Report: FT reporter accessed rival media’s Zoom call

A Financial Times reporter listened in on confidential and sensitive video calls at rival news organizations as staff were told about salary cuts and furloughs by editors and senior managers, according to a report in The Independent.

The Independent story states, “Mark Di Stefano accessed private Zoom meetings held by The Independent and The Evening Standard as journalists learnt how measures introduced because of the coronavirus pandemic would affect them.

“Log files show an account registered to Di Stefano’s FT.com email address joined the private video call for Independent staff on Thursday for 16 seconds. The caller’s video was disabled, but journalists saw his name flash briefly on screen before he left the meeting.

“Five minutes later, a separate account joined the call, this time unnamed. Again, video was switched off so that only a black square was displayed among the screens showing up to 100 people who had been invited to attend. The anonymous user account, which remained in the meeting until the end, was later shown to be linked to the mobile phone used by the same Financial Times reporter.”

Read more here. The FT and DiStefano declined to comment.