By Fraser P. Seitel
On Nov. 12, Mark Thompson is scheduled to come aboard as the new CEO of the New York Times.
It shouldn’t allow him to join the company. If the Times permits Thompson to assume his new post, the paper will risk tarnishing its own reputation.
For eight years, Thompson served as director general of the British Broadcasting Corporation. It was because of the generally high marks he received at the BBC helm that the Times recruited Thompson in August as its new president and chief executive.
As he capped his career with the BBC’s stellar handling of the London Olympics this past summer, Thompson reflected on the BBC’s considerable achievement on his watch.
“Trust in the BBC is at an all-time high. When things go wrong at the BBC, the public can hear us admit it and can see us striving to put things right,” he said, adding, “the modern BBC does everything possible to report on itself objectively.”
Well, evidently not all the time.
In October, as Thompson prepared to join the Great Gray Lady, a scandal erupted at his former employer that not only rocked Great Britain but even made its way into the pages of none other than Thompson’s new employer on this side of the pond.
The BBC, it was reported, had shut down and silenced a reporting project on evidence compiled over decades that accused Jimmy Savile, the network’s longtime host of children’s and pop music shows, of as many as 200 instances of child sexual abuse.
That the scuttled report occurred on Thompson’s watch shifted the focus from the late Savile and the BBC in London to the network’s former head man now in New York.
Immediately, New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. leapt to his new hire’s defense. Mr. Thompson, his new boss-to-be wrote the Times’ staff, “possesses high ethical standards and is the ideal person to lead our Company.” At the same time, Publisher Pinch assured the staff, “We will cover the Savile story with objectivity and rigor.”
And to its credit, the Times has done just that, even wondering in print about Thompson’s role in the cancelled investigation. Although Thompson told the Times he “knew little, if anything, about the investigation,” the paper cited former BBC executives who said press clippings about the salacious Savile and the spiked investigation were regularly distributed to Thompson.
Nonetheless, Thompson adamantly insisted, “I honestly believe I did nothing wrong.” But then that’s what Tiger Woods said at first and Elliott Spitzer and Mark Sanford and Jerry Sandusky.
Whatever the truth, the Times can’t risk its journalistic integrity by bringing in an executive with scandal hanging over his noggin. The last thing the Times needs is its new president being hauled before Parliament, Rupert Murdoch-like, for his role in a child sex scandal and potential cover up.
Rather than risking that and allowing Mr. Thompson to begin his new job next week, the Times should delay his appointment, pending its own external investigation of Thompson’s role in the Savile case. Presuming the investigation reveals no questionable behavior on his part, Mr. Thompson can then assume his new role with impunity.
And the New York Times can proceed with its business, its reputation intact.
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