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NEW YORK — Bloomberg News editor-in-chief Matthew Winkler apologised on Monday for allowing journalists “limited” access to sensitive data about how clients used Bloomberg terminals, saying it was “inexcusable”, but important customer data had always been protected.

His statement came as central banks around the world looked into any possible breaches in the confidentiality of their usage data.

In Asia, the Bank of Japan said it had contacted Bloomberg while the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the territory’s de facto central bank, said it was looking into the matter.

“We are now contacting Bloomberg and are in the process of confirming the facts of the situation,” a spokesman for the Bank of Japan, the country’s central bank, told Reuters.

The European Central Bank (ECB), Brazil’s central bank and the US Federal Reserve have all said they are examining the issue. A source briefed on the situation said the US Treasury Department was looking into the question as well.

The practice of giving reporters access to some data considered proprietary, including when a customer looked into broad categories such as equities or bonds, came to light in media reports last week. In response, parent company Bloomberg said it had restricted such access last month after Goldman Sachs complained.

In an editorial posted on Bloomberg.com, Mr Winkler said: “Our reporters should not have access to any data considered proprietary. I am sorry they did. The error is inexcusable.”

Goldman flagged the matter to Bloomberg after the bank found journalists had access to more information than it had known and argued the information was sensitive and should not be seen by reporters.

The news triggered fear at Wall Street firms about the privacy of sensitive data, as well as at the Fed and other US government departments that use Bloomberg terminals.

In the editorial, Mr Winkler sought to clarify what exactly Bloomberg journalists could see. He said they had access to a user’s login history, as well as “high-level types of user functions on an aggregated basis, with no ability to look into specific security information”.

He said the practice dated back to the early days of Bloomberg News in the 1990s, when reporters used the terminal to find out what kind of news coverage customers wanted.

“As data privacy has become a central concern to our clients, we should go above and beyond in protecting data, especially when we have even the appearance of impropriety,” Mr Winkler wrote. “And that’s why we’ve made these recent changes to what reporters can access.”

The company’s damage-control efforts encountered a potential setback later on Monday when the Financial Times reported that thousands of private messages, sent over Bloomberg terminals in 2009 and 2010, were uploaded to an unsecure online site, apparently by accident.

The messages, sent between traders at some of the world’s largest banks and their customers, contained confidential financial price information and trading activity, the newspaper reported. They were later removed from the site.

The Financial Times article quoted a Bloomberg spokesman as saying: “This work was done with client consent, where e-mails were explicitly forwarded to us to a dedicated e-mail account and released by the person responsible for the e-mail so that we could conduct internal testing to improve our technology for the client.”

A company spokesman declined further comment when contacted by Reuters.

Bloomberg’s book

Data security was an issue company founder Michael Bloomberg wrestled with in his 1997 book, Bloomberg by Bloomberg. In general, he wrote, restricting access to proprietary information could be an ineffective exercise.

Often “the whole data security issue is overblown at most corporations that think they have a lot to guard”, wrote Bloomberg, who has been mayor of New York City since 2002.

“Pilferage and leakage are costs of doing business. Live with them. While some restrictions make sense, many are ridiculous.”

When asked at a news conference on Monday about the current controversy, Mr Bloomberg said he could not comment because of his agreement with the city’s conflicts of interest board. The mayor, who Forbes has said has a net worth of $27bn, has not been involved in the day-to-day operations of Bloomberg for nearly a dozen years.

In his statement, Mr Winkler emphasised that Bloomberg News “has never compromised the integrity of that data in our reporting” and said Bloomberg journalists were subject to standards that were among the most stringent in the business.

“At no time did reporters have access to trading, portfolio, monitor, blotter or other related systems,” he said. “Nor did they have access to clients’ messages to one another. They couldn’t see the stories that clients were reading or the securities clients might be looking at.”

Even though the information available to Bloomberg News reporters was limited, senior Goldman executives argued a trader could profit just by knowing what type of securities high-profile users were looking at, or what questions a government official raised with Bloomberg’s help desk, people with direct knowledge of the Goldman executives’ views said.

The issue made people inside the bank uncomfortable with even the Bloomberg marketing and sales team’s access to information, the sources said.

In disclosing the new restrictions set last month, CEO Daniel Doctoroff said Bloomberg had created the position of client data compliance officer to ensure its news operations never had access to confidential customer data.

Closely held Bloomberg, which competes with Thomson Reuters, the parent of Reuters News, gets the bulk of its revenue from terminal sales to financial institutions.

Bloomberg has more than 315,000 terminal subscribers globally, with each Bloomberg terminal costing more than $20,000 a year. Last year it posted revenue of $7.9bn.

Thomson Reuters said on Friday that its news division operated “completely independently, with reporters having no access to nonpublic data on its customers, especially any data relating to its customers’ use of its products or services”.

Reuters

Barbara Walters, America’s first TV evening news anchorwoman, is retiring from the news business after 52 years of interviewing the world’s top leaders and celebrities.

ABC News reported Sunday night that Ms. Walters will anchor and report for the organization for one more year before retiring in May 2014. She will make the official announcement Monday on “The View,” an all women talk show she created in 1997.

“There’s only one Barbara Walters,” ABC News President Ben Sherwood said. “And we look forward to making her final year on television as remarkable, path-breaking and news-making as Barbara herself.”

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She began her TV journalism career in 1961 at NBC’s “Today” show, before moving to ABC’s “Evening News” in 1976 and later becoming co-host of “20/20.” Her decades long career has included interviews with some of the world’s most interesting personalities including Saddam Hussein, Michael Jackson, Margaret Thatcher, and every US president and first lady since Richard Nixon.

In 1977, Walters landed an interview with Cuban leader Fidel Castro. He took her on a tour of the Bay of Pigs and into the mountains where he had been a guerilla. She grilled him about the country’s control over the media, asking why he didn’t allow dissenting opinions to be aired. “Barbara, we do not have your same conceptions,” Mr. Castro said during the interview. “Our concept of the freedom of the press is not yours. And I say this very honestly, I have nothing to hide.”

The interview later aired in Cuba – more than three hours of questioning, minus his views on prisoners and torture – the first time an interview with an American journalist aired there, Walters said in an interview with the Archive of American Television.

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One of her biggest scoops came later that year, when Walters did a joint interview with Egypt’s president Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin – the first time the two leaders appeared together for the media. She beat out Walter Cronkite for the interview. It was the first time that President Sadat visited Israel – a step Walters called courageous due to their tumultuous relationship.

“It was a historic interview,” Walters told the Archive of American Television.

Fast forward to 2012, when Walters interviewed another Middle East leader: Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. In his first interview with Western media since the beginning of Syrian uprising, he denied allegations that he gave orders to attack or torture Syria’s citizens.

“There was no command to kill or be brutal,” he said.

Not all her interviews were hard-hitting journalism, as Walters often sat down with celebrities or other people making headlines – like Monica Lewinsky.

Walters’s interview with Ms. Lewinsky had more than 74 million viewers when it aired in 1999 – a record for ABC, the Daily Beast reported.

“I have a lot of healing to do,” Lewinsky told Walters, referring to the media coverage of her affair with President Bill Clinton. Lewinsky told Walters that if she ever had children, she would tell them that “Mommy made a big mistake.”

“And that is the understatement of the year,” Walters said at the end of the segment.

Whether she’s remembered for serious journalism or celebrity infotainment, there is no doubt that Walters pioneered a path for other female TV journalists.

“Saying that Barbara Walters blazed a trail for a generation of female journalists would understate her impact,” MSNBC anchor Mika Brzezinski, told the Daily Beast in March, when rumors of Walter’s retirement first surfaced. “Barbara broke the rules, made up a new set for women to work by, and broke them again in a sweeping, breathtaking career that revolutionized broadcast news and made my career possible.”

TV anchor Dan Rather told the Daily Beast that Walters deserves to retire after decades of working against gender discrimination in the TV news industry.

“Barbara is a marvelously determined person. But a lot of people had the dream, and even had the determination, but they don’t have the work ethic that Barbara has had,” he said in March. “And can you imagine how difficult it was for any woman to break through on television? Barbara did it. A few other women have broken through, strictly on the entertainment side, but Barbara was the first one in news who really climbed to the top of Everest.”

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Related stories

• Are you smarter than a Fox News viewer? How about a CNN viewer? Take our quiz to find out.

• Barbara Walters retirement: Announcement on ‘The View’ (+video)

• Elisabeth Hasselbeck leaving? Not so, says Barbara Walters

Read this story at csmonitor.com

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Shares in Standard Chartered (Other OTC: SCBFF – news) slide 4.6 percent to lead fallers
across the FTSE 100 (FTSE: ^FTSE – news) after a report that a U.S. hedge fund has bet
against the company because of the perceived health of its loan book.

Muddy Waters owner Carson Block said at a May 10 conference in Las Vegas
that the fund had bet against Standard Chartered debt as a result of
“deteriorating loan quality”, Bloomberg said in a report on Monday.

Block cited a $1 billion loan to Samin Tan, chairman of Indonesian coal
company Bumi Resources, and loans to Far East Energy Corp (Other OTC: FEEC – news) as “red
flags” that justified the trade.

Standard Chartered had no comment when contacted by Reuters.

“Carson Block is shorting Stan Chart (BSE: STAN.BO – news) debt because of “deteriorating” loan
quality. Basically the bank is a play on China and emerging markets, so he is
bearish of that region,” Ronnie Chopra, strategist at TradeNext says.

Demand to sell the Asian-focused bank is strong in early deals, with traded
volume at just shy of its 90-day daily average after less than two hours of
trade. That compares with an average of 17 percent for the broader FTSE 100.

The sharp fall also weighs heavily on the region’s banking sector, with the
STOXX Europe 600 Banking index down 1.5 percent, more than twice the
fall of the next worst-hit sector.

Reuters messaging rm://simon.jessop.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net

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Prague Marathon attracts thousands

Some 10,000 people put on their running shoes for this year’s Prague
International Marathon and hundreds of onlookers turned up to cheer them
on. The first through the finishing line this year was Nicholas Kemboi from
Qatar who covered the 42 km distance in 2:08mins. The first woman to reach
the finishing line was Caroline Rotich from Kenya who made it in 2:27mins.
The marathon has gained increasing popularity since it was established in
1995. It takes runners through the city centre and has been voted one of
the most beautiful in the world. In view of the Boston bombing special
security measures have been taken for the event.

Prague Spring Music Festival opens tonight

A commemorative act at the graveside of Czech composer Bed?ich Smetana
officially opened the 68th annual Prague Spring Music Festival on Sunday.
The prestigious festival traditionally begins with a rendition of
Smetana’s cycle of symphonic poems My Country; this year it will be
performed by the French Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. Over the next three
weeks music lovers will be able to take their pick from 45 concerts,
presenting leading international orchestras and soloists as well as six
opera performances at different venues in the Czech capital.

Czechs increasingly skeptical regarding Institute for the Study of
Totalitarian Regimes

The results of an opinion poll conducted by the SANEP agency suggest that
the majority of Czechs consider the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian
Regimes a useless institution. According to the poll results 68.7 percent
of respondents said the institute was obsolete and 73.3 percent said they
did not believe it to be entirely independent and objective in its
research. Only 25 percent of respondents said they believed it was
fulfilling its mission and 26 percent of respondents said that the
institution had been hijacked by politicians for their own ends. The poll
was conducted at the beginning of the month as the institute was undergoing
a change of management and was racked by controversy.

Brigadier General Zden?k Škarvada dies

One of the country’s last surviving war heroes, Brigadier General
Zden?k Škarvada, has died at the age of 95. General Škarvada served in
the air force of the First Republic. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia
he left for Poland where he participated in the country’s defence before
going on to Great Britain where he joined the RAF. He flew night missions
and when his plane suffered technical failure he was captured by the
Germans. He was held in several European POW camps and eventually survived
a 1000 km long death march. After the communist coup he was demoted and
forced to work in the mines. In 1965 he was partially rehabilitated. He has
been awarded a number of decorations for valour.

Rescuers save young man trapped in marshland

Rescuers in the Šumava Mountains saved the life of a 26-year-old man who
was abandoned, heavily drunk, in marshland by his friends. When he failed
to return to base on Saturday evening they alerted the mountain rescue
service which combed the famed Slatiny marshes. When they found the man he
was waist deep in mud, disoriented and suffering from hypothermia. The head
of the rescue team said he had had a lucky escape since after several days
of heavy rain the area was particularly dangerous.

Repairs on D1 highway underway

Restrictions are in now place along selected stretches of the D1 highway
from Prague to Brno. Following several days of persistent rain, repair work
started in earnest on Sunday with traffic restricted to one lane in places.
Despite the onset of repair work traffic is reported to have problem-free
throughout the day. The country’s main highway will remain open to
traffic throughout its reconstruction due to concerns that de-tours would
immeasurably burden surrounding towns and villages. The speed limit along
the stretches where work is underway has been lowered to 80 km per hour.

Czechs defeated by Canada

The Czech national team lost 2:1 to Canada at the World Ice Hockey
Championship in Stockholm on Sunday, seriously jeopardizing its chances of
advancing to the quarterfinals. The Czech team, which had been struggling
since the beginning of the tournament, put up a valiant fight against their
strong opponent with Petr Koukal equalizing an opening goal by Canada’s
Wayne Simmonds in the first period. Although the Czechs managed to maintain
the score through the second period a goal from Jeff Skinner close to the
end of the third period dashed their hopes of victory. The loss means that
for the first time in the country’s modern history the Czechs might not
advance to the quarterfinals.

Plekanec and Židlický to join national team

Marek Židlický will join the Czech national team for the 2013 IIHF Ice
Hockey World Championship in Stockholm on Monday. After announcing the
arrival of Montreal Canadiens forward Tomáš Plekanec on the same day, the
Czech national team will use their last spot on the roster for New Jersey
Devils defenceman Marek Židlický. Both Plekanec and Židlický are to
play in the last preliminary-round game against Norway on Tuesday.

Weather

The weather should remain fairly cold in the next day or two with
scattered showers and day time highs reaching 16 degrees. A warming is
expected in mid week with sunny skies and temperatures around 24 degrees
Celsius.

Bloomberg L.P. has raised its profile as a news organization significantly in recent years, expanding beyond its wire service into television, online and print publications while recruiting top-flight editorial personnel as many rival media companies were cutting back.

The company’s roots and core business, though, are in providing financial data, a fact highlighted by its journalists’ ability, until recently, to look up some information about subscribers to Bloomberg’s financial terminals.

Bloomberg disclosed last week that it had restricted its journalists from accessing information about terminal subscribers, including when they last logged on, when they subscribed and how often they accessed features like news or the chat function. The terminals, a major profit driver for the company, provide an array of financial data to traders, analysts and business executives.

Bloomberg eliminated such access for its journalists in April following a complaint from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bloomberg said. Separate concerns had been raised by J.P. Morgan Chase, another big Wall Street client, according to people familiar with the matter.

In its early years, Bloomberg reporters sometimes accompanied salespeople to client meetings, and they were granted access to subscriber information such as broad usage habits to help them participate in the discussions, according to the company. In later years, when Bloomberg grew bigger and journalists participated less in client meetings, Bloomberg didn’t eliminate newsroom access to such information, the company says.

“It started out as a way to serve customers better by having a better understanding of what they used,” Chief Executive Daniel Doctoroff said in an interview Sunday. “That’s not to say we shouldn’t have eliminated it earlier.”

Bloomberg’s disclosure that it had restricted newsroom access to certain customer data prompted an inquiry from the Federal Reserve, the Fed said, as well as the Treasury, according to a person familiar with the situation. Officials at both the Fed and Treasury have Bloomberg terminals.

In emails to clients and staff Friday, Mr. Doctoroff acknowledged that not restricting its journalists’ access to such information earlier had been a “mistake.” He also noted that Bloomberg last month created an executive position dedicated to overseeing data-compliance matters. The firm appointed longtime Bloomberg executive Steve Ross, previously responsible for day-to-day operations of the terminal business, to the new post. In the interview, Mr. Doctoroff stressed the importance to Bloomberg of data-security measures. “We are elevating that whole focus,” he said.

Bloomberg, founded in 1981 by current New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has grown over three decades from a scrappy vendor to Wall Street bond traders to a provider of financial data, analytics and news.

The company’s terminals are a ubiquitous presence on trading floors from Wall Street to Hong Kong, and they have become ingrained in the culture of modern finance by offering access not just to market data but everything from stories on financial earnings and acquisitions to restaurant reviews and sports coverage.

Bloomberg started out offering news as an added perk for those who subscribe to its terminals. Now, it is a major player in providing business and financial news.

“In the beginning, it wasn’t fancy, it was nuts and bolts. But Bloomberg is now a leading source for many news categories,” said Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute.

Mr. Doctoroff described the terminals business and news operation as complementary: the large and lucrative terminals business helps pay for an editorial service that in turn draws subscribers by delivering market-moving news.

But there is a “flip side” to the business model too, Mr. Doctoroff said. “When you assure editorial independence, your reporters also do stories on very important clients that can create a level of discomfort sometimes. That’s the way it is, and we have to live with that tension,” he said. Mr. Doctoroff said a strict division separates Bloomberg’s sales department from its news operations.

Bloomberg isn’t alone in its practice of recruiting journalists to go on visits to customers. Senior editors from Dow Jones Newswires have occasionally participated in sales meetings to help explain different news products. Dow Jones Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, competes with Bloomberg in financial news and some other data services.

A Dow Jones spokesperson confirmed that senior editors sometimes participate in sales meetings, but are careful to respect the company’s strict division between the news and business operations.

The growth of Bloomberg’s news division, which today includes a financial newswire, Businessweek magazine and radio and television programming, has been supported by growth of the flagship terminals business, which accounts for around 85% of revenue. Bloomberg charges about $20,000 annually for a subscription to a terminal, and it has 315,000 subscriptions globally, the company said.

Mr. Doctoroff acknowledged that the financial crisis had forced Bloomberg “to work quite hard” over the last five years to gain market share. The company has increased staff by around 37% since 2007, and it now has around 15,000 employees globally, including 2,400 employees in its news division.

Last year, Bloomberg controlled about 31% of the $25.5 billion annual market for financial data, narrowly beating Thomson Reuters Corp. for the second year to be the world’s largest financial data provider, according to Burton-Taylor International Consulting LLC, which tracks market share. During that time, less business from Wall Street banks has led many of Bloomberg’s competitors to retrench.

Write to William Launder at william.launder@dowjones.com

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CORONADO (CBS 8) — For the first time since the death of Rebecca Zahau at the Spreckels mansion in Coronado we are hearing a firsthand account from the man who said he found Zahau’s body hanging from a balcony.

News 8 has obtained video of the polygraph examination of Adam Shacknai, recorded about 12 hours after he called 911 to report finding Zahau’s body.

The test itself involved ten, “yes” or “no” questions asked over and over again by veteran police interrogator and polygrapher, Paul Redden.

Before the polygraph exam began, Redden questioned Shacknai about what happened the morning of July 13, 2011 at the mansion located at 1043 Ocean Blvd. in Coronado.

During the initial questioning, Shacknai was not hooked up to the polygraph machine.

Adam Shacknai was the only other person staying at the mansion on the night of Zahau’s mysterious death.

Zahau’s hands and feet were bound; she was naked and her mouth was gagged, according to the autopsy report.

During questioning, Shacknai told Redden that he believed Zahau took her own life.

Shacknai theorized that Zahau was upset over the tragic fall of 6-year-old Max Shacknai at the mansion two days earlier, while Zahau was babysitting the boy.

Zahau lived at the mansion with Adam Shacknai’s brother, millionaire Jonah Shacknai, the boy’s father.  Max Shacknai was taken off life support and passed away on July 16, 2011.

After two hours of questioning, the lie detector exam ended.  According to Redden, the results were inconclusive.

Even though the official polygraph results were inconclusive, Redden later told investigators that in his expert opinion Shacknai was telling the truth, court records revealed.

Zahau family attorney Marty Rudoy told News 8 he found the polygraph video “compelling” but questioned the inconclusive findings.

“A finding of inconclusive on a lie detector test indicates operator error.  We think there were problems with the test and with the questions; and so, it should be disregarded,” said Rudoy.

“(Redden’s) opinion, I think, you can take with a grain of salt, even though I acknowledge he’s a skilled operator,” Rudoy said.

Polygraph evidence is not admissible in court.

Weeks after her death, investigators ruled Zahau’s death a suicide and closed the case.

Zahau’s family members disagree with that ruling and said publicly they believe Zahau was murdered. Attorneys for the family filed a lawsuit in San Diego County Superior Court on Wednesday seeking the release of more evidence in the case.

The Zahau family is asking for financial support on the crowd-funding web site indiegogo.com to help with the costs of an independent investigation and legal fees.

Adam Shacknai and Paul Redden did not respond to News 8 messages seeking comment for this report.

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News Corp. (NWSA), the Rupert Murdoch-led media company planning to split in two, rose the most in more than 10 months after third-quarter profit beat analysts’ estimates.

The shares rose 4.5 percent to $33.29 at the close in New York. The shares have advanced 30 percent this year.

Net income tripled to $2.85 billion in the period ended March 31, New York-based News Corp. said yesterday in a statement. Profit excluding some items was 36 cents a share, versus the 35-cent average of analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. The shares rose as much as 4 percent to $33.15 in extended trading.

Results at the television businesses underscore Murdoch’s decision to cleave entertainment from the declining publishing unit, where earnings sagged 35 percent. Cable-network revenue rose 17 percent, led by international growth in fees from pay-TV systems and advertising. Payments to rebroadcast the Fox network on cable and satellite TV almost doubled.

“These were good numbers,” David Bank, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets in New York, said in an interview. “The company’s performance highlights how strong the flagship business is, which is the cable channels.”

Net income, amounting to $1.22 a share, was boosted by gains from transactions involving the Sky satellite-TV business in Germany, New Zealand and the U.K. In the year-earlier period, profit was $937 million, or 38 cents. Operating income rose 3.8 percent. Sales advanced 14 percent to $9.54 billion, surpassing the $9.17 billion average estimate.

New Companies

The proposed split should happen “near the end” of the fiscal year that runs through June, Murdoch said. Total costs for the spinoff reached $53 million through the end of March, almost half of it coming in the most recent quarter.

“I am more confident than ever of the long-term value the separation will unlock for the company and its shareholders,” Murdoch said in the statement.

The plan to divide News Corp. (NWSA) creates a new company, 21st Century Fox, that will own the 20th Century Fox film studio and the Fox pay-TV and broadcast networks as well as Fox Sports 1, the cable sports channel that will compete with Walt Disney Co. (DIS)’s ESPN. The parent company of the Wall Street Journal and the Sun newspaper will retain the News Corp. name.

One weak spot in the results was the Fox television network, where ratings declined at cornerstone programs including “American Idol.”

The company is working to improve its lineup, with an eye to finding shows that resonate with audiences fragmented by the rise of new digital formats, Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey said on a conference call with analysts.

“It was not a year where we achieved what we set out to,” Carey said. “In a world where everybody has more and more choices, you need shows that stand out.”

Next week, Fox will unveil its lineup of new shows at the so-called upfront meetings when marketers buy large amounts of advertising spots at discounted rates for the following season.

The publishing division, which will include News Corp.’s Australian TV assets after the split, cited a drop in advertising at the company’s Australian newspapers for the profit decline.

Publishing will start with $2.6 billion in cash and no debt, the company said in March. The division lost $2.1 billion in fiscal 2012 because of restructuring, falling sales and the costs of a U.K. hacking scandal.

Publishing Company

Murdoch appointed Robert Thomson, the Wall Street Journal’s editor, as CEO of the new publishing company, which also includes the New York Post, HarperCollins books, and the Amplify education division run by board member Joel Klein.

Murdoch, 82, who will remain chairman at both companies after the split, hasn’t yet proposed full board slates at either of them.

In the nine months ended March 31, News Corp. spent $165 million related to investigations in the U.K., down from $167 million in the year-earlier period. Last month, News Corp.’s directors agreed to a $139 million settlement of investors’ claims that they turned a blind eye to illegal conduct at the media company, including phone hacking by employees. The money will ultimately be recovered through insurance that covers News Corp.’s board.

News Corp. journalists are accused of hacking mobile-phone messages of more than 600 people, including U.S. actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, soccer player Wayne Rooney and murdered British schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

Investors have renewed calls for the company to split the roles of chairman and CEO. Christian Bros. Investment Services and British Columbia Investment Management Corp. filed a joint shareholder proposal calling for an independent chairman. They also backed calls to eliminate the dual-class share structure that gives the Murdochs control of the company.

Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, competes with News Corp. units in providing financial news and information.

To contact the reporter on this story: Edmund Lee in New York at elee310@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net

Enlarge image

News Corp. Beats Profit Estimates on Higher Licensing Revenue

Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

Under the plan to divide News Corp., a new company, 21st Century Fox, will own the 20th Century Fox film studio and the Fox pay-TV and broadcast networks as well as Fox Sports 1, the forthcoming cable sports channel.

Under the plan to divide News Corp., a new company, 21st Century Fox, will own the 20th Century Fox film studio and the Fox pay-TV and broadcast networks as well as Fox Sports 1, the forthcoming cable sports channel. Photographer: Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

NBC News is expected to name Deborah Turness, a prominent British TV journalist, to be its next president.

Currently editor of Britain’s ITV News, Turness will take the position that was previously held by Steve Capus, who resigned from NBC News in March. The Los Angeles Times last month was first to report that Turness was a leading candidate for the post.

NBC News is declining comment on Turness and insiders there say no official announcement is expected Friday or Monday, which is when the network will unveil its new prime-time schedule to advertisers. However, people with knowledge of the matter expect the appointment to be unveiled in the near future.

PHOTOS: Hollywood Backlot moments

While the tapping of Turness came as a surprise to those in New York’s media elite circles, NBC News Chairman Pat Fili-Krushel had made no secret that she was looking for an outsider to succeed Capus.

Turness has a high profile in Britain, where she became the first female editor of an English TV news division, which is akin to a news president in the U.S. The London Evening Standard described her as a “tough but fair livewire” and by the Guardian as someone “renowned for ripping up the rule book.” Turness is credited with keeping ITV News relevant against much bigger rivals, including the BBC.

A rising media star in Britain, Turness became the first female editor of an English news division when she assumed the top position at ITV News in 2004. Before that she held several posts there, in England, Paris and Washington.

NBC News already has ties to ITV. It shares reporters and resources in Africa and the Middle East with ITV.

ALSO:

NBC News President Steve Capus resigns

NBC News Chairman Pat Fili-Krushel has long to-do list

NBC News looks outside the company and the country for next president

Follow Joe Flint on Twitter @JBFlint.