NowThis News, the new digital video network backed by Kenneth Lerer, announced an all-star editorial team filled with veterans of old media titans like CNN and ABC News.
Eason Jordan, former CNN chief news executive, will be the company's general manager; Ed O’Keefe, former ABC News digital executive producer, will be the company's editor-in-chief; and Katharine Zaleski, former Washington Post executive director of digital news will serve as NowThis News' managing editor.
The company also said it will partner with BuzzFeed and will have a dedicated vertical within the social news site’s platform. Lerer (pictured left) is the chairman of BuzzFeed.
“We’re creating NowThis News to meet straight on the inevitable and rapid changes happening in news consumption: digital, mobile, social and video – that’s what NowThis News is about," Lerer, partner of Lerer Ventures and the company's co-founder, said in a statement.
The most prominent of Lerer's previous new-media successes is the Huffington Post, the news site and content aggregator he co-founded with Arianna Huffington in 2005. AOL purchased the Huffington Post for $315 million in February 2011.
NowThis News’s leadership team also includes veterans from a wide range of leading news outlets, including: Head of Production Steven Belser, former head of production of VICE Media; Chief Technology Officer Theo Burry, former technical director of The Huffington Post; and Social Editor Drake Martinet, former social/multimedia Editor of AllThingsD.
NowThis News is also backed by Bedrocket Media Ventures and Oak Ventures.
