CNN To Premiere International News Show

CNN this Sunday is launching a weekly international news show that will feature its foreign affairs analyst Fareed Zakaria, officials said Tuesday.

Fareed Zakaria—GPS  (for “Global Public Square”) will air from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. ET Sundays on CNN, and will also be broadcast around the world on CNN International.  In addition, CNN appointed veteran TV news journalist Liza McGuirk as the program’s new executive producer.

The new Sunday program will be a weekly global get-together focusing on international topics rarely heard on American television, and will attempt to boil down complex international issues from key positions around the world. It will include in-depth interviews and roundtable conversation, and this week’s guests will include former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

McGuirk 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, she 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.

Fareed Zakaria—GPS will have an online component on CNN.com, available later this week at www.CNN.com/Fareed. The show page will include 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.