Channel 4 News has taken its number of appointments in the past month to three with a new senior foreign editor and a business reporter. The bulletin is also making changes to how its independent fund is run.
Deborah Rayner, the commissioning editor for Channel 4 News’s independent fund, will replace outgoing senior foreign editor Andrew Macdonald, who leaves next month after 14 years on the bulletin.
Rayner currently oversees the provision of news segments to Channel 4 News by independent production companies – such as Real Life Television in Leeds and Chameleon from the Midlands – and foreign news reports by Insight News Television.
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Independent foreign news commissions will be part of her new role.
At Channel 4 News since 1998, Rayner has been a foreign news editor and field producer working in Kosovo and Sierra Leone.
She moved to the Channel 4 News independent fund in January 1999 as executive producer and was promoted to commissioning editor in 2001.
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A new commissioning editor for the independent fund is to be announced shortly. They will also seek commissions for ITN for Channel 4 alongside the news bulletin, serving as executive producer.
Meanwhile, Observer economics correspondent Faisal Islam has been named Channel 4 News’s business reporter, filling the vacancy left by Washington correspondent Jonathan Rugman.
Islam will join the bulletin in May, after six years at The Observer, where he began his career as a researcher in 1998. He was promoted to economics reporter in June 2000 and then correspondent in January 2001, winning the Wincott Young Financial Journalist of the Year award in that year.
By Wale Azeez
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