With CNN’s massive investment in its upcoming subscription-only operation CNN+, the company is hiring at least 450 new people.
Ramon Escobar, the senior vice president for talent recruitment and development told the Poynter website: “We need everything, from top management to executive producers, producers, editors, reporters, you name it.”
Escobar said this is CNN’s most intense volume of hiring since Ted Turner launched the 24-hour news network from scratch 41 years ago.
Of the 450 hires, at least 200 will be journalists.
Given the official launch isn’t until the first quarter of 2022, not all job listings are up yet.
But current job listings indicate Atlanta is not going to be the primary hub of operations for CNN+.
There were 256 CNN+ jobs available on the WarnerMedia website as of Tuesday morning.
Only 33 of those jobs ― or 13% ― are based out of Atlanta and most are low-level positions. The listings include a new media designer, a software engineer, a graphic artist, production designers and writer/producers.
New York, in comparison, has 214 job openings — or 84% ― available. There are higher-level positions up for grabs like director of strategy and operations, director of features and planning, senior editor of content programming, manager of program development, and a senior producer for breaking news.
Atlanta over the past 15 years has seen most of CNN’s air talent and key decision makers move to New York. CNN Center still has most of the core operations for CNN.com, CNN International and HLN as well as engineers and producers for CNN proper. As a result, several hundred employees still work out of Atlanta.
CNN+, when it was announced a few weeks ago, is being described as a place that “will exist side by side with CNN’s existing television networks and will feature eight to twelve hours of live programming a day.”
Because cable and satellite operators receive CNN exclusively, that content can’t just be streamed elsewhere without a subscription. So CNN is essentially building out a second mirror operation to attract folks who have cut the cord or never had a cord in the first place.
CNN is following in the footsteps of Fox’s subscriber-only Fox Nation operation. MSNBC is creating special content for its Peacock streaming service while NBC News Now is hiring more than 200 new staffers. CBSN has been around for years and uses resources of its parent company’s local TV stations.
The company hasn’t provided any detail yet in terms of how its live programming will be structured and who will be the anchors. The company now creates or purchases documentaries and docuseries, some of which may end up exclusively on CNN+.
CNN+’s first notable on-air hire is Kasie Hunt, formerly of NBC News, as an anchor and national affairs analyst.
If you’re seeking jobs in news in Atlanta, Scripps’ new Newsy news service launches October 4 as a free broadcast news operation and the Black News Channel is still hiring and may eventually move its headquarters to Atlanta. Newsy has 55 job openings right now in Atlanta on Indeed.
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