CBS News plans to hire Sky News anchor Trevor Phillips as global correspondent

CBS News is planning to hire the prominent British broadcaster Trevor Phillips, currently a Sunday morning presenter on Sky News, as a global affairs correspondent for the network. The move is a significant hire for embattled top editor Bari Weiss.

The network has not yet announced the appointment, and a spokesperson declined comment. Phillips did not respond to a message from the Guardian seeking comment on Thursday morning.

While well-known in the UK, Phillips is not a household name in the US. It is unclear what his exact remit will be at the network, which has a London newsroom that recently saw the departure of highly respected bureau chief Claire Day. Wall Street Journal veteran Shayndi Raice was brought on to oversee foreign coverage for CBS News.

After beginning his career in media, Phillips entered the political arena. He rose to prominence as head of the Commission for Racial Equality in 2003, appointed by Tony Blair. He chaired its successor, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, from 2007 to 2012. He was knighted in 2022 for his work on equality and human rights.

Prior to hosting Sky News’s Sunday morning show, he presented the network’s Sunday politics show. Phillips is chairman of the global freedom of expression campaign Index on Censorship and a senior fellow at the right-leaning thinktank Policy Exchange. He is also a regular columnist for Rupert Murdoch’s Times newspaper, where he has written about Donald Trump and his personal connection with the US.

“I accept that I am biased in all this,” he 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 in the news for what veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley called “Black Thursday”, the May 28 gutting of senior leadership and a significant portion of the correspondent corps of the network’s most prominent news program. Pelley was fired a few days later after clashing with the newly hired executive producer, Nick Bilton. The network has also undergone two rounds of layoffs during Weiss’s tenure, which began in October, creating a need to replenish its news operation.