CNN has added ESPN's LZ Granderson to their growing stable of online contributors. Details from CNN follows.

CNN Press Release: CNN today announced award-winning writer LZ Granderson as the latest addition to its growing roster of op-ed contributors online. Beginning April 12, Granderson will pen a weekly column for CNN Opinion focusing on how social and cultural issues affect the way life is lived in America today.

A senior writer and columnist for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com, Granderson has written several guest columns for CNN.com on topics ranging from Sarah Palin to Charlie Sheen to the younger Barbara Bush’s endorsement of same-sex marriage. His pieces have been among the most widely read and commented on by CNN.com’s users. (Watch above video of Granderson responding to user comments to his previous article "Whoopi Goldberg, Donald Trump and race.")
“We’re delighted to welcome LZ to a team of outstanding contributors who delight, inspire and sometimes rouse readers with their insights into the world we live in,” said Richard Galant, senior producer for CNN Opinion.

Regular CNN Opinion contributors include: John Avlon, senior political columnist for The Daily Beast; Democratic strategists and CNN political contributors Paul Begala and Donna Brazile; CNN contributor and Washington fellow of the Claremont Institute William Bennett; CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen; CNN senior political analysts Gloria Borger and David Gergen; former special assistant to President George W. Bush David Frum; best-selling author Bob Greene; CNN contributor and syndicated columnist Roland Martin; syndicated columnist and NPR commentator Ruben Navarrette Jr., and Julian Zelizer, author and professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.

"Now more than ever, CNN is the place people come to dig into diverse viewpoints, ideas and cultural observations," said Meredith Artley, VP and managing editor of CNN Digital. “Online, we're making good on that promise by pushing out pieces every day that foster a dynamic conversation and touch on our interesting times."

Under Galant’s direction, CNN Opinion has grown into a premiere source for insight and analysis about the issues impacting society at home and around the world. Launched in October 2009, the section’s traffic has steadily climbed, moving from an average monthly total of 10 million page views in 2010 to an average of 15 million page views per month in 2011 – a 43 percent increase. During March 2011 alone, CNN Opinion generated more than 17 million global page views, accounting for the section’s highest trafficked month ever.

Past guest contributors to CNN Opinion also have included former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Sen. John Kerry; actors Denzel Washington and Mia Farrow; author Jonathan Safran Foer; education historian and author Diane Ravitch; and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. CNN Opinion also features video interviews with celebrities, artists and authors, such as Malcolm Gladwell, Sarah Silverman and David Byrne.

Through its partnership with TED, CNN Opinion also features TED Talk Tuesdays, highlighting a selected talk from a TED conference each week. CNN.com also produces additional editorial content to supplement the Talk, including follow-up interviews with TED speakers, commentaries or original reporting around the Talk’s subject to provide users with a wide range of points of view.

CNN has announced a new hire for the network's website. Tenny Tatusian is joining CNN's web division as lead homepage editor.

CNN Press Release: On the heels of CNN’s presentation on what’s next for CNN Digital last night, VP and managing editor of CNN.com Meredith Artley has announced that Tenny Tatusian is joining the site as the lead homepage editor. Tatusian will be in charge of the overall messaging and tone for one the most-trafficked home pages on the web.

Tatusian joins CNN.com from the LA Times, where she was most recently associate editor for LATimes.com. She joins a handful of other recent CNN.com hires in 2010:

- Bryan Monroe, editor of CNNPolitics.com
- Amy Cox, World editor (launched Freedom Project blog last week)
- Amar Bakshi, World producer (launched Global Public Square last week)
- Dan Gilgoff, Religion editor responsible for Belief Blog
- Kristi Keck Ramsay, Weekend editor

And we’re just getting started!

CNN Press Release: Nominees to be Featured on CNN/U.S. and CNN International Week of March 7th. CNN.com Users to Select Community Choice Winner

CNN today announced that CNN iReport, the network’s user-generated news community, is launching the CNN iReport Awards to honor the best examples of participatory journalism in 2010 from CNN’s more than 740,000 iReporters globally. The final winners of the CNN iReport Awards will be announced on March 15.

“The collaborative relationship that we have with our iReporters is one of the unique strengths of CNN, and in many ways represents the future of storytelling,” said Meredith Artley, managing editor and vice president of CNN.com. “These awards are designed to celebrate those outstanding efforts.”

“iReport Awards are a great way for CNN to recognize some of the outstanding work in the iReport community,” said Lila King, participation director, CNN.com. “Every day, iReporters share their stories with CNN, and it is an honor to be able to showcase and recognize them for the impact they make on the news.”

The iReport Awards are divided into six categories: Breaking News, Original Reporting, Compelling Imagery (photos or video), Commentary, Personal Story, and Interview. From the more than 150,000 iReports received in 2010, a team of CNN journalists and producers selected five iReports as nominees in each category.

A panel of judges comprised of innovators and trailblazers in participatory storytelling will select a final winner in each category. The panel of judges for the CNN iReport Awards includes Errol Barnett, anchor and correspondent, CNN International; Rachel Campos Duffy, columnist, Parentdish.com; Ze Frank, CEO, Star.me; Dave Isay, founder, StoryCorps; Laura Brunow Miner, founder, Pictorymag.com; Shane Smith, president./co-founder VICE; Tim Shey, president/co-founder, Next News Network.

Of the 30 total nominees, online users also can show their support for the iReport they think best enhanced CNN’s storytelling in 2010 by voting for the Community Choice winner at www.CNNiReport.com/awards . Voting is open until noon ET on March 7.

Nominees will be featured the week of March 7 from 3-5pm ET, on CNN/U.S. during CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin. On CNN International, the nominees will be featured on iReport for CNN which airs Thursday, Febuary 17th at 11:30 p.m. ET and replays the following weekend.

CNN Press Release: CNN.com names new hires for World, Religion beats and weekend programming

Meredith Artley, vice president and managing editor of CNN.com, today announced four new positions cutting across the site’s World and Religion beats, as well as its programming on the weekends.

Amy Cox has been named the World Editor from CNN.com. Last year, she headed up the site's first beat blog, Afghanistan Crossroads, and was one of the driving forces behind the Home and Away interactive and the Haiti iReport database. She led the digital efforts for Impact Your World and In America, and she has been integral in the development of numerous special reports through the years. In her new role, Cox will be responsible for serving international news to CNN.com's U.S. audience - from top priority projects on global security, to foreign affairs, and a variety of new franchises and series.

Joining CNN.com's new World Editor, Amar Bakshi is the site's new World Producer. Based out of New York, Bakshi will work closely with Fareed Zakaria and his team as well as Time.com to build out CNN.com's digital foreign affairs coverage. In 2007, he was at PostGlobal, the Washington Post's blog hosted by David Ignatius and Zakaria. He then was tapped by The Washington Post to travel the world as a one-man-band to create "How The World Sees America," a series of raw, personal multimedia reports on that topic. He has worked for the U.S. Ambassador at the UN, and is completing his master's degree in advanced international studies from Johns Hopkins.

For the last many months, Dan Gilgoff has been a prolific, smart writer and editor for the CNN Belief Blog, and is being promoted to Religion Editor on CNN.com's enterprise reporting team, lead by Jan Winburn. The religion beat is global, personal, political, and unites, divides and sparks passionate conversation. As a published author on religion and award-winning religion reporter, Gilgoff is the ideal person to lead CNN.com's reporting efforts on this complex topic.

Recognizing that CNN.com's weekend audience has different consumption behaviors that the weekday audience, the site also has named a new Weekend Editor, Krisi Keck Ramsey, to build a strategy around that and creatively program to it. For the last three years, Ramsey has been a critical member of CNN's Best Political Team on the digital side; and she will apply her expertise in political reporting and knowledge of CNN's Sunday shows to CNN.com's weekend programming.

CNN Press Release - Award-winning journalist Bryan Monroe has joined CNN as editor of CNNPolitics.com, it was announced today by Meredith Artley, vice president and managing editor of CNN.com. In this newly created role, Monroe will lead the editorial planning and content strategy for CNN's online and mobile political coverage from the network’s DC Bureau.

“Bryan is an outstanding addition to the talented CNNPolitics.com team, and also to CNN’s DC bureau, including Sam Feist, Edith Chapin and their teams," said Artley. “His experience and leadership will expand and deepen our political reporting across CNN.com, The Political Ticker and all of our mobile products.”

Most recently, Monroe was a visiting professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, and is a former president of NABJ, the National Association of Black Journalists. Also, while at Knight-Ridder in 2005, he helped lead the team in Biloxi, MS, that won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for their coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

"I am thrilled to be joining CNN and the nation’s ‘best political team,’ particularly at a time when political coverage is at the front and center of the national conversation," said Monroe. "Helping extend those conversations across the Web and mobile devices is an exciting challenge."
Prior to his professorship at Northwestern, Monroe served as Vice President and Editorial Director at Ebony and Jet magazines in Chicago. At the magazines, he led the coverage of the 2008 presidential elections and conducted the first interview with then President-elect Barack Obama following his November victory; and also had the last major interview with pop star Michael Jackson before his death in 2007.

CNN Press Release - Passionate Community, Global Coverage, Novel Features Baked into New Food Blog

CNN.com today announced the launch of Eatocracy, a blog created to feed the minds, hearts and stomachs of food fanatics across the world. Covering the pulse of food news – from its culture and trends to the politics and economics of eating, www.CNN.com/Eatocracy is a destination for passionate dialogue and debate about food.

“Very few topics are as cultural, political, entertaining, scientific and global as food,” said Meredith Artley, managing editor of CNN.com. “CNN and its users now have a gathering place for all of these conversations and more. Eatocracy is the bright red cherry on top of our beat-focused portfolio.”

Edited by Kat Kinsman, previously senior editor at AOL Food and Slashfood, Eatocracy will uniquely leverage CNN’s global newsgathering resources for the latest in food news, as well as foster an environment for CNN.com users and the iReport community to engage in the conversation. Under the leadership of CNN.com features editor Cybil Wallace, CNN.com’s Eatocracy is powered by Kinsman and the blog’s associate editor Sarah LeTrent, as well as CNN producers and correspondents, guest bloggers and iReporters.

“Through a combination of active engagement with CNN.com users, our editors' expertise and connections to the farmers, chefs and major players in the food world, and original lick-the-screen photography, we'll create a real-time portrait of how the world eats,” said Kat Kinsman, editor of Eatocracy. “We want to create an Eatocracy, where everyone has a place at the table.”

With innovative daily, weekly and ongoing features incorporating user-generated content and social media activity, Eatocracy focuses on bringing all of the best food stories to users on a topic to which everyone can relate. Some of the features include:

Daily
“Box Lunch,” bite-sized blurbs of the top stories during the lunch hour
“5@5,” 5 favorite culinary items from the blog’s editors, writers and special guests, published at 5pm ET each day
“Lunch Out Loud,” iReport users share what they had for lunch
“Lick the Screen,” original photo galleries of ingredients, food and meals

Weekly
“Tuesday Night Cook-Along,” the editors share a simple recipe and cook it alongside CNN.com users
“Path to the Plate,” a column tracking the path – from growth to consumption - of the food that people eat
“Mom Was Wrong,” debunking kitchen myths with the help of a food scientist

Ongoing
“Eat Like a Local,” highlighting the local dishes, products and institutions that define local cuisine by drawing on regional food bloggers’ expertise
“Heirloom Eats,” database of hand-written recipes, submitted by users, to honor the culinary heritage handed down through the generations
“Master the Classics,” tips and tricks to perfect some of the classic recipes
“Stone Soup,” an under-funded writer’s guide to eating on the cheap
“Eatcyclopedia,” a reference guide for more than 500 different culinary terms

Twitter users also can keep up with the blog’s latest postings by following @eatocracy.

CNN.com is the No. 1 destination for online and wireless news according to Nielsen, garnering the greatest audience in online video, total minutes and page views and the most mobile usage among current events and global news sites. Launched in 1995, CNN.com draws from the resources of CNN Worldwide and its many partners to provide consumers with the most enriching, immediate interaction with news anywhere, seamlessly combining articles, videos, images, interactive features and user-generated content. CNN.com’s news video offering – both live and on-demand – is unparalleled on the Web. CNN.com’s recent awards include a Peabody Award, two EPpy awards, four CableFAX Best of the Web awards, a National Headliner award, and the 2009 Edward R. Murrow award for best website.

CNN Press Release - CNN has appointed Meredith Artley vice president and managing editor of CNN.com, it was announced today by KC Estenson, senior vice president and general manager of CNN.com. Artley is currently managing editor, online, at the Los Angeles Times, and will join CNN.com next month.

With more than thirteen years working as a journalist and online editor, Artley will lead CNN.com’s editorial strategy from the company’s Atlanta headquarters, reporting directly to Estenson.

“CNN is where the world goes to find out what’s happening now; and Meredith will complement an incredibly talented editorial leadership team as we continue to set the standard in multi-platform journalism,” said Estenson. “I’m confident that her innovation, vision and approach to reporting and storytelling – along with her editorial leadership – will enable us to deliver the caliber of content our users expect, while introducing CNN stories to an ever-growing new audience.”

Artley joined LATimes.com in March 2007, and was responsible for all editorial initiatives, from the vision of the site to the daily execution, as well as the site’s recently unveiled redesign. Under her leadership, the site more than doubled its traffic, becoming the fastest-growing website among the nation’s largest newspapers; and won several journalism awards.

“CNN is a global news powerhouse and the opportunity to lead the editorial effort for their site is a challenge I’m enthusiastic about taking on,” Artley said. “I’m excited to help their talented journalists, technologists and business teams to deliver news and information in fresh and dynamic ways."

Prior to joining LATimes.com, Artley served as digital development director for the International Herald Tribune’s web operation in Paris, where she led the strategy and day-to-day editorial execution. Previously, she was the associate editor at NYTimes.com, where she managed the team of producers and editors who published the site.

In 2000, Artley was part of the Pulitzer-prize winning team for the New York Times’ “Race in America” series. She is also an active member of the Online News Association.

Artley received her bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Missouri.

CNN.com is the world's No. 1 destination for online and wireless news according to Nielsen, garnering the greatest audience share in total minutes and page views and the most video and mobile usage among current events and global news sites. Launched in 1995, CNN.com draws from the resources of CNN Worldwide and its many partners to provide consumers with the most enriching, immediate interaction with news anywhere, seamlessly combining articles, videos, images, interactive features and user-generated content. CNN.com’s news video offering – both live and on-demand – is unparalleled on the Web. CNN.com’s recent awards include a Peabody Award, two EPpy awards, four CableFAX Best of the Web awards, a National Headliner award, and the 2009 Edward R. Murrow award for best website.