Newsmax Personnel Roundup: Fewer Anti-Vaxxers, More Accused Sexual Harassers (And A Turkish Propagandist)

It looks like Newsmax will be down a couple anti-vaxxers on its staff.

After making a huge ruckus about Newsmax’s proposed vaccine mandate  policy for its employees, host Steve Cortes has left Newsmax, though it’s unclear whether he quit or was fired. Numerous other issues appear to have played a part, inculding Cortes’ allegedly terrible ratings. Meanwhile, Newsmax’s White House correspondent Emerald Robinson has officially departed; she had been taken off the air in early November after she was caught spouting bizarre, bogus COVID conspriacy theories on Twitter.

Newsmax announced Robinson’s replacement — while remaining completely silent about the fact that he was a replacement — in a Dec. 7 article by Brian Truesdell:

Newsmax announced today that veteran Washington reporter James Rosen will join the network as Chief White House Correspondent.

Rosen’s move to Newsmax — the nation’s fourth highest-rated cable news channel — marks an exciting new chapter in a singular journalism career.

As a top correspondent at Fox News and the Sinclair Broadcast Group over the last two decades, Rosen has reported from the White House, the State Department, Capitol Hill, the Supreme Court, the Pentagon, and the campaign trail. He has filed stories from nearly all 50 states and some 40 foreign countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, China, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, Uganda, and Haiti.

[…]

“James Rosen is not only a reporter’s reporter, but also a great thinker and author who can share complex issues on a TV screen and explain them in clear and understandable ways,” Christopher Ruddy, CEO of Newsmax Media, said.

“We are pleased and proud to have him as a key part of our growing news team,” Ruddy added.

Not only did Truesdell fail to mention that Rosen was replacing Robinson, he forgot to note that Rosen left Fox News under a cloud of sexual misconduct allegations. NPR reported that Rosen “had an established pattern of flirting aggressively with many peers and had made sexual advances toward three female Fox News journalists, including two reporters and a producer.” Adding that Rosen is “married with young children.” NPR continued:

In the winter following the September 2001 terrorist attacks, a female Fox News reporter joined the bureau from New York. In a shared cab ride back from a meal, Rosen groped her, grabbing her breast. After she rebuffed his advance, Rosen sought to steal away her sources and stories related to his interests in diplomacy and national security. That’s according to four colleagues who say she relayed the episode as a warning about Rosen’s behavior. The reporter declined to comment for this story. (NPR has decided not to name the women in this article as they have not granted permission to do so.)

In a subsequent episode several years later, a female producer covering the State Department alleged that Rosen had directly sexually harassed her. A foreign national, she subsequently accepted a deal from Fox that enabled her to extend her stay in the U.S. in exchange for not making her complaint public, according to several of her former colleagues. The producer, who now works for a foreign-based news organization, is abroad with family and did not respond to several detailed messages left by email and phone seeking comment.

Late last spring, Rosen turned his attention to a younger female reporter, according to two colleagues who say she told them of the incident shortly afterward. Returning from a lunch together, Rosen physically tried to kiss her in the elevator ride back to the office, and once refused, attempted forcibly to kiss her again. According to a colleague, he then asked the reporter to keep the approach quiet and offered her unsolicited help in getting more time on Bret Baier’s nightly political newscast, Special Report.

At Newsmax, Rosen joins Eric Bolling as another former Fox News host who is also an accused sexual harasser.

Also, Nancy Pelosi rather famously dismissed Rosen as “Mr. Republican Talking Points.” Of course, being Mr. Republican Talking Points is a key reason that Newsmax hired him.

On the other hand, Newsmax seems to be taking cues from Fox News’ history of objectifying females by having attractive women on-air. A Dec. 20 article announced the hiring of Sarah Williamson as New York correspondent; she comes to Newsmax from Israeli channel i24. Williamson was reportedly called the “world’s most beautiful news anchor,” and she allegedly left i24 after lashing out at her native country of Australia over COVID lockdowns, ranting that “brainwashed” Aussies were living in a “totalitarian society” and huffing that “I’m not proud to be Australian at the moment.” Sounds like she’ll fit in fairly well at Newsmax.

Meanwhile, Newsmax is pulling new hires out of much more obscure places. A Dec. 13 article announced the hiring of Kilmeny Duchart as a congressional correspondent; her previous job was as host of a U.S.-based show for the Turkish TV channel TRT World, a network that is actually a propaganda outlet for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But, hey, being a skilled propagandist is not an impediment to getting hired at Newsmax.

UPDATE: Media Matters has a list of all the accused sexual harassers working for Newsmax.