John Witherow

John Witherow (born 20 January 1952, Johannesburg, South Africa) is a journalist, who is the editor of The Sunday Times, and is expected to become editor of The Times at the beginning of 2013.

He migrated to Britain in the late 1950s and later attended Bedford School and the University of York.

In 1971, he went to Namibia as a volunteer teacher to teach at St Mary's Anglican School in Ovamboland, but on being refused a permit to enter Ovamboland by the South African government he was asked by Bishop Colin Winter to remain in Windhoek to help establish a diocesan library and study centre for correspondence students.

He was sent by Reuters to the Cardiff School of Journalism, where he gained a distinction. He worked in Madrid and London for Reuters before joining The Times as a reporter. He covered the Falklands War in 1982. John Witherow sailed on the HMS Invincible with the British troops involved in the Falklands War. While on HMS Invicible, working as a Times journalist at the time, he said, "...the atmosphere was quite extraordinary, there were hundreds of thousands of people lining the quay, waving and within the ship there was a curious mood of ebullience and aggression".

Later he covered the Iran-Iraq war, before moving to The Sunday Times. There he served in several positions, including Defence Editor, Diplomatic Editor, Foreign Editor and managing Editor of News. Witherow was made acting editor after the departure of Andrew Neil in 1994 and confirmed in the job the following year. Although his reputation suffered early in his editorship after the publication of false claims that Michael Foot was a KGB agent, Witherow has become one of the longest-serving editors for one of Murdoch’s News Corporation titles, presiding over the expansion of one of their most successful newspapers known for breaking powerful news stories (cash for questions; cash for honours; the Downing Street memos) and developing its three magazines. Witherow is married to Sarah Linton, who is an employment lawyer and a partner with the American law firm Locke Lord. He has three children: Sam, Roly and Anna.