Mediaite’s Most Influential in News Media 2024

65. Abby Phillip

A star journalist with a long résumé, Abby Phillip came into her own in 2024 with one of the most buzzworthy shows on CNN. A Harvard graduate, Phillip went to CNN from The Washington Post after significant roles at ABC News and Politico. Since joining CNN in 2017, Phillip covered the Trump administration and served as White House correspondent until 2019. From moderating a CNN debate to covering election nights, State of the Union addresses, and the January 6th hearings, Phillip proved her chops as a reporter and then some. She began hosting CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip late last year after a stint on Inside Politics, but has really hit her stride of late. As the moderator of the large panel program, Phillip’s show has become arguably the buzziest show on CNN, generating debates that have been substantive and at times chaotic – either way, it’s been impossible to look away. The numbers, which often show Phillip besting the rest of CNN’s lineup, don’t lie. CNN desperately needs buzz and they seem to be betting on Phillips to bring it.

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64. Bill O’Reilly

Long before Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly started their own independent streaming shows, another ex-Fox News host was blazing the trail. Bill O’Reilly, who entered his fifth decade on the air in 2024, has been building a digital operation for years now. In 2024, he reached its biggest audience ever, drawing in the month of July, for example, more than 20 million views on his YouTube channel and 5 million podcast downloads. Big name guests like sports media titan Stephen A. Smith graced O’Reilly’s burgeoning podcast. And in October, O’Reilly’s latest book landed atop The New York Times bestseller list — his 19th to hit number one. That in and of itself is huge. O’Reilly’s showdowns with Chris Cuomo on NewsNation have been a hit for the network (one August battle during the DNC was a standout) and his appearances have been a boon for 7 p.m. host Leland Vittert as well. Name the medium; TV, print, radio, podcasts. People watch, people read, and people listen to Bill O’Reilly — just as they always have. It’s been a long road from his dramatic ouster from Fox News but the audience remains in no small part because viewers are never quite sure what to expect from O’Reilly. While most of his critiques are reserved for liberals, unlike his former Fox prime time colleagues he occasionally calls out Republicans – even his old friend Trump.

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63. Martha MacCallum 

Martha MacCallum has been reporting on presidential elections since Bush-Kerry in 2004. She anchored, alongside network stalwart Bret Baier, all of the major events in this raucous election cycle, traveling to Milwaukee for the RNC and Chicago for the DNC, before zooming back to Washington for an Election Night that saw Trump take the country by storm. In an interview with Mediaite, she said the conventions this year were the “most energetic” she’s seen in a long time. That gave ample subject matter for an anchor that was not only among the most high-profile on the most-watched network in news on the big nights, but also from her perch as anchor and executive editor of The Story on Fox – which blows the cable news competition out of the water in terms of audience. In January, she hosted with Baier a series of town halls featuring Republican primary contenders like Trump, DeSantis and Nikki Haley. She welcomed on her show a series of the most important figures in politics, including RFK Jr. – who she confronted on the awkward reports about his relationship with journalist Olivia Nuzzi. As a Fox News anchor, MacCallum strives to play it straight, but that measure belies her impact as one of the most visible faces on the mighty network.

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62. Dana Bash

CNN anchor and chief political correspondent Dana Bash took part in some of the major political events of 2024. She moderated the historic June debate between Trump and Biden that ended the latter’s campaign in a shocking twist, and even earned rare praise from Trump for how she and Jake Tapper managed the event. In August, Bash landed perhaps the biggest interview of the year: the first sit-down with Harris after she replaced Biden atop the Democratic presidential ticket. Again, Bash received praise for her non-partisan tone and balanced questioning of Harris and her running mate Tim Walz. Bash sparked controversy at times – in one dramatic segment from the Spring, she declared that college protests against Israel’s war in Gaza were “hearkening back to the 1930s in Europe” – but she otherwise sought to remain a neutral arbiter in one of the wildest political seasons in memory. For the most part, Bash stood out as a fair referee and showed during major events why she’s one of CNN’s go-to political journalists.

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61. Dana Perino

Dana Perino, who served as press secretary for President George W. Bush, has long managed to straddle both traditional Republican politics and the Trump movement that blew the party to smithereens. She’s another Fox News host who pulls double-duty every day, holding down the anchor desk for a morning news program and co-hosting The Five. On America’s Newsroom, Perino joins Fox stalwart Bill Hemmer every weekday morning to dominate CNN and MSNBC in their time slot. When she’s not in the anchor chair holding down a two-hour stretch of Fox real estate, Perino is serving as a sobering presence on the top rated show in cable news, The Five – a vital role given she’s flanked by bomb-throwers Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld. In addition to her three hours daily on Fox, where she serves in the rare position of both news anchor and opinion host, Perino was a centerpiece of the network’s major live events coverage, across major debates, two conventions, and a shocking election night. Internally at Fox, Perino is considered by the people that matter to be one of their most valuable players. She will no doubt remain an institution at the network for years to come.

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60. Jim Acosta and Pamela Brown

Jim Acosta and Pamela Brown, CNN’s chief domestic correspondent and chief investigative correspondent, respectively, were appointed this year to anchor a two hour stretch of the network’s daytime programming. They’ve each turned their own hours into incisive shows chock-full of reporting and analysis.

After anchoring the weekend desk for several years with strong ratings (often even beating Fox News in the demo), in February Acosta was put in a prominent weekday hour. In his earlier CNN gig as chief White House correspondent, Acosta memorably clashed with Trump — the network filed suit in 2018 after the White House revoked his press pass — and he’s continued to share critical views of the president-elect, albeit in a more measured way than his competitors on MSNBC might do. Then the gloves came off. Acosta now regularly combines biting anti-Trump editorial with breaking news and one-on-one interviews with wide-ranging debates where a liberal and a conservative commentator both join him at the table. Some of the most memorable moments on his show have been when he’s fact-checked someone live on air. The second Trump White House can’t revoke Acosta’s press pass this time around, and he’s well positioned to be a prominent critic of the president-elect, especially Trump’s attacks on the press and free speech.

Like Acosta, Brown spent several years as a Washington, D.C.-based correspondent for the network before getting tapped for a weekend anchor spot, then was drafted as a weekday anchor earlier this year when CNN reshuffled the schedule. After celebrating the birth of her third child, she returned from maternity leave as the network’s 11 am anchor for CNN Newsroom. As chief investigative correspondent, Brown has spent several years spearheading CNN’s reporting on the U.S. Coast Guard covering up sexual assaults — a story she’s continued to cover from the anchor chair, with new developments happening even this month — and other stories like the $250,000 Melania Trump’s book publisher demanded in exchange for an interview. This past year featured an ongoing series of sharp interviews conducted by Brown. If you’re her guest, expect her to ask you to provide support for what you just said — and if you didn’t bring the receipts, she may do it for you and lay them out for her viewers before graciously thanking you and inviting you back on the show. It’s good TV and good journalism, and it would be nice to see more people on this list known for it.

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59. Harris Faulkner 

Harris Faulkner once again securely earns her place on this list, with a reputation as one of Fox’s most reliable power players during a blistering 2024 election cycle. In a year that seemed to redefine “chaos,” Faulkner rose above the noise with a string of headline-making interviews. In July, she secured a sit-down with Trump just hours before the shocking assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania — an eerie, pivotal moment that reshaped the campaign. A month later, Faulkner faced a combative Trump once again, this time as co-moderator of a tense panel at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention. By October, she helmed an all-female town hall with Trump, a spectacle as telling as it was provocative. Throughout it all, Faulkner maintained high ratings as anchor of The Faulkner Focus and co-host of Outnumbered. While she often revels in delivering the kind of rhetorical jabs that send liberal pundits into fits, an unusual disposition for a news anchor, Faulkner’s range was on full display in a deeply personal Fox Nation special retracing her father’s two Vietnam War tours as an Army combat pilot. It was a remarkably poignant turn for her, showing her to be a journalist equally at home moderating heated debates and unpacking family legacies. In a year of hard pivots and harder headlines, Faulkner’s balance of edge and relatability secured her place as one of the most commanding voices in conservative media.

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58. Kristen Welker

This month, Meet the Press moderator Welker scored a huge, lengthy sit-down interview with President-elect Trump — his first network interview after winning the election, and an increasingly rare opportunity for non-MAGA media in general. In a year when independent media reigned supreme and Trump opted more for podcasts than news anchors for his interviews, that he would sit for a grilling from Welker says a lot. Yet it should come as no surprise to see Trump or any other major figure make Meet the Press a priority. It’s the top rated Sunday news show in the key demo for the most recent season, according to Nielsen, and Welker’s interviews regularly make news generate buzz. Her contentious interviews with vice president elect JD Vance, Sens. Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham, Rep. Elise Stefanik, former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel all generated big reactions and endlessly shared clips on social media. Welker was honored with the 2024 First Amendment Award from the The Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) for her “outstanding political reporting during one of the most contentious periods ever in American politics.” And Essence magazine noted that with Welker at the helm, the show has made great gains in reaching younger audiences with an “enhanced” presence online at places like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Welker is the first Black journalist to host what is the nation’s longest-running news program, and only the second woman to hold the job. She was a key presidential debate moderator, and her reporting and interviews reach new audiences online.

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57. Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer and Tommy Vietor

Pod Save America’s hosts flexed outsize muscle in 2024 with a slate of newsworthy guests, buzzy insider political talk, tough-love commentary — and a prime spot in the Shakespearean drama that may have literally changed the world. Founded in 2016 by a quartet of former senior Obama staffers, Pod Save America combines the pragmatic political wisdom of a press shop that was game-changing with the influence of insiders and a mild activist streak. The show now boasts 20 million monthly downloads, making it one of the most popular podcasts in America. In 2024, they scored major guests at will, and distinguished themselves through a willingness to criticize Biden over policies and campaign strategy. But they left their biggest mark as one of the most prominent voices to suggest Biden step down after his disastrous debate with Trump. Their blunt criticism, and the fact that it came from four renowned Democratic Party loyalists with a younger audience, was one of the clearest signals to Biden that there was no surviving the debate fallout. The rest is history.

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56. Chris Hayes

After Biden’s disastrous debate against Trump, Chris Hayes emerged as a reluctant but potent voice in the chorus of those brave enough to admit that the sitting Democratic president was too old to run again, and was headed towards defeat. Through it all, Hayes remained a key commentator whom liberals listened to when things were looking bad. The whip-smart and erudite host of MSNBC’s 8 p.m. hour provides viewers with incisive liberal analysis of the major politics stories of the day – whether he’s calling out Fox News for deceptive editing in its Harris interview or calling out RFK Jr. for anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, you can always count on a Hayes editorial to be powerful and well-argued. He also doesn’t hesitate to call out his own party — like he did just this week when he tore into older Democrats for refusing to make way for a new generation. Not to mention, Hayes played a pivotal role as part of MSNBC’s coverage of live events, from debates to election night, which in 2024 the network excelled at – even beating CNN in the ratings on major news nights for the first time ever.

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NEXT PAGE: See who made the cut for our #55-46 selections!