New Leader for Al Jazeera America

Al Jazeera America, the forthcoming international news channel funded by the emir of Qatar, on Monday named an ABC News senior vice president, Kate O’Brian, to be its president.

Ms. O’Brian, a 30-year veteran of ABC, has overseen all news gathering for the network news division since 2007. An Al Jazeera spokesman said she would have full responsibility for the new channel’s strategy and operations.

The spokesman also said that the channel will debut on Aug. 20, confirming a date that had been known internally for some time.

The announcement of Ms. O’Brian’s appointment follows a personnel search that began shortly after Al Jazeera acquired Current TV, the low-rated channel co-founded by the former Vice President Al Gore, at an estimated cost of $500 million. That acquisition, announced last January, provided Al Jazeera with something it had been seeking for years: access to tens of millions of American viewers.

Now Al Jazeera has to persuade them to tune in. The channel also appointed three other television news veterans to key posts on Monday. David Doss, a CNN veteran known for his work on Anderson Cooper's prime time program, was named senior vice president for news programming; Marcy McGinnis was named senior vice president of news gathering, a role similar to the one she held at CBS News for years; and Shannon High-Bassalik, formerly of CNN and MSNBC, was named senior vice president for documentaries and programs.

Ehab Al Shihabi, the Al Jazeera executive director for international operations who has been overseeing its creation in the absence of a president or a leadership team, will be the interim chief executive officer, the organization said Monday. A news release said his appointment was effective “till further notice.”