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Primaries are now well underway, and the 2022 midterm elections are a focus for news organizations already preparing for what’s certain to be a contentious 2024 presidential campaign. With that in mind, THR highlights some of the Beltway-based news personalities and executives poised to play a leading role in the months (and years) ahead.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR
Alcindor is the rare D.C. reporter pulling double duty: As the anchor of PBS’ Washington Week, she leads the only primetime public affairs show on broadcast television. As PBS NewsHour‘s White House correspondent during the Trump years, she sparred with the president regularly. Now, as Washington correspondent for NBC News, she covers the Biden administration as well as the intersection of race, culture and politics.
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JIM BANKOFF
The digital darlings of the mid-aughts and 2010s have faded. BuzzFeed is struggling on the public market, and Vice Media is reportedly weighing whether to sell itself off in pieces. And yet D.C.-based Vox has been opportunistically growing, acquiring New York magazine in 2019 and pulling off a digital media megamerger with Group Nine Media earlier in 2022. The combined company is expected to turn a profit this year, with CEO Bankoff bucking the trend facing other digital media firms.
JENNIFER GRIFFIN
In the days leading up to and immediately after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Fox News’ national security correspondent pushed back against colleagues who diminished what was happening in the country. Fox brass credit Griffin as a mentor to foreign correspondents — and for engineering the evacuation of correspondent Benjamin Hall, who was severely injured in the country on March 14.
NORAH O’DONNELL
In April, O’Donnell signed a new long-term deal to continue leading CBS Evening News from her D.C. home base. The veteran journalist, recently praised by boss Neeraj Khemlani for her “formidable” telecast, is also leaning into corporate priorities (i.e., streaming) with a revived edition of Edward R. Murrow interview series Person to Person on the CBS News app and Paramount+.
MARTHA RADDATZ
Raddatz, a veteran foreign correspondent, has been fronting ABC’s coverage of the Ukraine conflict (see story on page 62), hosting This Week from inside the war-torn nation. With midterms on the horizon, she is expected to refocus her sights on domestic politics, even if she continues that coverage from around the globe.
SYMONE SANDERS AND JEN PSAKI
At the end of 2021, Sanders was the chief spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris. Now she has a weekend show on MSNBC and a streaming project on NBCUniversal’s Peacock service. Her fellow Biden administration insider, outgoing White House Press Secretary Psaki, is expected to start an MSNBC gig of her own as early as September. “She has a point of view, she has a great onscreen presence, and people like watching her,” UTA co-president Jay Sures says of Psaki.
For the past decade, Tapper has been a stalwart of CNN’s lineup — leading not only a weekday afternoon newscast, but also the cable news channel’s Sunday public affairs show State of the Union. In 2021, he was tapped as CNN’s lead Washington anchor and his show, The Lead, expanded to two hours every weekday.
This story first appeared in the May 17 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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