Paul Thompson is a New Zealand media executive. Thompson joined ''

The Press ''The Press'' is a daily newspaper published in Christchurch, New Zealand owned by media business Stuff Ltd. First published in 1861, the newspaper is the largest circulating daily in the South Island and publishes Monday to Saturday. One comm ...

'' in

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon Rive ...

in 1995 as a journalist. He was the editor of ''The Press'' from 2001 to 2007. After news of the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

became known, Thompson made the call to stop the printing of the newspaper (after most copies had been printed) for the event to be added to the front page. At 2am, Thompson and the newspaper's manager decided to publish an afternoon paper dedicated to the event; the first time this happened in the newspaper's history. In November 2007, Thompson became the executive editor for

Fairfax Media Fairfax Media was a media company in Australia and New Zealand, with investments in newspaper, magazines, radio and digital properties. The company was founded by John Fairfax as John Fairfax and Sons, who purchased ''The Sydney Morning Herald' ...

, the parent organisation of ''The Press''. In September 2013, Thompson moved from the Fairfax group to Radio New Zealand (RNZ) as chief executive and editor-in-chief. According to Dr Matt Mollgaard, who is Head of Radio in the School of Communication Studies at

Auckland University of Technology Auckland University of Technology (AUT) ( mi, Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makau Rau) is a university in New Zealand, formed on 1 January 2000 when a former technical college (originally established in 1895) was granted university status. AUT ...

, Thompson was hired by RNZ to upgrade its digital media presence. Thompson remains RNZ's chief executive to this day. In early 2020, Thompson oversaw RNZ's controversial proposal to downgrade their Concert FM programme that has since been reversed.

References

Year of birth missing (living people) New Zealand chief executives New Zealand journalists New Zealand magazine editors Living people {{NewZealand-writer-stub