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"Once the ad revenue stopped being able to support that, it became inevitable that the magazine would eventually be unworkable." "The basic idea of Newsweek was to have this big staff all over world shoveling information into headquarters," he said. I think Tina Brown is a great editor, but they were swimming against an unstoppable tide."įor Thomas, the undoing of Newsweek had as much to do with its decision to shutter many of its foreign bureaus as the accelerated rates of news consumption. "It was doomed no matter what," Thomas said. Thomas said that towards the end of his decades-long tenure, the gallows humor around the office consisted of staffers reminding each other about the fate of buggy whip manufacturers, another once thriving industry undone by technological advancement. Harman died in 2011 and in July of this year his family announced that it was ceding control of Newsweek Daily Beast to IAC.Įvan Thomas, Newsweek's former editor-at-large, said he believed for the past three or four years that the magazine was nearing its expiration point. Months later, he announced that the news weekly would merge with the Beast, a culture and politics site run by Brown.Īlso read: Tina Brown's Newsweek Big Winner, Oprah Big Loser in Magazine Ad-Page Race The magazine was essentially on life support when Harman acquired it from the Washington Post in 2010 for a dollar and the assumption of its debts. The reality is that Newsweek surrendered its perch as one of the country's preeminent journalistic forces nearly a decade ago. But when you do that, you go off into uncharted waters, and those waters are shark-infested." It was about the news, it was off the news, it was breaking the news. "Once you lose your core, you lose who you are, and it just becomes hard to reinvent yourself," Isikoff said. Isikoff said that he believed Newsweek may have strayed too far from its original mission, leaving it without a clear sense of purpose. Then Editor Jon Meacham likened the redesign to the cerebral approach popularized by The Economist, but it did nothing to arrest Newsweek's falling ad rates. Michele Bachmann with a deer-in-headlights gaze or labeled Barack Obama as America's "first gay president." But her approach has not been able to attract profits at the money-losing magazine, spelling the end of her return to the world of print, where she first made a name for herself guiding publications like Vanity Fair to greater riches and readership.Įven before Newsweek was sold to IAC, it had undergone a dramatic overhaul aimed at taking it beyond breaking news and into analysis a move that was both an acknowledgement that print magazines were being tripped up by the speed of online journalism, as well as an attempt to appeal to higher income readers. Over the past year, it has captured attention for provocative covers that captured Rep.
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With Brown calling the editorial shots, Newsweek was never dull. I wish them well, but I don't get what they want to be that's different."
#Newsweek publishes final print issue for free#
"What does it bring to the table that people can't get for free from other websites or won't find on the Daily Beast. "I don't know what the audience for is," said Michael Isikoff, a former Newsweek investigative reporter and NBC News' national investigative correspondent. It is about the challenging economics of print publishing and distribution."īrown and Shetty said the magazine anticipated that layoffs would be part of Newsweek's transition.įormer Newsweek staffers and media analysts did not appear overly optimistic that Newsweek would be able to reemerge as an online force in the same way that it once was one of the country's premiere news periodicals. This decision is not about the quality of the brand or the journalism - that is as powerful as ever. "We remain committed to Newsweek and to the journalism that it represents. "We are transitioning Newsweek, not saying goodbye to it," Brown and Shetty wrote.