David Barnett Kogan OBE is a British media executive, historian and journalist, living in London. [1] He has worked as both a journalist and a senior executive at the BBC, Reuters Television, Granada Channels, Wasserman Media Group and Magnum Photos. He has written about the history of the Labour Party. [2]
Kogan was educated at Haverstock Comprehensive School in Camden, London; and at Balliol College, Oxford. [3]
From 1982 he was a producer at BBC Radio working on Today ; at BBC Television working on Newsnight and Breakfast Time ; and at BBC America. [3] From 1988 he was managing editor and then global managing director at Reuters Television. [3] [4] From 1996 he was executive director at Granada Channels. [5] In 1998 he co-founded media advisory company Reel Enterprises with Sara Munds, and was its Chief executive officer (CEO). [3] In 2011, Reel was acquired by Wasserman Media Group, where Kogan and Munds went to work in media rights. [6] In 2014 he and Munds left and set up Exile Enterprises. [3] Kogan was executive director/CEO of Magnum Photos [7] from 2015 [3] [8] to 2019. [9]
Kogan was the Premier League's chief media rights adviser from 1998 to 2015, and was described in The Irish Times as "a key architect of [the Premier League's] global financial success". [10] [11] Other media rights clients have included the English Football League, Premiership Rugby, the International Olympic Committee and the National Football League (NFL). [3] He was awarded an OBE in the Queen's 2014 Birthday Honours for services to diplomacy, having been asked to provide advice on FCO Services funds. [3] [12] [13] While at Magnum in 2018, prompted by allegations of sexual misconduct against two of its photographers, Kogan led the agency in creating a formal code of conduct for both its photographers and staff. [14] [15]
Kogan's first book was The Battle for the Labour Party, published with his uncle, Maurice Kogan, in 1981. [16] The later Protest and Power: The Battle for the Labour Party (2019) is a 400-page book that builds on the earlier work, based on many interviews. William Davies described the latter work in The Guardian as a "meticulous review of four decades of intra-party struggles" up to February 2019, but one that offers "little sense of who and what really mattered". [17]
In April 2020 Kogan became a director of LabourList, an independent news site for the Labour Party. [18] He resigned as director in April 2025.
In May 2025, the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee endorsed Kogan's appointment as Chair of the Independent Football Regulator. [19] This was despite concerns being raised on the committee that there may be a perceived conflict of interest, given Kogan's history of donations to the Labour Party. [20] A majority of the committee's members were from the Labour Party, and Kogan had recently made a political donation of £7,625 to Treasury minister Emma Reynolds. [21]