Media Maneuvers

Steve Bannon

While a story in the New York Post claimed that Steve Bannon was angling to buy Newsweek, a statement from Newsweek Media Group says that the magazine is not for sale. Bannon has repeatedly indicated his interest in buying a “name-brand” media outlet since he was allegedly pushed out of Breitbart News in January. But NMG says that interest has not resulted in any negotiations between Bannon and the company. "No executives of NMG ever met with Bannon nor is the company interested in meeting Bannon," an NMG statement released Thursday night said. The statement also said the company was financially healthy and that the number of journalists working at Newsweek had nearly doubled in the past year, though staff has been reduced on other NMG websites. Newsweek has been the scene of considerable controversy recently, with several high-level editors and reporters being fired over the magazine’s reporting about NMG’s financial ties with Olivet University, a small Christian college founded in 2004 by Korean pastor David Jang.

Judy Woodruff

PBS NewsHour has named managing editor Judy Woodruff solo anchor of the broadcast. Woodruff, who re-joined the NewsHour in 2007 as a senior correspondent, was named one of the NewsHour’s rotating anchors in 2011. In 2013, she and the late Gwen Ifill were named co-anchors and managing editors of the program, the first time in history two women were the co-anchor team for a national nightly news broadcast. Woodruff anchored CNN’s Inside Politics for 12 years and served as chief Washington correspondent for The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, among many other positions. Under the leadership of Woodruff and PBS NewsHour executive producer Sara Just, the program saw a 12% increase in its average nightly total audience in 2017 compared to 2016, at 1.9 million viewers. NewsHour has also brought on Amna Nawaz, who will substitute at the anchor desk as well as covering a wide range of topics, and Nick Schifrin, who will serve as foreign affairs and defense correspondent, beginning later this spring.

Emilio Gutiérrez-Soto

The National Press Club, its nonprofit Journalism Institute and 15 other professional journalism organizations filed a friend-of-the-court brief March 19 before the Board of Immigration Appeals in support of Mexican journalist Emilio Gutiérrez-Soto's asylum case. Gutiérrez, winner of the Press Club's 2017 John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award, sought asylum in the U.S. after his reporting on official corruption made him the target of death threats in his home country. He has been detained indefinitely, along with his son, Oscar, by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in El Paso, TX. "Dispatching Emilio Gutierrez-Soto and his son to almost certain death upon their return to Mexico would send a clear signal to corrupt government officials around the world, and to the journalists working abroad, that Freedom of the Press is now a diminished public policy in this country," the Press Club argues in the brief. On March 6, the Rutgers University Law School's human-rights clinic filed a writ of habeas corpus for the Gutiérrezes' release. The federal court in El Paso has given the government until April 6 to respond.