Employees at Newsweek have been told that editor-in-chief Bob Roe and executive editor Ken Li have been fired, sources with knowledge of the situation told CNN.
A reporter, Celeste Katz, who had written articles about financial issues at the magazine as well as an investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office into its parent company, Newsweek Media Group, was also let go, the sources said.
Staff in Newsweek’s New York offices were told to stop working and go home for the day on Monday afternoon, a source close to the newsroom told CNN. Katz was seen cleaning out her desk, the source said.
The news comes during a turbulent time for the magazine. Just last week the co-owner and chairman of Newsweek Media Group, Etienne Uzac, and his wife Marion Kim, who acted as the company’s finance director, both stepped down. – READ MORE
[give_form id=”79809″] [divider][/divider]An editor of Newsweek Pakistan made highly controversial remarks on Tuesday about sexual abuse of children.
In a series of tweets, editor Fasih Ahmed cynically dismissed the importance of recent attention paid to child sexual abuse, saying it “will always exist.” But the statement that stirred up the most outrage was his comment that sometimes “it leads to great art,” something he later explained was “sarcasm.”
[give_form id=”79809″] [divider][/divider]The outrage won’t last because people are assholes. Child molestation was ok before MeToo and it will be ok again. We’ll pretend it doesn’t happen. I don’t think I was being subtle about it
— Fasih Ahmed (@therealfasih) January 23, 2018
Newsweek’s offices were raided on Thursday by the office of the Manhattan district attorney.
The Outline first reported that a dozen agents raided the Financial District offices of Newsweek and its sister company International Business Times. Though it remained unclear why agents came to the office — and multiple reporters who were not in the company’s New York offices told Business Insider they were kept in the dark — a source familiar with the situation confirmed that some staff were told that law enforcement were taking pictures of the company’s servers.
Though a Newsweek representative did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment, multiple staffers said a Newsweek reporter was working on a story in lieu of a statement. – READ MORE