Channel 4 News has made two key appointments following the death of Gaby Rado in Iraq and David Smith’s recent resignation.
Jonathan Miller has been recruited as foreign correspondent while Jonathan Rugman succeeds Smith as Washington correspondent. Miller was meant to join the news team in November but ?ew out to Iraq immediately to cover Tuesday’s bombing of the UN building in Baghdad, which killed UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello. Miller is already familiar to Channel 4 as an independent ?lmmaker covering international news stories and as a contributor to the current affairs series Dispatches and Unreported World.
He was previously a BBC News correspondent and in 1997 ?led a report for the BBC Two current affairs series Correspondent in which he risked being held hostage by rebels in Papua New Guinea. He has also freelanced for CNN.
Rugman joined Channel 4 News as business correspondent in 1999, contributing to nine awards won by the bulletin for its business coverage. No stranger to US news coverage, he has reported extensively on US corporate fraud. Rugman was previously a reporter on BBC Radio 4’s File on 4 and a foreign correspondent based in Turkey for The Guardian and The Observer. Channel 4 News will now search for another business correspondent to replace Rugman.
Other appointments include BBC London News television reporter Darshna Soni, who has joined the news bulletin as reporter. Producer and reporter Katie Razzall has been promoted to full-time reporter, while acting senior home news editor Yvette Edwards has formally been given the title after a stint in the position.
Former senior home news editor Kerry Blackburn is now programme editor.
By Wale Azeez
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