A Gut-man to have onboard: Matt Gutman attends Good Morning America's 50th Anniversary Celebration on November 03, 2025, in New York City. (Photo by Manoli Figetakis/Getty Images)
Welcome to the latest edition of Breaker. If this email has been forwarded, you can subscribe here and send your questions and complaints here. If you have a tip contact the 24/7 Breaker Tip Hotline via text or Signal # 551 655 2343. Anonymity guaranteed!
In tonight’s edition, CBS News’ new recruit, Chief Correspondent Matt Gutman, told viewers a gripping tale on Monday about being detained while reporting in Venezuela. But Breaker has spoken with people familiar with the 2016 incident who tell us there is much more to the story.
Also tonight, the race is on to replace Will Welch at GQ – and we have the runners and riders for one of journalism's most prized gigs. There’s also a rash of new Murdoch books about to hit the shelves this year, and we have a sneak preview of the first one out of the gates.
Plus, it’s Tuesday, which means Lionel Barber’s Briefing is back. This week, the legendary Fleet Street editor casts his predictions for the media industry in 2026. Will the BBC bend the knee for Trump? What are the subplots of the Netflix/Paramount/WBD affair? Will the Telegraph deal finally be completed? And what the bloody hell is going on at The Economist? Read more below and don’t forget to subscribe to Lionel’s Substack here.
Finally, if you spent the Holidays blissfully offline, we have you covered – we were hunting and gathering the best yarns out there for your reading, listening, and watching pleasure and have them in a comprehensive list below.
Mentioned tonight: Anna Wintour, David Haskell, Willa Bennett, Pablo Torre, Daniel Riley, Noah Johnson, Tom Cibrowski, Richard Engel, Bari Weiss, Brian Williams, Alex Mahon, Lord Rothermere, Carolyn McCall, Katie Rosman, Gabriel Sherman, David Rhodes, Jim Rutenberg, Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Alexandra Bruell, Peter Rudegeair, Katherine Maher, Benjamin Mullin, Jeremy Barr, Dominic Ponsford, Jay Caspian Kang, Theodore Schleifer, Larry Ellison, David Ellison, Jeffrey Trachenberg, Maurice Saatchi, Paul Farhi, Claire Atkinson, Ruadhán Mac Cormaic, Sarah Schmidt, Ben Smith, Noah Shachtman, Max Tani and more.
The Breakers: The Best – and Worst – of 2025
Over the holidays, we awarded our first Breakers, our annual gongs to those who not only write the headlines, but made the headlines in 2025 for better or worse.
Congratulations to all the winners over 14 hotly contested categories: Meredith Kopit Levien, Charles Forelle, Rob Copeland, Marc Lacey, John Micklethwait, Jolie Hunt, George Cheeks, Jon Kelly, Risa Heller, Bill Cohan, Michael Wolff, Gaurav Srivastava, members of the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), and Robert Thomson. If you missed The Breakers, you can catch up here (we have taken it out from behind the paywall).
Gutchecking Gutman
(Exclusive.) On Monday morning, as Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was set to be arraigned in a Manhattan federal court, CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King crossed to newly minted Chief Correspondent Matt Gutman, who was outside the courthouse.
Gutman was CBS News Editor-in-Chief, Bari Weiss’ first big splashy on-air hire, poached from ABC News in December, where he was their chief national correspondent.
“I don't want to bring up any unpleasant memories for you, but can you tell us what happened there?” King quizzed Gutman about a 2016 reporting trip to Venezuela, where he was briefly detained alongside producer Carlos Beltran.
“We were leaving. We were pointed out by some of the local militias. Then the local police took us in, then the national, finally, the secret police. We were taken to a black site. I was there for five days. They accused me of being a CIA spy, obviously that’s not true,” Gutman said.
Dramatic stuff indeed, and gripping TV. But Gutman’s former colleagues at ABC have a somewhat different recollection of what happened…
GQ Runners and Riders
(Exclusive.) The Tuesday morning bombshell that GQ’s Global Editorial Director, Will Welch, is leaving the Condé Nast title has kicked off internal jockeying for the plum role. The debonair Welch is off to Paris to work for Pharrell Williams, the music artist and current Men's Creative Director for Louis Vuitton. Condé wasted no time in posting the job: “We’re looking for a visionary leader who will be responsible for shaping the values, sensibility, and aesthetic of the GQ title.
The role will oversee the editorial direction, brand strategy, audience development, operations, and all content and brand extensions.”
Ultimately, it will be Global Chief Content Officer Anna Wintour’s pick.
The hot internal favorite is…