(PM.) On Wednesday, CNN named former BBC and New York Times head Mark Thompson as its new chief executive in hopes of breathing life into the struggling media company.
While Thompson has accomplished a great deal during his decades-long career, he has also faced a fair amount of controversy. Most notably, at the tail end of his 8-year stint at the British state broadcaster, he became embroiled in a scandal after the network nixed a segment about an investigation into longtime presenter and accused pedophile Jimmy Savile.
The segment was slated to air on BBC’s Newsnight program in 2011, but was cancelled by higher-ups. Thompson denied having been privy to the decision, saying he was “never formally notified about the ‘Newsnight’ investigation and was not briefed about the allegations they were examining and to what extent, if at all, those allegations related to Savile’s work at the BBC.”
Nonetheless, as the director general, he faced criticism from members of the public and politicians alike. During one parliamentary hearing on the issue, MP Roger Gale questioned how Thompson could “not know what was going on under his own roof.”
Former Culture, Media and Sport Committee chairman John Whittingdale pointed out, however, that testimony from those involved in the decision-making process revealed that the director general typically “doesn’t get dragged into these things.”
