Stew Magnuson takes editor in chief role for National Defense magazine, website
National Defense Editor Stew Magnuson
ARLINGTON, VA -- National Defense, a business and technology magazine and website published by the National Defense Industrial Association, named Stew Magnuson as its new editor in chief on Sept. 14.
National Defense has been in publication since 1920 when it began its run as Army Ordnance Magazine.
“As the magazine approaches its 100th anniversary, there is no shortage of vital topics to cover,” Magnuson said. Not least among them is whether the military can take advantage of advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, information technology, and other rapidly evolving fields while being hampered by an antiquated acquisition system, he said.
“Readers can expect in-depth reporting and analysis on this important question,” he said.
Magnuson joined the magazine as a senior writer in 2005 and was named managing editor a year later. He has served as acting editor since April.
Before joining the magazine, Magnuson was a Washington-based reporter for Education Daily, Space News and Kyodo News. He spent several years reporting in Asia, working for newspapers such as the Asahi Evening News in Tokyo and The Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh. He contributed articles to Reuters, the Christian Science Monitor and South China Morning Post.
Born and raised in Omaha, Neb., he is a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
In his spare time, he writes nonfiction books focusing on the history of the American West. He is the author of “The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns,” which was named the Nebraska’s 2009 nonfiction book of the year and recently made a list of the state’s most important literary works.
He also penned “Wounded Knee 1973: Still Bleeding,” an account of the Wounded Knee incident, and one novel, “The Song of Sarin,” based on his experience living in Tokyo during the 1995 subway gas attack.
More recently, he produced a series of three books focusing on the history found along U.S. Highway 83, “The Last American Highway: The Dakotas;” The Last American Highway: Nebraska-Kansas-Oklahoma;” and “The Last American Highway in Texas.”