BBC.com managing editor David Allan will be editorial director of Health and Wellness at CNN Digital, according to a memo from Meredith Artley, editor-in-chief of CNN Digital and Terence Burke, vice president of U.S. newsgathering.
Allan, who is currently finishing up his job managing the features sections at BBC.com, will work with CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta and others to “lead our digital programming and expansion efforts for health in the US and beyond,” according to the memo, included below.
Before joining the BBC, Allan held several roles at legacy and online news organizations. He was a web editor in charge of news and features at The New York Times, an editor for AOL and the creator of a show for MTV.
CNN Digital, especially its politics division, has made several hires recently. After CNN announced that Politico deputy managing editor Dianna Heitz was moving to the politics site, The Huffington Post’s Michael Calderone noted that she was the sixth Politico journalist to join CNN’s political vertical in as many months.
Capital New York reported in December that CNN.com would undergo a redesign and CNN Money, the network’s financial news section, would get a “war room.” Meanwhile, the CNN was projected to lay off about 170 employees as part of a reorganization strategy orchestrated by the network’s parent company, Turner Broadcasting.
Allan starts on Jan. 26.
Here’s the memo:
Hi gang.
We are thrilled to welcome David Allan as our new Editorial Director of CNN Digital, Health and Wellness. He joins us from the BBC where he is finishing up his job as the Managing Editor for the features sections for BBC.com. David joins the new cross platform health and medical team and will lead our digital programming and expansion efforts for health in the US and beyond, working closely with Sanjay, Elizabeth, Roni and the whole unit, the entire digital team and many others.
Prior to joining the BBC he was a features and news web editor at The New York Times, overseeing and contributing to sections that ranged from Travel (where he wrote a column), National, Styles, the magazine and the Politics desk in DC.
He has been an editor for AOL and Fodor’s, wrote two travel guides to Ireland and Scotland for Frommer’s, created a show on MTV, is a former White House intern and middle school teacher with Teach For America. He has lived in Washington DC, San Francisco, Phoenix, Alaska, Dublin, Glasgow, Bangkok, and soon Atlanta. He spent a year travelling around the world with his wife before they settled in New York and started raising their two young daughters. A graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, he holds degrees in Journalism and Philosophy. More recently he interviewed “Getting Things Done” author David Allen on stage at SxSW and gave a TEDx Talk titled “Who Knows What’s Good or Bad?”
Join us in welcoming David, who starts on January 26. He’ll be based out of New York til the end of the school year and then will relocate to Atlanta.
-Meredith and Terence
