Rachel Jupp, new director of BBC News and Current Affairs. Picture: BBC
Ex-Panorama editor Rachel Jupp has been named director of BBC News and Current Affairs starting this month.
Jupp is taking on the role almost a year after the resignation of BBC News CEO Deborah Turness following the controversy over an edited version of a speech by Donald Trump on Panorama. BBC director general Tim Davie resigned at the same time and was subsequently replaced by former Google Europe boss Matt Brittin. Trump’s defamation case against the BBC is currently scheduled to go to trial in February.
BBC News has been led on an interim basis by deputy director of news and global director Jonathan Munro, who will return to those roles.
Jupp became director of documentaries and long-form journalism at BBC News earlier this year.
In the new role she will be paid a salary of £400,000. Turness earned £431,000 in the year to March 2025.
Brittin said: “Rachel is an outstanding editorial leader, widely regarded for her news judgment, fairness, and high standards. She brings a clarity of vision for the future, and the determined, collaborative approach needed to strengthen BBC News.
“In a world of infinite choice, audiences are fragmenting, trust is scarce and facts are contested. BBC News remains the most used and most trusted news provider around the world and across the UK. It is our duty to recommit to the BBC’s distinctive journalistic mission while reinventing how we serve audiences, and to rise to these challenges. In Rachel, we have someone who can do both, with a fresh perspective to lead BBC News into a new era.”
Brittin said Munro had demonstrated a “deep experience, calm head and steady hand” over the past 11 months.
Jupp has previously led the BBC’s editorial work on generative AI, edited Panorama between 2016 and 2020, was deputy editor at Newsnight from 2013 to 2016, and before joining the BBC was head of home news at Channel 4 News for almost six years. She will now have responsibility for a team of 4,500 people.
She said: “I want to champion our vital, independent and impartial journalism, deepen the trust people have in the BBC and meet our audiences wherever they are.”
During Jupp’s time leading Panorama the team won the Investigation of the Year prize at the British Journalism Awards in 2020 for work with The Sunday Times exposing allegations of a UK war crime cover-up in Afghanistan.
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