According to The New York Times, Deborah Turness is about to be named president of NBC News. Citing “people with knowledge of the situation,” the Times claims Turness’ appointment will likely be announced by Monday. Turness has been the editor of the UK’s ITV News since 2004.

If Turness gets the nod she’ll be making history by becoming the first female president of an American network news division. Pretty crazy, right? In NBC News’ 73 years of existence, all of its presidents have been men. Steve Capus, who stepped down in February, was the most recent one.

Turness’ colleagues have described her as “ferociously energetic and savvy,” which means after about six months at NBC News, there’ll be a hit piece filled with anonymous sources, complaining about her handling of the job.

[Image: The Guardian]

Credit: Dario Cantatore

The Huffington Post held a garden party to celebrate the launch of its new iPad magazine, “Huffington,” Last night. FishbowlNY was there at the Gramercy Park Hotel rooftop bar, along with a few hundred of Arianna Huffington‘s friends, staffers and a few famous faces.

We spotted Huffington Post Media Group editorial director Howard Fineman, Huffington Post editor Roy Sekoff, HuffPost’s Pulitzer Prize winning reporter David Wood and NBC News president Steve Capus in the crowd, among other well-dressed and well-heeled guests.

Huffington and Tim O’Brien, who is overseeing the venture for the company, made brief remarks:

“You may be asking ‘why a magazine?’ well the answer is that now The Huffington Post has 1,500 stories a day, about 70 to 80 of them original, and we found that we needed to pull the best, and put them in a beautiful setting like jewels, so that you could enjoy them when you had time over the weekend,” Huffington said. “It is the difference between a one-night stand and a long getaway weekend where you really get to know someone.”

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Eight influential women were honored this afternoon at the New York Women in Communications 2012 Matrix Awards. The event was held at the Waldorf-Astoria and emceed by NY1 anchor Pat Kiernan.

Katie Couric, who presented a Matrix Award to Tyra Banks, walked the red carpet before the ceremony with a stool so the pair could (sort of) stand shoulder-to-shoulder (pictured). “I feel like I’m standing next to Shaquille O’Neal!” Couric quipped.

Couric’s ABC news colleagues  Josh Elliott, “20/20″ EP David Sloan and SVP of communications Jeffrey Schneider attended to honor Walt Disney EVP and chief communications officer Zenia Mucha. Mucha was presented by Barbara Walters.

In her speech, Walters said Mucha, a first-generation immigrant who lived in Poland until she was 9, “might just have the toughest job of anyone I know.”

“Even Mickey Mouse doesn’t make a move without checking with Zenia,” Walters said. Read more

The Hollywood Reporter is getting its New York fix with its Spring issue. Inside, the magazine lists the “35 Most Powerful People in The Media,” which is always a fun thing to check out. THR’s list spans the usual suspects, but is heavy on those in TV.

For your enjoyment, we’ve provided a partial list below. They’re in no particular order, either, so don’t start bragging. THR’s “New York Issue” is available today.

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Anyone tuning to WOR 710 recently thinking they’re hearing an influx of NBC-related programming would be right! 

NBC News and WOR Radio have joined forces in a broadcasting partnership. NBC News will be the dominant provider of international and national news for the talk radio station.

As part of the arrangement, WOR will simulcast Meet the Press in its entirety every Sunday morning at 9.

Additionally, starting this week WOR began airing NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams live each day at 6:30 p.m.

WOR has already been using the NBC News Radio resources for several years to provide updates throughout the day. The signature NBC chimes will be played before each “NBC News Radio” update as well as the tagline “WOR powered by the world wide resources of NBC News.” Westwood One is official radio partner of NBC News.

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Right now, the public memorial for Walter Cronkite is just getting started at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.

TVNewser editors Chris and Kevin are on the scene and Tweeting from the event. So far, they’ve spotted NBC News‘ Steve Capus chatting with Rick Kaplan of CBS, Liz Smith sitting next to former Foxnews.com columnist Roger Friedman along with news anchors Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters, Charlie Gibson and Dan Rather.

Cronkite’s longtime home CBS will is streaming live coverage of the service on CBSnews.com and TVNewser will have a full report on the memorial later today.

Will you be tuning it to the Web-cast?

TVNewser: Gathering For The Walter Cronkite Memorial Service

For a couple hours, the back room at Michael’s was transformed into a television news executive bender, a happy hour in honor of our outgoing TVNewser, Brian Stelter [right], and incoming TVNewser, er, ‘Newsers: Chris Ariens, Diane Clehane, Alissa Kinsky and Philadelphia Inquirer TV columnist and Katie Couric nemesis Gail Shister.

Some of those who showed to fete Stelter and co.: Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, NBC News president Steve Capus, Joe Scarborough, MSNBC anchors Contessa Brewer (ED NOTE: Brewer has yet to visit Dan Abrams‘ party house in the Hamptons) and Amy Robach, Rita Cosby, Gil “Stanley Bing” Schwartz, CBS’ Jeff Greenfield, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin and business correspondent Ali Velshi, MSNBC producer Tammy Haddad, NY1′s Pat Kiernan, former CBS honcho Andrew Heyward, BusinessWeek columnist (and husband to our multimillionaire boss) Jon Fine, Jeff Jarvis, CNN anchor John Roberts, Page Six‘s Corynne Steindler, well-rested Observer columnist Michael Calderone, CNBC senior VP Jonathan Wald, Inside Edition‘s Sarah Rubenstein, Radar‘s Jeff Bercovici, HuffPo’s Rachel Sklar (whose date for the evening was 19-year-old CBS News intern Eric Kuhn), Broadcasting & Cable‘s Max Robins and Caroline Palmer (who, Robins says, is leaving B&C to become Vogue‘s Web editor), CNBC VP Josh Howard, Good Day New York host Ron Corning, Freud Communications’ Lisa Dallos, Marketwatch’s Jon Friedman and the omnipresent Julia Allison, who said she had been up since 5:00AM talking about Lindsay Lohan. Her take: “She should just kill herself already, before she kills someone else.”

Notable no-shows: Abrams, Katie, Charlie, Greta Van Susteren, Jon Stewart and Stelter supporter and former CNNer Aaron Brown.

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Media notes on the bizarre twist in the Va. Tech shooter case:

• NYT:

  The package sent by the killer to NBC forced the network to make “tough decisions,” many orchestrated by NBC News prez Steve Capus. It arrived yesterday at NBC headquarters in New York and was almost immediately flagged as suspicious, because it had been mailed from Blacksburg, Va., and bore the return name A. Ishmael. Last night, the anchor of NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams, called the materials a “multimedia manifesto” and said they were mailed by Cho Seung-Hui. NBC security officer, Brian Patton, opened the package, a large-size Express Mail envelope. The package had been intended to arrive in one day, but the address was wrong. Instead of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, it was “30 Rockefeller Ave.,” and the ZIP code was wrong.

• B&C:

  “I certainly want to commend NBC news for what they have done,” said Col. Steven Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, at a press conference. “The way they secured this information and they way they handled it with dignity.”

• WaPo: “As broadcast and cable networks appeared ready to step beyond decent boundaries of saturation and repetition yesterday in their coverage, the story suddenly turned shocking new corners — and took on strange new life.”
• CNN/Money: “Old media” sites, like CNN, see Virginia Tech news spike.
• Brian Williams via Daily Nightly blog: It was “a lot of material” to slog through.
• The network is taking heat for airing the killer’s “manifesto,” but the media needs to defend NBC, says an “insider.”
• TVNewser: NBC says it will limit broadcasting the killer’s video to six minutes per hour.
  

Steve Capus on MSNBC’s Hardball tonight: “I’ve received hundreds, if not thousands of emails, both internal and external, with people with very strong views about what should happen. I’ve listened to those people with their comments. And many of them are people who have worked at NBC News for decades, people who put their lives on the line covering wars and things like that. These comments were deeply hurtful to many, many people.”

RELATED:

For the second time in a week, NBC president Steve Capus had to send an Imus memo to staffers — and this time it’s to deliver the good-bad news:

Over the course of the last week many of you have reached out to me and expressed your strong viewpoints on the Don Imus situation. I’ve had countless conversations, e-mail exchanges and phone calls with people throughout this company. I’ve heard you loud and clear. Therefore, we are announcing tonight that MSNBC will no longer simulcast the Imus radio program …

My primary concern has been and always will be the integrity of this division. We are the guardians of the good name of NBC News — each and every one of us. There has been a trust placed in us. We must honor and respect this trust. That, in short is why we have taken this action.”

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