Embattled Seven news boss Craig McPherson has departed the company after weeks of intense pressure, prompting a shake-up at the summit of the Kerry Stokes-controlled network.

McPherson has been Seven’s director of news and current affairs since 2015. He was at the helm during recent controversies, including the company’s last-minute involvement in former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case against Network Ten, and Seven’s misidentification of the Bondi Junction killer.

The efforts of Seven’s Spotlight program to secure an interview with Lehrmann, who was found by a Federal Court judge this month to have raped Brittany Higgins, led to scrutiny of the culture and leadership in the network’s news division, overseen by McPherson.

After a string of departures, including the planned exit of chief executive James Warburton, McPherson was the last remaining Seven staffer connected to the crisis.

On April 14, Sunrise named 20-year-old university student Benjamin Cohen as the Bondi Junction knife attacker live on air. However, NSW Police later confirmed the perpetrator, who was shot dead at the scene, as 40-year-old Queensland man Joel Cauchi.

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On Friday, Seven settled with Cohen for an undisclosed sum.

McPherson has been replaced by Anthony De Ceglie, the editor-in-chief of West Australian Newspapers, who has also been promoted to editor-in-chief of Seven West Media. Chris Dore, the former editor-in-chief of The Australian, has been appointed interim editor-in-chief of The West Australian.

Dore recently joined Seven as a senior columnist for The Nightly. He departed News Corp in late-2022 after allegedly making inappropriate comments towards a woman at an event in California hosted by The Wall Street Journal.