CNN announces new show, Fareed Zakaria–GPS

Media News

New Delhi, June 03, 2008

One of the world’s leading journalists, authors and pre-eminent foreign affairs analysts, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria has launched a new weekly international news and discussion program, aired on Sundays from 1730hrs to 1830hrs and 2230hrs to 2330hrs IST as announced by CNN/U.S. President Jon Klein. Fareed Zakaria – GPS (stands for “Global Public Square”) broadcasts around the world on CNN International. In addition, Klein announced the appointment of veteran television news journalist Liza McGuirk as the program’s new executive producer.

In making the announcement, Klein said: “America’s place in the world has never been more hotly debated than it is today, and there is no one better at making sense of it than Fareed Zakaria.”

The new Sunday program is a weekly global get-together focusing on international topics. The program boils down complex international issues from key positions around the world as only CNN Worldwide can do. Its centre-piece will be in-depth interviews and roundtable conversation with the world’s great thinkers, which will provide invaluable information to viewers about how their everyday lives are impacted by what is going on in the world.

“This is a unique opportunity to do a program that brings the world to America and America to the world, and only CNN has the global platform to make this possible,” Zakaria said.

Liza McGuirk joins GPS as the program’s executive producer. She has spent 25 years working in television news journalism and has extensive experience in all areas of TV reporting and production. An Emmy-award winning producer, McGuirk was at CBS News for eight years, including four years producing and writing segments for 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley. McGuirk also worked at CNN from 1980 to 1989, where she wrote and produced daily newscasts, supervised story coverage and produced a number of special events, among them, political conventions and presidential trips overseas. She was the fifth person hired when CNN was in its infancy. Most recently, she was a freelance documentary producer, teaming up with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on several projects.

“I am thrilled to be back at CNN and to have the opportunity to be part of such a smart program,” McGuirk said. “It’s exciting to work with Fareed, because he’s the rare journalist who always looks right past the obvious to get at what a story really means.”

Fareed Zakaria: GPS has an online component on CNN.com, available at www.CNN.com/Fareed. The show page includes programming information about each week’s program, as well as a weekly news-driven Q&A with Zakaria. An excerpt from his best-selling book The Post-American World will be available online as well.

CNN is the world's leading global 24-hour news network and one of the world’s most respected and trusted sources for news and information. The CNN brand is available to two billion people via 25 CNN branded TV, internet and mobile services produced by CNN Worldwide, a division of Turner Broadcasting System Inc and a Time Warner company. CNN International is the international directorate of CNN Worldwide and distributes news via 14 services in seven different languages. CNN International can be seen in more than 220 million television households and hotel rooms in over 200 countries and territories worldwide, including more than 34 million across the Asia Pacific region and online at www.cnn.com/international. Airtimes are subject to change.

For further information, please contact:

Raman Swain

Tel: +91 11 41699129