Outlet profile

Newsweek

U.S. center

Owned byNW Media Holdings Corp., privately held and split evenly between CEO Dev Pragad and silent partner Johnathan Davis (former IBT Media principals)

FundingDigital advertising and licensing revenue, plus a growing subscription/membership model; no state or major single-donor funding

On the administrationmixed

Background

Newsweek was founded in 1933 as a weekly print newsmagazine and for decades was a mainstream rival to Time. It went through several ownership changes, including a 2010 sale to Sidney Harman for $1 and a 2013 merger with IBT Media (owned by Etienne Uzac and Johnathan Davis), which ended print publication that year (later briefly revived in 2014). IBT Media's leadership became embroiled in a criminal fraud investigation tied to Olivet University in 2018, prompting then-CEO Dev Pragad to buy out Uzac's stake; Pragad and Davis have since each held 50% of the company. Since then, Newsweek has emphasized rapid digital growth, syndicated opinion contributions from a wide ideological range of outside writers, and traffic-driven aggregation, while working to shed associations with its earlier ownership scandal, including years of litigation from IBT-linked entities that courts have repeatedly dismissed. Media bias monitors have generally placed it near the political center, though assessments vary — AllSides rates it Center while Media Bias/Fact Check leans it slightly right-of-center — and critics have periodically accused it of sensationalism or inconsistent editorial standards tied to its reliance on high-volume contributor content. Under the Trump administration since 2025, its reporting has ranged from straight news coverage of the administration to opinion content both defending and criticizing Trump policies, giving it a reputation for unpredictable rather than consistently partisan coverage.

Sources

Profile compiled 2026-09-25; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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