CBS News is reportedly hiring Trevor Phillips, the British broadcaster best known for hosting Sky News’ Sunday morning show, as a global affairs correspondent. Because nothing says “understanding global affairs” like hiring someone who may need to Google “Midwest” on his first day.
The network, currently under the stewardship of embattled top editor Bari Weiss, hasn’t officially announced the move - first reported by Breaker - and a spokesperson declined to comment. Phillips, for his part, didn’t respond to a Guardian request for comment, presumably because he was busy packing his bags.
Phillips is a big deal in the UK, but in the US, he’s about as recognizable as a forgotten British Bake Off contestant. His exact role at CBS News remains unclear, especially since the network’s London bureau recently lost its highly respected chief, Claire Day. (Shayndi Raice, a Wall Street Journal veteran, has been brought in to oversee foreign coverage, because apparently CBS is collecting journalists like Pokémon.)
Phillips’s career path is… eclectic. He started in media, then waded into politics, becoming head of the Commission for Racial Equality in 2003 under Tony Blair. He later chaired its successor, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, until 2012. For his trouble, he was knighted in 2022 for his work on equality and human rights - because nothing says “knight in shining armor” like a government commission.
Before hosting Sky News’s Sunday morning show, he presented its Sunday politics show. He also chairs Index on Censorship, a free expression campaign, and is a senior fellow at the right-leaning think tank Policy Exchange. Plus, he writes a regular column for Rupert Murdoch’s Times, where he’s opined on Donald Trump and his own personal connection to the US.
“I accept that I am biased in all this,” Phillips wrote recently. “I am the son of immigrants, twice over, first to London and then to New York. I come from a tribe that has prospered mightily from its life in America. This is a society that rewards ambition and hard work.”
CBS News has been making headlines for less glamorous reasons lately. Veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley dubbed May 28 “Black Thursday,” when the network gutted senior leadership and a chunk of the correspondent corps from its flagship news program. Pelley was fired a few days later “for cause” after clashing with newly hired executive producer Nick Bilton. The network has also undergone two rounds of layoffs under Weiss, who started in October, creating a need to… replenish its news operation. So, welcome aboard, Trevor.