Who

Capus is the president of NBC News.

Backstory

Capus was raised in Bucks County, Penn., and remembers pretending to give "on-location" TV reports as a kid, using his dog Pepper's leash as a make-believe microphone. After graduating from Temple, he started his news career at Philadelphia's CBS affiliate, WCAU; it was there that he first met Brian Williams, with whom he'd work on and off for the next two decades. In 1987, Capus left WCAU for Philly's KYW-TV. Six years later he moved to NBC, where he worked on shows like NBC Nightside, NBC News Sunrise and Today. In 1997, Capus was paired up with an old friend when he was named executive producer of The News with Brian Williams on MSNBC. He left Williams' side in 2001 to work with Tom Brokaw as executive producer of NBC Nightly News. But the two joined up again three years later when Brokaw stepped down and Williams was tapped to replace him. In 2005, Capus was elevated to president of NBC News by NBC chief exec Jeff Zucker.

Of note

Like his counterparts Sean McManus at CBS and David Westin at ABC, Capus has had to deal with the grim reality that the traditional evening newscast is a dying format. Ratings for the 6:30pm evening broadcast have been ebbing for years and to make matters worse, Williams' show isn't even the front-runner any longer: The program slipped from the No. 1 spot—a position it had comfortably held for years—shortly after Charlie Gibson took over ABC's World News. Capus responded by swapping out executive producer John Reiss with Alexandra Wallace, but the division's declining fortunes have forced Capus to cut costs. In May 2007, he cut Dateline anchor Stone Phillips loose to save on his $5 million-a-year salary—but it will take more than that return NBC to its glory of yore. MSNBC remains in third place behind CNN and Fox News and even the one big bright spot for the news division—the ratings crack that was Chris Hanson's To Catch a Predator series—seems to have run its course. After a storm of controversy over the suicide of a man caught up in a sting (not to mention a mammoth lawsuit), the network appears to have decided against taping additional episodes.

Drama

What news the network airs—or does not air—is a decision that's ultimately up to Capus, which means he's the fall guy when NBC News goes too far, fails to report on something, or when an NBC personality says something he or she shouldn't have. Capus took heat when he allowed NBC News to air a disturbing confessional video by Seung-Hui Cho, the college student who went on a rampage at Virginia Tech; earned both praise and scorn when he responded to the Don Imus controversy by pulling his MSNBC show from the air; and earned scorn alone—as well as a nasty letter from Hillary Clinton—when MSNBC reporter David Shuster rather inelegantly accused Clinton's campaign of having "pimped out" Chelsea Clinton.

For the record

Capus remains very close to Williams. In fact, they're so tight that they "speak to each other in a shorthand that only they seem to understand," according to the Times. Their special language includes plentiful Godfather references, as well as quotes from the infamous recordings of Lyndon B. Johnson's White House phone conversations.

Personal

Capus married Dateline NBC segment producer Sophia Faskianos in 1996. They have two sons, and Capus has a daughter from his previous marriage. The family purchased a Hoboken property in April 2006 for $2.5 million.