Katherine O’Hearn has been named executive producer of Washington Post Live. In that role, O’Hearn will oversee all editorial strategy, content development and program production for The Washington Post’s live news events platform.
A highly-regarded television producer and accomplished event manager, O’Hearn has launched and executive produced television shows and web programming, supervised network news coverage in the United States and overseas, managed talent, produced live stage content and overseen digital strategy. She created and launched several news and talk shows and revitalised others, in addition to producing live special events, war coverage and two presidential debates.
As an executive producer at MSNBC, O’Hearn launched Ronan Farrow’s MSNBC show and created his next-gen series, Under-covered, for the Today Show. Immediately prior, she was senior vice president of events and video at the Newsweek Daily Beast Company, where she created, launched and ran Beast TV. She also ran an aggressive, successful live events division for editor Tina Brown that included the landmark Women in the World Summits in New York, Texas and Brazil, as well as the annual Women of Impact Dinner at Davos. She came to the Daily Beast from CNN, where she had returned in 2009 to co-create, launch and executive produce Amanpour, a nightly show on CNN International that focused on foreign policy.
O’Hearn was the executive producer of This Week with George Stephanopoulos from 2005-2009 and before that developed and executive produced the CNBC talk show, Topic A with Tina Brown. She helmed CNN’s morning coverage in the aftermath of 9/11 and created CNN’s first morning show, American Morning, after a decades-long career at ABC News where she held numerous positions. Most recently, O’Hearn was chief development and communications officer at Vital Voices Global Partnership.
Over her career, O’Hearn’s work has earned six Emmy awards, three Edward R. Murrow awards, two Walter Cronkite awards for political reporting, and a Peabody, among others.
In 2018, WP Live featured Washington headliners, CEOs and cultural leaders from Vice President Mike Pence, Leader Nancy Pelosi and Speaker Paul Ryan to Tech Innovator Sean Parker, designer Derek Lam and actress Rosamund Pike.