Journalism is hot right now. Of course Journalism (capital intended) is always hot.
White House stories, Russian influence stories, political shenanigans — it seems like every day since the 2016 election a fresh twist or brewing scandal has set headline writers and cable-news bookers scrambling. With people following closely, online readership for the New York Times and Washington Post reporting has skyrocketed, right along with digital subscription numbers. The Trump bump, it’s been called.
And at night, legions of cable-news anchors, correspondents, and pundits dissect what’s going on, with passionate audiences tuning in. This month we salute some of those who bring us breaking news or comment smartly on it in the evenings. And since this is Penthouse, we went ahead and selected ten accomplished women who combine intelligence, news chops, and on-camera appeal to leave a memorable impression every time out. After a day of stupid, here are women who bring sense and insight to news of the world.
Katy Tur, MSNBC
A daughter of journalists who majored in philosophy, Tur worked as a Weather Channel storm chaser and an award-winning local reporter in L.A. and New York before joining NBC News. She rose to prominence as an embedded reporter shadowing the Trump campaign. More than once Trump singled her out during his rally media-bashing. Tur wrote about that experience and others in Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History. Wild cards: Her middle name is Bear. She once dated Keith Olbermann.
Michelle Kosinski, CNN
A graduate of Northwestern, Kosinski received an MA from that same university’s prestigious journalism school. Following reporting stints in Charlotte and Miami, Kosinski became a London-based foreign correspondent for NBC, covering the war in Afghanistan, European terrorism, and U.S.-Russia relations. She won an Emmy for live reporting on the 2008 presidential election. In 2014, Kosinski became CNN’s White House correspondent and now serves as senior diplomatic correspondent covering the State Department.
Eboni Williams, Fox News Channel
A lawyer educated at the University of North Carolina and Loyola University in New Orleans, Williams has worked as a public defender, criminal attorney, and legal analyst for CBS News. Joining Fox in 2015, Williams has co-hosted several shows, including Fox News Specialists, where she debated legal and political matters. Author of Pretty Powerful: Appearance, Substance, and Success, Williams works in radio as well. In 2017, she co-hosted alongside Curtis Sliwa for three daily hours on WABC Radio.
Pamela Brown, CNN
Formerly CNN’s justice correspondent, Brown now covers the Trump administration as senior White House correspondent. Daughter of 1971 Miss America Phyllis George and a Kentucky ex-governor, Brown was one of few local-news reporters to cover the 2010 Haiti earthquake, sending stories back to her D.C.-area station. Joining CNN in 2013, she has reported from Paris after the 2015 Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack, from Brussels after the 2016 attack, and has done major investigative reporting on sex trafficking.
Katherine Timpf, Fox News Channel
A magna cum laude graduate of Hillsdale College in her home state of Michigan, the witty libertarian cohosted on Fox News Specialists in 2017 and appears often on Fox News evening shows. Timpf is also a stand-up comic, writes for the National Review, and had a weekly Barstool Sports show. “You may recognize me from being mad at me,” her Twitter bio quips. After criticizing — live on Fox News Specialists — Trump’s reaction to the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville last August, Timpf received death threats.
Rebecca Berg, CNN
Named a CNN politics reporter in late 2017, this San Diego native studied journalism and political science at the University of Missouri and was selected as a New York Times political reporting fellow after graduation. She’s reported on politics for BuzzFeed, RealClearPolitics, and the Washington Examiner. Berg cut her journalistic teeth reporting on the 2014 midterm elections and the Republican field during the 2015-2016 presidential campaign.
Julia Ioffe, CNN/MSNBC
A history major at Princeton, Ioffe is a widely published journalist who writes about national security and foreign policy for The Atlantic. Based in Moscow for several years while working as a correspondent for The New Yorker and Foreign Policy, this fluent Russian speaker is also a Putin expert. Former senior editor at The New Republic, Ioffe has generated in-depth reporting on Russian election meddling, Russian sanctions policy, and Putin’s goals.
Alexandra Field, CNN
A French and history major at Hamilton College, Field holds an MA in journalism from Syracuse. As an international correspondent based at CNN’s Asia-Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong, Field covers breaking news globally. She has reported on terrorist attacks in Istanbul, Dhaka, Brussels, and Boston. Along with filing in-depth stories on Islamist killings in Bangladesh, Field has done investigative reporting on Pakistani “honor killings,” Vietnamese bride-smuggling, and North Korean nuclear testing.
Natasha Bertrand, MSNBC
Early this year, Bertrand joined The Atlantic as a staff writer on national security and the intelligence community, focusing on the Trump-Russia investigation. Previously she was at Business Insider on the same beat. A graduate of Vassar and the London School of Economics, Bertrand once worked at a politics think tank in Madrid studying EU relations with the Middle East and North Africa. Biography wild card: handlebar-mustached Trump attorney Ty Cobb asked her if she was “on drugs” in a September e-mail exchange.
Clarissa Ward, CNN
A Yale grad who speaks seven languages, including Arabic, Chinese, and Russian, Ward has been in the news business since 2002, working for ABC, CBS, and now CNN, where she’s a London-based senior international correspondent. One of the bravest and most decorated reporters in broadcast news, Ward has won multiple Peabody, Emmy, and Edward R. Murrow journalism awards. Since the start of Syria’s civil war, she has entered the country more than a dozen times to do high-risk reporting. In 2014, she became the first journalist to interview an American Isis fighter inside Syria. Ward has covered numerous European terrorist attacks and often reported from Moscow since Trump became president.
