After the end of this year, Newsweek will go all digital. No more print editions.
I have paid only occasional attention to Newsweek in recent years, but there was a time in decades past I never missed an issue. The June 2002 story “What Bush Knew” (offline, but here are letters from readers about it) had a lot to do with my starting to blog.
I take it that beginning in 2008 Newsweek management made some boneheaded editorial and business decisions that caused a massive loss in advertising revenue. And I agree with mistermix that “once journalism’s Kevorkian, Tina Brown, attached the parasitic Daily Beast to the sinking ship,” failure was certain. It was just a matter of time.
And with Brown in charge, I don’t expect much from the digital version, either. See Joe Coscarelli in New York magazine, “Newsweek Ending Print Magazine, Going All Digital in 2013” and “Newsweek and the Daily Beast No Longer Have Access to Sidney Harman’s Billions” (7/23/12).
Jyazoos H. Keerist, reading the Old Testament.
I’m old enough to remember the days when Life, Look, Time, and Newsweek, were all important if you wanted to get a good grasp of what has happening in the country – AND the world.
Life and Look died out as TV became more and more entrenched in our country.
Now, with Cable TV, and especially the internet, Time and Newsweek are both about as useful as mammaries on a male bovine.
And Tina Brown seems to me to be the female version of George W. Bush – anything either one of them touches seems to turn to shite.
There’s a crying need for what Newsweek and Time used to do well, which was provide in-depth reporting on important issues. They’ve both been doing less reporting and more opinion, which costs less money but which also just made them superfluous.
journalism’s Kevorkian, Tina Brown
Hee hee. My day is made.
maha,
What happened to Time and Newsweek, is the same thing that’s happened to TV news in general – I call it “The People Magazine-ization” of the news.
Neither Walter Cronkite nor David Brinkley would have spent any time on pop stars – unless they were GENUINE culture changers – ala Elvis, The Beatles, and maybe the Rolling Stones. And I don’t remember them talking much about Liz and Dick, or other movie starts.
Now, maybe that’s a trick of memory, and they did. But my memory is that it was ABC either back in the late 70’s or early 80’s that first brought in an entertainment element and covered it on their evening network news show.
Just the name The Daily Beast is a loser… Who wants to quote a source of information from the Daily Beast in an intelligent conversation? What separates the Daily Beast from the Daily Caller?
I’ll bet they continued selling long-term subscriptions until this announcement.
As a longtime reader and subscriber (since the 80’s) I too was disappointed by the new Newsweek, for reasons stated. I fully “get” the leaning towards entertainment which is lamentable, but parasitic? I’m just asking because I have no specific opinion on that. Maybe there’s something I missed. In what sense? Is it the hitching to the coattails of a once-laudable and more meaningful publication?
I let my subscription to the Nation expire. Must renew. There’s NYTimes. I just got free issues of “The Week” along with a subscription offer but it seems somewhat light too. There’s really not much out there for one who is intellectually open enough to willingly seek challenge by something other than that which always agrees with them.
I use a couple of newsreaders that consolidate and organize my newsfeeds. Most export .opml files as a way to share ones feeds. I’m always open to good tips from others but when I mention that avenue most non-technical friend’s eyes glaze over. RSS and feed list exports are basic features of these apps and hardly rocket science though.
There’s another app I like called My6Sense that runs on my Nook. Anyway, it’s all about sharing and the potential for learning from one another which is, afterall, why I frequent Mahablog.
I didn’t know Tina Brown had such a negative reputation. I used to get the New Yorker when she ran it, and liked it. Those with longer experience to the magazine may have a different reaction.
Who needs Newsweek when you can get all you’ll ever need to know from God’s manual for correct living..The inerrant Holy Scriptures? Santa Biblia.When you can know the end from the begining every thing in between becomes pure folly.