C-level executives of popular brands are known to regularly rake in annual bonuses in the millions of dollars over the holidays, but not so this Christmas for Newsweek CEO Dev Pragad -- instead, he's getting a lump of coal.
Earlier this month, a New York state judge decided CEO Pragad is on the naughty list -- slicing his salary and annual bonuses by a grand total of $4,480,456 to prevent Pragad from paying himself in unauthorized funds that may later need court clawback. The court ordered that Pragad's salary and bonuses all be capped at $225,000 annually, marking a humiliating reduction to his compensation -- just in time for Black Friday.
The court injunction strikes at Indian-born Pragad's alleged brazen theft of company money and resources, which he has been secretly converting for years. The judge's restraining order prevents Pragad from taking in the salary he previously paid himself without telling the board of the company, marking what looks likely to be the first of an expected series of disgraceful blows for the CEO since he began his greedy, hostile attempt to consolidate Newsweek ownership for himself.
But this holiday story doesn't end there. Although the judge froze the vast majority of Pragad's personal income in fear that the money would disappear into the hands of expensive lawyers, luxury vendors, and real estate that would be difficult for the court to later clawback, still the restraining order stopped short from muzzling the Newsweek newsroom.
Publications have pointed out that Newsweek owner Johnathan Davis has long been the victim of Pragad's flagrant weaponization of the Newsweek newsroom and the party most harmed by Pragad's years of alleged secret company-pocket pilfering. The two are also counter parties in the courtroom.
Pragad apparently interpreted the court's distanced stance on the newsroom issue as a green light to launch another vicious media attack not only against entities his company is in litigation with -- raising serious ethical issues -- but also as another vain attempt to leverage the company for his own greed.
Within days of the court order, Newsweek's Naveed Jamali, Editor-at-large and former FBI double-agent who speaks on Muslim issues, began to reach out to Christian Olivet University, intimating that a hit piece was on its way. Very naughty, indeed.
Like a Broken Record
HNGN has exclusively uncovered that Jamali is determined to push Pragad's hit piece out by Monday afternoon, with Jamali initiating the attack while most Americans were focused on turkey and stuffing. Jamali appears committed to executing his boss' dirty orders even if in doing so he has to make up the news himself.
The timing speaks to Pragad's mindset: without his illegal money source struck down by the court, he will have to resort to other unethical means, like leveraging his own newsroom for hit pieces over the holidays against his opponent. The CEO is obsessed with trying to damage Davis, and those around him, in the public eye. Davis is the husband of Tracy Davis, former president of Olivet University, Pragad's favorite boogeyman to lash into when his ego needs to be massaged, and his guilty conscience soothed.
Meanwhile, the impetus for Jamali's story is not any recent news about Olivet University, as the story amounts to a rehash of old events. Instead, Pragad has once again initiated a direct attack on Olivet University, this time as retribution for his setbacks in court, and in direct response to the court's reticence toward muzzling his unhinged newsroom editors like Jamali and editor-enabler Nancy Cooper.
The timing of the piece is certainly surprising because Newsweek has been totally silent about Olivet University for months, only for Jamali to suddenly appear levying threats days after the court ruled that it would not stop Newsweek's weaponized coverage. (The court's hesitation is likely due to First Amendment concerns, even though Newsweek has already been warned of defamation lawsuits for its egregious ethical breaches.)
Tactics
That there is no recent news on Olivet won't stop Jamali from fabricating a story about Pragad's opponents. Pragad and Jamali appear to be getting closer than ever, making their first public appearance together at a trade show last week, according to Pragad's Twitter account. The appearance came only days before the new threats were launched on Pragad's opponents by Jamali.
Taking a page out of Pragad's script, Naveed operates by threatening and exasperating sources with constant barrages of messages that can only amount to activist journalism -- where the storyline is actively influenced by the journalist, a serious breach of traditional ethics. Under these new activism terms, Jamali is more than happy to shakedown sources until they relent and spew negative information about his target.
But like in his intelligence career, Jamali is simply a pawn in this game. Jamali is simply following the playbook that Pragad laid out earlier this year when he openly threatened Davis and friends and family with reputational damage -- all to advance Pragad's greedy desire to takeover the company.
Since March of 2022, this publication has seen a number of communications from Pragad and confidantes where he openly coveted not only the company but also exalted his own position, presenting himself as a savior and "incredibly powerful" person who is tired of meeting world-leaders, and talked up his participation in a pay-to-play Harvard course. All while making extreme threats against his opponents.
Pragad has also mastered the tactic of masquerading under the cover of ethics institutes, taking advantage of their naivete of his true motives to create a falsified bubble of feigned objectivity. The biggest victim of Pragad's ethics-manipulation strategy is the Poynter Institute's Kelly McBride, who, in emails to HNGN, has appeared utterly oblivious that she is being manipulated by Pragad.
Another possibility is that McBride is a willing party to Pragad's advances, since he bankrolls their ethics partnership. From that perspective, it makes sense that she would be keen to ethics-wash Newsweek's articles--her funding depends on it.
None of this is surprising, given that Pragad is unlikely to pay an organization to hinder his own ethical violations. Ironically, the Press Freedom event where Pragad and Jamali made a surprising first public appearance together also mandates the upholding of journalistic ethics and integrity, which Newsweek has trampled under its current management.
Like doling out company funds for ethics-washing, HNGN has uncovered another favorite tactic of Pragad's: pour out company resources toward those within his company willing to help his smear campaign on opponents by giving his designated henchmen and women massive raises and promotions whenever they carry out his dirty misdeeds.
The latest iteration of this sickening pattern of company behavior was revealed in court documents, where Pragad bribed his executive team with millions of dollars worth of raises and bonuses and then subsequently turned around and had all of them submit court affidavits against his opponent.
A question the court will soon have to answer is how much Jamali, the executive team, McBride, and others have been paid off by Pragad for the various hit pieces he has influenced, and what are each of their levels of ties to the CEO.
Jamali's bank accounts and ties to the executive are likely to be revealed in court due to his active participation in Pragad's schemes. The ties are potentially as deep as a smokey chimney on Christmas Eve. Whether Jamali has personal civil liability to Davis, Olivet and others, could also become a question as the case unfolds in the courtroom.
Meanwhile, another unanswered question is whether the payments to Jamali, McBride and executive team members will be subject to clawbacks, meaning they would have to pay back all their unauthorized and ill-gotten gains from the CEO.
Fake News Puppet
Newsweek has a long legacy of top-shelf journalism, and a litany of great journalists that have covered culture-shifting events and broken stories that move society forward. Newsweek under Pragad, however, is not that publication, and Jamali is not that journalist. In fact he is not a journalist at all.
Jamali held a number of positions before coming to Newsweek, having as many as 15 short-term jobs before becoming Editor-at-Large, in positions varying from web manager to contributor and varying service jobs around the military. The only writing experience he has is as a columnist and talking-head -- positions that give opinions as opposed to engaging in neutral journalism.
This lack of education and experience in journalism not only makes him useful for Pragad to manipulate, but also makes him unable to recognize obvious faults in his own reporting.
When Jamali first wrote about Davis in April this year, Davis gave him a clear warning about what was happening -- seemingly giving him the benefit of the doubt that he was an actual journalist and would look deeper.
"You should be aware that your CEO Dev Pragad is attempting to leverage the newsroom and yourselves for his personal advantage in a corporate shareholder dispute," Davis told him. "He has said publicly and privately that he wants my shares and full control of the company."
But upon hearing this serious claim, Jamali and Newsweek failed to confirm or even investigate the claim, instead claiming Pragad was "unreachable" despite being the CEO of Newsweek itself. (This failure was also covered up by McBride when she glossed over Newsweek's lack of coverage on itself while offering the obscure comment that Newsweek should cover itself with "slightly more vigilance" than it would an "unrelated organization.")
The same journalistic fumbles are evident in the way Naveed approaches sources, pressuring and threatening them to making a conclusion, then writing about that same conclusion as if it were news, although he manufactured that result through his own activism.
In expressing his greed for Newsweek, Pragad showed he was willing to breach all ethical lines and bragged that his superior intellect would allow him to prevail.
Fools Errand
Pragad, under fire from the court for his indiscretions and unlikely to be able to hide behind his paid-off minions much longer, has recently gone on a self-puffery campaign. Of course, he is once again using the Newsweek website to do so.
Santa is coming to town, and it looks like Pragad forgot to put out the milk and cookies. His house of cards, built on threats, lies and masks, may suffice for inexperienced journalists like Jamali, his cadre of ethics-washers, or the staff around him that he has illegally paid off. But in the court of law the judge has clearly shown Pragad's narrative will not stand.
Pragad would be better served to stop the charades before he gets completely destroyed. Because this Christmas, Santa is armed with a court clawback provision to take away the CEO's favorite toys.
This story was covered by HNGN's contributor writer, Ryan Lee, following the developing story of Newsweek CEO Dev Pragad.
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