Mark Thompson, the former CEO of the New York Times and Director General of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), appears to be the front-runner for the top job at CNN. The corporate media outlet has been without leadership after its chairman and CEO, Chris Licht was fired in June after only a year on the job.
Thompson has a controversial history in news rooms – including accusations that he looked the other way during the investigation into child sex abuse BBC star Jimmy Savile. While serving as Director General of the BBC, Thompson became embroiled in a scandal within a scandal, telling media at the time that he was unaware that editor of the British broadcaster’s Newsnight program had abruptly canceled an investigation into decades of sexual abuse of children by network celebrity Jimmy Savile. In the aftermath, Thompson at first claimed he was unaware of the investigation entirely – only to backtrack and admit he did know about it prior to cancellation.
His track record on news judgement isn’t much better. When a Jewish family was gruesomely murdered in their beds by Palestinians terrorists, the news dominated the British press, except at the BBC were broadcasters criticized for ignoring the story entirely. When pressed on the lack of coverage of the Fogel family’s murder in the 2011 Itamar attack, Thompson said his news editors were under tremendous pressure that day and other topics took precedence. He did however offer an apology to BBC views and the Jewish community: “But I do want to say, to all our audience including our Jewish and Israeli audiences here and around the world, we do want to make sure we are fair and impartial. We made a mistake in this instance.”
In at least one regard, CNN might feel like familiar turf for Thompson with one of their former media personalities having been dogged by a workplace sexual offense himself – albeit far less vile than Savile. In 2020, CNN legal analyst Jeffery Toobin was caught masturbating on a Zoom call with colleagues at The New Yorker magazine and New York’s WNYC radio. In the fallout from the incident, Toobin took a brief leave-of-absence from CNN. In 2022, Toobin decided to give it a rest and retired from the network.
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