Witherow began his career in 1970 in
South West Africa, (the future
Namibia), where he set up a library for local students. While there he started working as a freelance reporter for the
BBC World Service in Namibia. After university, Witherow was taken on by Reuters news agency in 1977 as a trainee and sent to the
Cardiff School of Journalism. He then moved to Reuters, working in London and Madrid before joining
The Times as a reporter in 1980. At
The Times, he covered the
Iran–Iraq war and was sent on the aircraft carrier
Invincible to cover the Falklands War. After the fall of
Port Stanley in June 1982, he returned to the UK on a Hercules plane with the SAS – later writing a book,
The Winter War, The Falklands, with Patrick Bishop, a war correspondent for
The Observer newspaper. Witherow moved to
The Sunday Times in 1983 under the editorship of
Andrew Neil. There he served in several positions, including defence editor, diplomatic editor, foreign editor and head of news. Witherow was made acting editor after the departure of Neil in 1994. He was confirmed in the job the following year. In early 2013, Witherow was made editor of
The Times in succession to
James Harding, despite opposition from the newspaper's independent directors who objected to the fact Rupert Murdoch had not consulted them.
The Times independent directors confirmed the appointment in September of that year, and
The Times won Newspaper of the Year for 2014 in
The Press Awards. According to
The Guardian, negotiations over the terms of Witherow's departure as editor of
The Times went on "for some time", with Witherow on
sick leave for much of 2022. During this time, his deputy
Tony Gallagher was in temporary charge of the newspaper. On 27 September 2022 Witherow stood down as editor of
The Times to become chair of
Times Newspapers. Gallagher was confirmed as his successor the next day. ==Controversies==