CBS News to hire Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips as global correspondent | CBS
CBS News plans to hire prominent British broadcaster Trevor Phillips, currently a Sunday morning host on Sky News, as the network’s global affairs correspondent; This is a major hire for embattled senior editor Bari Weiss.
The channel has not yet announced the appointment. first reported by Breaker and a spokesperson declined to comment when asked about it. Phillips did not respond to a Guardian message seeking comment on Thursday morning.
Phillips, a standout in the United Kingdom, is not a household name in the United States, and it’s unclear exactly what her role will be at the network, which has a newsroom in London and has seen the recent departure of highly respected bureau chief Claire Day. (Wall Street Journal veteran Shayndi Raice has been tapped to oversee CBS News’ overseas coverage.)
Phillips entered the political fray after starting his career in media. He rose to prominence as chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality in 2003, a post he was appointed to by Tony Blair. He chaired its successor, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, from 2007 to 2012. He was awarded a knighthood in 2022 for his work on equality and human rights.
Before hosting Sky News’ Sunday morning programme, he presented the channel’s Sunday politics programme.
Phillips is chairman of the global free speech campaign Index on Censorship and a senior fellow at the right-leaning think tank Policy Exchange.
He is also a regular columnist for Rupert Murdoch’s Times newspaper, where he writes about Donald Trump and his personal connection to the United States.
“I admit to being biased in all this,” he wrote recently. “I am the child of parents who immigrated twice, first to London and then to New York. I come from a tribe that has made great success out of life in America. It’s a society that rewards ambition and hard work.”
CBS News was most recently caught up in what veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley called “Black Thursday,” the evisceration of senior leaders and a significant portion of the correspondent corps of the network’s most prominent and successful news program on May 28.
Pelley was fired “for some reason” just days after clashing with the show’s newly hired executive producer, Nick Bilton.
The network also experienced two rounds of layoffs during Weiss’ tenure, which began in October, resulting in the need to revamp its news operation.
