Early in 2000, ABC News, CBS News and Fox News announced that News Executive Alan Suhonen had been selected as General Manager for the newly formed domestic news gathering partnership, Network News Service (NNS). The unprecedented news cooperative was developed to provide the networks and their affiliates with backup on major breaking stories and reduce unnecessary duplication of coverage for routine press conferences and news events. 

The service launched on June 12, 2000.   Since then, NNS has met and exceeded expectations.  Suhonen, also the Chief Executive Officer, has developed a strategic team of sixty news professionals operating a centralized newsroom in New York and regional bureaus in ten (major) American cities.  The round-the-clock news service operates in all U.S. time zones from Maine to Hawaii. Because of NNS' success, NNS routinely, provides the first live pictures of breaking news scenes to its partners.

Since its inception, Network News Service has provided live, continuing coverage of major news events, including the September 11th attacks, the 2000 Presidential Election and extraordinary recounts.  During the recent mid-term elections, NNS provided live coverage of 30 election headquarters around the country from pre-dawn voting through late night victory speeches. In December of 2002, NNS provided extensive continuing coverage of the DC-area sniper that terrorized the region.  This concluded with first video of the early morning arrest of two suspects at a Maryland rest stop.  More recently, the shuttle Columbia disaster and U.S. tornadoes have been at the top of NNS news coverage.

NNS developed the first all-digital newsroom at the U.S. networks. With the Pinnacle Vortex system, NNS partners now have immediate access to all raw television signals that are brought into the New York newsroom.  This material is then edited on desktop editors, merged with editorial information and published to the NNS partnership as finished stories.  The entire process takes minutes, instead of hours and is always fully accessible by the network partners.   NNS continues to develop cutting-edge and cost-cutting technology as an alternative to traditional expensive satellite transmission.

Prior to NNS, Mr. Suhonen was the Director of Broadcast Field Operations for the Dallas-based A.H. Belo Corp., one of the nation's largest media companies.  Based in the nation's capital, Mr. Suhonen coordinated coverage of daily news events and special projects, including the 2000 Presidential Campaign, Presidential Inaugurations and Pope John Paul II's historic 1998 trip to Cuba.  Mr. Suhonen supervised development and construction of the $10-million Belo DC Bureau. The Belo portfolio includes a diversified group of market-leading television, newspaper, cable and interactive media assets.  Belo owns 19 television stations reaching 13.7 percent of U.S. television households.

One of those stations is KHOU Television (CBS Houston), where Mr. Suhonen worked before transferring to Washington, D.C.  While in Houston, Mr. Suhonen was the primary field producer for the station and the BELO television group. He was often "loaned" to other BELO stations, traveling to nearly all-50 states to help coordinate breaking news coverage and special events for the group.  Among those events:

• Murrah Federal Building Bombing, Oklahoma 1995
• Timothy McVeigh Trial, Denver 1997
• Bush, Clinton Inaugurations, Washington
• Hurricane Coverage 1989-2000, including Hurricanes Andrew (1992)& Hugo (1989)
• Numerous NASA Shuttle launches (STS-26 America's Return to Space (1988) & John Glenn's 1998 historic return flight)
• The 1993 Waco Branch Dravidian's standoff, KHOU broke the news that the FBI was entering the compound on that fateful day.

Early in his career, Mr. Suhonen produced numerous documentaries for local and national Public Broadcasting Service distribution.   He received a Bachelor's degree in communications from Curry College in Boston, MA.