BBC Newsnight’s Neil Breakwell to head up Vice News UK operations
Vice News has named BBC’s Neil Breakwell its London bureau chief, one of many newly created roles in the media company that will see Breakwell head up Vice UK’s news operation.
Breakwell’s appointment to Vice News comes just hours after the division announced a number of layoffs across its UK and US news teams. At the same time, Vice promoted Josh Tyrangiel to run its weekly and daily HBO news programmes.
Breakwell joins from the BBC where he was deputy editor at BBC Newsnight. In the new role, Breakwell will oversee Vice’s news gathering across Western Europe as the media group is looking to build out its digital news offerings across the region, including the expansion of its video journalism. Breakwell will also contribute news content to Vice’s TV network Viceland which is set to launch in the UK and France later this year.
Despite yesterday’s staff cull, Vice News today announced it is set to grow its existing staff of 18 in the coming weeks, adding new hires across editorial, production, as well as multi-platform journalists who will be deployed across digital and TV. This new round of hires follows the recent appointments of nearly 20 recent hires across the company.
On his appointment as Vice News bureau chief for London, Breakwell said: “Vice’s unique and visceral style of storytelling on subjects that matter to an often underserved audience along with their ambitious plans for the future made this an opportunity I couldn’t resist. I’m looking forward to building on its already impressive record of outstanding reporting, compelling video and puckish commentary.”
Vice News’ head of news programming for Europe, Kevin Sutcliffe moves into the role of senior vice-president TV and video programming, EMEA. Sutcliffe will lead on Vice's video programming for the new Viceland channels across EMEA.
Josh Tyrangiel, executive vice-president of Vice News said: “Neil is the rare journalist who excels at speed and depth, television and digital. He's smart, tough, and brimming with ideas for how we can increase our coverage of the UK and Western Europe. In addition to managing our output across TV and online, he'll continue the successful work begun by Kevin Sutcliffe and the video team in producing riveting, high impact films including the multi award-winning documentary The Islamic State.”