Mark Di Stefano is a former Media & Tech reporter at Financial Times. Previously, he was a Media and Politics correspondent at BuzzFeed.

Mark started his career in 2010 as a Radio Reporter at Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and worked there also as a Broadcast Journalist up to 2014. In 2014, he joined BuzzFeed as a Political editor. Later, he received a position of Media and Politics correspondent at BuzzFeed. In January 2020, he became a Media & Tech reporter at Financial Times.^[3]

In April 2020, Di Stefano was suspended from his job after allegedly eavesdropping on rival newsrooms' Zoom videoconference meetings and publishing stories based on what he overheard. He was alleged to have anonymously sat in on chats hosted by both The Independent online newspaper and the London Evening Standard, a London-based free daily newspaper.^[5]

According to the Independent, "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, unnamed account joined the Zoom call with the video switched off so only a black square appeared on the screen among the 100 people who were invited to join the call.

That time, the caller reportedly remained on the call until its conclusion.

The account was later found to be associated with Di Stefano’s cellphone number.^[6]

After the call, Di Stefano posted news about cutbacks at the Independent on his Twitter account. The Independent said that news appeared before Independent editor Christian Broughton and other managers were able to contact journalists in the US who had not logged into the call. Financial Times published a bylined story by Di Stefano in which it said its source was "people on the call" and quoted chief executive Zach Leonard.^[6]

Di Stefano also had appeared on a Zoom call in which Evening Standard editor George Osborne revealed furloughs and salary cuts on April 1. At that time, Di Stefano also broke the news on his Twitter account, attributing the info to an "internal Zoom call" while the call was still underway, according to the Independent.^[5][6]

Di Stefano resigned from the Financial Times on May 1 and wrote about it on Twitter, saying:

Mark holds a B.A in Journalism from University of Sydney (2009).^[3]

As of May 2020, Di Stefano has over 117,000 followers on his Twitter account, where he comments on current political events. He also has over 1,200 followers on his Instagram, which is private.^[1][4]