Former BBCNews.com editor to head CBCNews.ca
Last Updated: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 | 4:40 PM ET
CBC News
Former BBC News editor Rachel Nixon has been appointed director of digital media for CBC News, the CBC announced Tuesday.
A journalist with a print background, Nixon joined the BBC in 1998 and held a host of different positions at the British public broadcaster over the next nine years, including serving as an online journalist, producer and editor.
Though she had a stint as a television news producer for BBC Four, Nixon spent the majority of her time in the online realm, leading the BBC News website's coverage of international stories such as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, U.S. election coverage and the war in Iraq.
"I'm kind of an online lifer," she told CBC News on Tuesday afternoon.
During Nixon's tenure, the BBC News website won a number of prizes, including a series of Webby Awards in the best news category, Bafta awards for best news site and a European Online Journalism Award.
Nixon left her position as deputy world editor of BBCNews.com in 2008 to become global news editor of NowPublic.com, the Vancouver-based participatory news network.
"NowPublic, for me, was a really interesting challenge. I had spent a long time at an established media organization and I really wanted to see what was happening in the start-up world," she said.
"Established media don't have the monopoly on news anymore. It's really important to involve the audience and to listen them, listen to their opinions on what is important … and to use that to inform your own view of what is happening in the world. You can really get outside the traditional news agenda by taking a view of what the audience thinks."
Nixon will be moving to Toronto and will assume her new post with Canada's public broadcaster on June 1. However, she said it's still too early to talk about her goals for CBCNews.ca.
"I'm really excited to be joining. I'm really excited to be building on what CBCNews.ca has already done in this realm and taking CBC on to even greater things," she said.
Jon Dube, former CBC News director of digital media, left to become vice-president of ABCNews.com in August 2008.
