ MSNBC.com. He was president of the American Society of Magazine Editors from 2004 to 2006.
This is the second major executive appointment at NBC News in a week. Capus recently elevated Lyne Pitts from weekend “Today” executive producer to vice president of the news division, where she will seek out strategic partnerships and new products.