Honoree

Christopher Ruddy founded Newsmax Inc. in 1998 and serves as its CEO. 

Newsmax Inc. is the parent company of Newsmax Media and Newsmax Broadcasting, and is among the nation’s leading broadcasting and digital news media companies. The Company includes the Newsmax channel, the 4th highest-rated cable news channel in the U.S., according to Nielsen. In 2024 a Reuters Institute study found Newsmax was one of the top 12 brands for all of news in the U.S.

Ruddy began his career as a journalist at the New York Post and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Multichannel News named him to its “News Titans” list of the top 10 people to know in television news and Cablefax listed him in the top 100 of the cable industry. Newsweek ranked him one of America’s top 20 most influential news media personalities.  

He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude from St. John’s University in New York and a Master of Public Policy from the London School of Economics. He also studied Mid-East politics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from St. John’s University, Ruddy has been a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and served as a member on the Knight Foundation’s Commission on Trust, Media and Democracy.