I’m not one of the people triumphantly cheering on the decline of the press, but this logic made me laugh:
Jon Meacham admits it is hard to explain, even to his own people, why chopping Newsweek’s circulation in half is a good thing.
That step — along with a redesigned, revamped publication that hits newsstands today — may well determine whether the 76-year-old newsmagazine survives. Newsweek will concentrate on two things — reporting and argument — while kissing off any recap of the week’s developments.
Time has been gravitating in that direction as well. But Newsweek, owned by The Washington Post Co., is accelerating the process because it is bleeding red ink, losing nearly $20 million in the first quarter. Newsweek, whose circulation was as high as 3.1 million in recent years, plans to cut that to 1.5 million by the beginning of 2010, in part by discouraging renewals. The magazine will begin charging the average subscriber about 90 cents an issue, nearly double the current rate.
Maybe this makes more sense to people in the know, but I think halving your circulation is a terrible idea, period.
schrodinger's cat
Speaking of Newsweek, did anyone catch Zakaria’s interview with Musharraf yesterday?
asiangrrlMN
Shortest ‘going Galt’ ever!
So they are discouraging renewals, hiking the price of their current issues, and….what? I guess I don’t see what the positive end result of this decision could possibly be.
DougJ
I’m not so sure. If this half keeps subscribing it may be better than losing everyone, which I tend to think is where they’re headed now.
Zifnab
Yes! Reduce your content! Genius!
But why stop there? What’s all this talk of “reporting”? Let’s just boil it down to the nuts and bolts. Stop paying reports entirely and just get Joe Klein and Bill Kristol in a greased up wrestling pit and have David Broder give color commentary. Then put the whole thing is glossy print and slap it on a news stand. There’s your conflict. There’s your content. Happy Birthday. I’ve just saved print journalism.
/High Fives? Anyone?
DougJ
It’s not every day that a Spinal Tap quote describes something perfectly: their appeal is becoming more selective.
John Cole
Curious how many of you know where this title came from- I’m guessing very few without google will know.
Michael
If it were up to me, the commission of punditry for money would be a felony.
You want to know the downfall of journalism? When operators realized that it is cheaper to hire a few highly paid gasbags to spew opinion on subjects that they know nothing about than it is to hire reporters and to financially support their work in researching and writing about factual events which occurred.
Right now, what passes for journalism is the perfect conservative business model – all opinion, no facts.
Bulworth
I always thought the object was to increase circulation. Oh well.
JGabriel
The five words in that excerpt that used to denote quality and effort but now (with the exceptions of Dan Froomkin, Dana Priest, EJ Dionne, and Walter Pincus) almost guarantee laziness and declining standards:
.
KCinDC
Sounds like Cornyn’s plan for Republican senators. Actually, sounds like the GOP plan for their party in general.
kos
If they’re losing money on every subscription they mail out, they’re better making money or breaking even on 1.5M, than in losing money on 3M.
Of course, we’d need to know how much Newsweek is bringing in via advertising, on how their ad rates would be impacted by halving subscriptions by half. But maybe by cutting ad rates by half (or whatever) they can attract more advertisers?
There’s logic there. Whether the numbers actually work is another story, but yes, cutting circulation COULD be the smart financial move.
asiangrrlMN
@DougJ: But they are trying to discourage renewals, too, as a way to–I don’t know what. I am confused here. That’s not a surprise–I am often confused by business decisions.
kos, that still doesn’t make sense to me. Are you trying to say that they don’t want subscriptions at all and would rather people just bought the issues off the street, as it were? Or rather, they are literally cutting their losses?
Common Sense
If they get their base small enough maybe they could qualify for a Scaife bailout. We have all seen the winning strategy this leads to. Best selling Regenry books, daily appearances on talk shows and Hannity. How could they lose?
Anne Laurie
It’s the media version of the RNC — a smaller subscription base, but a more *committed* one. Theoretically, half as many people spending twice as much per issue could be a good demographic for specialty advertising, except that I don’t think Newsweek has anything so “special” to offer that it can attract either half of that advertising equation!
Zifnab
@kos: Boo! Troll! Someone get the ban stick!
j/k
JGabriel
@John Cole:
I don’t know, but my first guess would be Denis Leary. It sounds like a joke from No Cure From Cancer. But I’m also assuming that’s wrong, since I think he still has both his lungs.
.
kid bitzer
#6–
i have no idea. i’m going to go google it now.
SGEW
@John Cole: I had to google it, only to discover that I really should have caught it. For some reason I just don’t have the memory that I should.
Heh.
JGabriel
kos:
That may be true in the short term, but I think that’s hardly ever good news, or a good sign, for a general interest periodical.
.
sgwhiteinfla
I might be wrong but you get a discount when you get a subscription to most magazines. So maybe the thinking is if people don’t renew their subscription they will more than likely still pay full price for it at the newsstand. Other than that I can’t understand the logic.
Zifnab
@asiangrrlMN:
They’re not “trying to discourage renewals”, they’re “raising the price”. If everyone wants to shell out the extra money for the issues, they’ll be happy to take it. But all this talk of being more elite and exclusive just boils down to the paper needing to charge more money.
Someone in accounting crunched the numbers and determined that if half the audience pays twice the price, they’ll stabilize their business.
Napoleon
Wow, by that criteria I guess Spy magazine is going gangbusters.
N M
What will 1/2 of doctor’s and dentist’s offices now do? Double their copies of US News and World Report?
The horror… the horror…
wasabi gasp
Newsmonth. Newsquarter. Newsyear. Noose.
JGabriel
@N M:
They’ll all subscribe to McSweeney’s and the nation will suddenly become quirkily literate.
Hey, I can fantasize. We have a black president now and three years ago no one saw that coming.
.
Tom Levenson
It’s the old watermelon problem: you know the guy who lost money on every melon sold, but made it up on volume.
Niche publication is a perfectly viable approach, as that media tyro Kos points out.
But, having tried to create a niche out of a mass media precursor (I helped found Cablevision’s short lived “Maximum Science” as a VOD niche science cable service within what became their euponiously named “MagRack”) I can tell you there are a couple of obvious problems.
1. Defining a real niche, not a hoped for tranche of deep pocket subscribers.
2. Delivering genuinely niche-specific content not easily found elsewhere that makes those well-defined subscribers happy to stick with you.
That said — if Newsweek really did put together a serious team of newsgatherers and analysts and delivered original content with privileged access to subscribers (e.g. — access to the website a day or so ahead of the unwashed, hard copy, free kindles, who knows), they might be able to reinvent themselves into a deeper, slower smarter news source. Given their parentage, however, I do not plan on holding my breath.
Halteclere
Cutting subscriptions is like GM cutting dealerships. It may help the bottom line, but doesn’t address the crappy product offerings that precipitated the cuttings. (Disclaimer: I’m one of the used-to-be 1.6 million subscribers).
Cat Lady
I am looking forward to having a “reset” moment regarding the media. I just can’t look through all the mainstream crap that passes for news every day anymore. The Newsweeks and Times and the networks and national newspapers all had their chance to be on the right side of history during the run-up to the war, and they all failed (not McClatchy) and continue to fail regarding this torture debate. The corrupt apologists and spinners and conventional wisdom purveyors and dishonest hacks and equivocators and liars and punch pullers and bubble headed newsbots and nepotistic mediocrities and token hires and clueless sycophants and faux outrage whiners and bloviating windbags and corporate shills all giving off heat and no light has just worn me out.
Linus
Meacham’s basic idea is to get an audience more like that of the New Yorker. That way, they can afford to have fewer subscribers, since the remaining subscribers are likely to be those more willing to pay more per issue for this type of content. That’s his basic idea, anyway. No idea if it will work.
Zifnab
@Cat Lady:
If it worked for Star Trek…
Shawn in ShowMe
You. Are. A. Beast.
schrodinger's cat
Apparently Meacham wants Newsweek to be more like the Economist.
The Saff
@ Cat Lady
Spot on.
JGabriel
I’m reminded of the the Factory Records original 12″ release of New Order’s Blue Monday, in die-cut packaging to resemble a 5″ floppy, which was so complicated to produce that they were actually losing 5 pence on each copy.
They didn’t think it would sell that much …
.
NutellaonToast
It worked so well for the R’s!
Johnny Pez
“The subscriber purge will continue until our circulation numbers improve.”
So, yeah, just like the GOP.
NonyNony
@schrodinger’s cat:
Which is really strange, because I can already buy the Economist for when I want to read a magazine like the Economist.
Or, more accurately, I can sit in the coffee shop at Borders or Barnes and Noble and read the Economist when I want to read a magazine like the Economist.
brent
Cutting subscriptions is like GM cutting dealerships.
See, I can understand it in the case of a car manufacturer because having those additional dealerships actually involves an enormous financial commitment. I guess I never thought that the printing and distribution costs of a magazine amounted to much in the larger picture. That is, I had always assumed that the marginal costs of printing and distributing something 10,000 times was not that much less than printing it 20,000 times and that their real significant costs, as with say the book industry, came in the production and marketing of content. I suppose my assumptions are incorrect somewhere but I am not quite sure where exactly.
Janet Strange
Repeating the comment that I put on kos’s post over at the GOS:
That’s what I don’t see in the discussions of the death of newspapers. Their customers (advertisers) aren’t paying them enough anymore. They’re trying to scare us (readers) “death of democracy!!1!” into taking over the financial support. Why isn’t anyone talking about how to get the advertisers into returning to paying the freight? On the web? Instead of just whining about how web ads don’t pay enough?
Michael
They’ll do like mine did – subscribe to “Range” magazine. That way, while the patients wait interminable hours for the provision of the Greatest Healthcare on Earth, they can look at glossy pictures of horses, cows, wide Western vistas and Real ‘Murkans doing Real ‘Murkan work while browsing through all the wingnut editorializing that chokes the glossy pages.
I half expected to see an article that said “Shiftless Negroes Are Coming to Take Your Ranch and Have Your Women, and How You Can Help to Support the Legislative Agenda to Stop Them”.
I think I was a little disappointed, since the mag did press every other wingnutty button.
MBunge
As a comic book fan, I’d say the whole “niche market” comment above is right on point. The problem is that overtime the pressure of a “niche market” is to become niche-ier and niche-ier, appealing to an ever smaller but more committed audience. It’s basically deciding you’d rather die from hunger than try and hunt a tiger and likely get killed immediately.
Mike
AnotherBruce
Hmmm, circulation of 3.1 million people and they’re losing money. The problem can’t possibly be the management decisions being made, it has to be those pesky loyal customers, get rid of them.
Aaron
Well, to come to some sort of defense for this plan; Meacham is not blind to the changing media landscape. If mags think they are going to survive on the old business model that are deluding themselves.
As far as the best strategy for dealing with this, one seems to be a high quality / lower volume approach. If, for example, Newsweek would shift to real investigative journalism and start running some interesting stories, that would be great. The trick is getting people to pay for news that they can get for free elsewhere – you aren’t going to do that unless you bring something new to the table. At least they are trying . . .
NonyNony
@brent:
Look at how much they’re charging subscribers – Kurtz’s story says they’ll go up to 90 cents and that will almost double the per-issue cost to subscribers. So they’re currently charging around 50 cents per issue for subscribers.
How much of that gets eaten up in logistics of mailing, postage, paper costs, subscription database management, and new subscriber processing before they even get to the point where they’re paying journalists to write stories and editorialists for their opinions? Postage costs alone have shot up across the board a lot in the last decade. Paper costs have also increased in the same timespan.
Again, it’s not the number of subscribers that’s killing them – its the cost per issue that they’ve been charging those subscribers that is hurting them. Advertising revenue is down for everyone, so where they were once making a lot of money per subscriber in ad revenue, now they’re making less and so they need to charge more per issue to make it up. And THAT’s what will lead to a loss of subscribers – the doubling of the yearly subscription cost.
Shawn in ShowMe
If defining a niche is at the heart of this strategy, it really seems that the Newsweek people pulled the 1.5 million number out of their ass. What niche magazines have a circulation of 1.5 million?
Newsweek’s major problem is that the age of its readers continues to go up while the replacement readers they were counting on are getting their fix on the innertubes.
BombIranForChrist
Honestly, if they really can pull off a magazine that is like the Economist except more dedicated to American news, I would take a look at it for sure. We’ll see.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Why do they need a special business plan for this? Seems to me that the hacks and water carriers and bloviating idiots responsible for creating their weekly content have been doing a bang up job of discouraging renewals just fine, thank you very much.
or in other words, what Cat Lady said.
geg6
I can totally see how, in theory, this could work. As both Kos and Zifnab have pointed out very well.
However…
I’m not sure that Newsweek is the mag that could pull it off. First, it’s never been known as anything other than a weekly general interest news magazine. I don’t see an exclusive niche that they fill. And their punditry, as we all know, is so horrible as to make the Times’ or even TIME’s look like Publius. I mean, seriously? Can you think of anyone who will pay top dollar for the in-depth policy stylings of Krauthammer? Or Kristol? And if they lose the whole “week in review” stuff, what the hell is the magazine gonna consist of? Not even the smaller, supposedly more committed audience they envision is going to spend a higher price for second tier punditry (which is what they’ll be if TIME stays as is) and “reporting.” What kind of reporting, exactly? Are we talking multi-part investigative journalism here or are we talking about what I think they will try, reporting on the Village and the Villagers–what they think, what they suspect, what they approve and don’t approve, what they gossip about–in short, the same garbage they’ve been doing the last 15 years and that cable does every day, 24/7. So why would even that smaller target audience pay top dollar for any of this stuff they can get for pennies elsewhere?
Llelldorin
Back when I wrote for a magazine, there was a definite target range within which we were to keep our subscription numbers. Too high and our ad rates would have priced out most of our advertisers.
I didn’t have anything to do with sales, so I have no idea what happens if you just declare your ad rates to be lower despite a higher circulation. From editorial, it just appeared that for mysterious reasons our ad rates would be forced up if our subscription numbers rose beyond a certain point.
Magazines also make much more money from newstand sales than from subscriptions, so it’s possible that they’re going to stop offering good deals for subscribers because they think they can shrink down to the newsstand half.
Brachiator
I had subscribed to either Time or Newsweek, sometimes both, from the time I was a junior in high school throughout much of my adult life.
For at least the past five years, I have not subscribed, or bought a single copy issue (except for an Obama special election issue) or even read these magazines online. The same is true of US News, The Atlantic and a few other magazines.
I don’t know anyone under age 30 who subscribes to any of these news weeklies. Some have never heard of them.
One of the interesting problems of “getting news from the Internet” is that some people don’t know and don’t care where the news story originates. Ironically, websites (Huffington, Politico, Drudge) becomes the brand name.
There is simply no reason for these magazines to exist anymore. Online newspapers can provide in-depth coverage and update it quickly, making newsweeklies look like the lumbering dinosaurs which they have become.
And again, simply multiplying circulation by the price shows that subscriptions do not sustain newspapers and newsmagazines, no matter how loyal the subscriber base.
There was probably a time when a good Newsweek article sent a reader to the Washington Post. Those days are over.
Oddly enough, I do buy the occasional issue of The Economist, but not just because it contains reportage and argument, but because of its focus on economics issues and because it is a more comprehensive summary of international news than are Time and Newsweek.
If the publishers can’t give people a reason to buy the magazine, other than for the nostalgia buzz, cutting circulation is just a prelude to oblivion.
By the way, how many posters here subscribe to either magazine?
superking
I dunno, they gave me a free copy when I got off the metro today, and that’s the type of magazine I like.
bedtimeforbonzo
I see it’s easy to bash and critique Newsweek, WaPo and the like. It’s fashionable, it’s fun, it’s something that makes you feel smarter, superior.
I, for one, am puzzled at the lack of appreciation and understanding for original reporting — the very reporting that allows this website and its brethren to open its doors for their virtual jury, so we can all engage in informed and lively comment on the day’s news.
Yet we take a certain kind of joy in biting the hand that sustains us.
Am I missing something?
Have I missed regular and above-reproach original reporting here at Balloon Juice or Obsidian Wings or other sites of this kind?
Johnny Pez
@Brachiator:
My parents subscribe, but I don’t. That’s their problem in a nutshell.
Martin
All of it. Subscribers are break even on incremental growth. That is, the newsstand and advertisers pay for the reporters, and the subscribers pay for the subscribers. Newsweek might be better off dumping half their subscribers but getting them at the news stand for 1/3 of the issues that they would have previously gotten.
That said, it’s a risky proposition and is nothing but bad news but they need to try something.
Matt
@asiangrrlMN: Agree totally.
This isn’t digital, where the marginal variable cost to serve each consumer is zero (or close enough not to matter), nor widgets, where the marginal revenue is theoretically always positive.
If target advertisers are after a subset of readership (and they are), and that readership is diluted by the presence of non-target readers — each of whom carries with them a real cost to serve — culling the herd almost certainly makes good financial sense.
That’s why cable TV succeeds, too.
Whether they’ll succeed is another matter.
I once worked at an early internet mag that took the opposite tack. In newsstand and subscription price tests, higher price points both resulted in higher uptake by consumers. However, the parent company decided that having one island with New Yorker-style prices in an archipelago of bargain-basement “product” books was undesirable, so they ignored the research, slashed prices and, ultimately, end-of-lifed the title.
Morons.
jvill
Can’t say for sure until we see the execution, but the thought makes sense to me.
On the pure cost issue, I’m sure they have looked at some metrics that make cutting the subscription base seem sensible. It’s not hard to imagine that if they are losing money on every issue, they can identify a solid reader base willing to pay more for a more targeting quality product, that it might work. That’s a pretty standard mode of thought — and where economics meets marketing.
But what’s more interesting is how they are changing their content to evolve with the times. It’s true no one needs Newsweek to sum up the week’s happenings because we get that in so many other places.
However, IF Newsweek was actually moving toward high quality/investigative reporting, I could see them building a quality product and a reputation. Think of Sy Hersh and Jane Mayer in the New Yorker — long, in-depth, smart, original and impact reporting. While only my own, small, biased sample, I still do see lots of people reading The New Yorker in the rarefied air of NYC subways.
That is, of course, a big IF.
My fear (and assumption) is that Newsweek will spend many more pages on opinion because it’s cheap, requires very little infrastructure support, and is becoming all the rage. Now how will they make THAT stand out from the army of bloviators Cat Lady alludes to? Dunno.
I’m much more interested in their evolving content model — which is much more vague — than their subscription model.
Shawn in ShowMe
Even if you did bring something new to the table, there’s nothing to stop all these displaced news reporters, who are now turning to the web to continue their livelihood, from copying that new thing. You’re still back to the same problem of how do you compete with a instantaneous delivery mechanism when you need a week a more to deliver your content.
The Economist gets around that because the economy isn’t something that is readily understood and needs to be interpreted for most people. What estoric aspect of the news could Newsweek focus on, that can’t be readily duplicated on the web, and still have enough mainstream appeal to deliver 1.5 million readers?
schrodinger's cat
@Nony Nony
Rebranding is not easy and I am not sure that Newsweek can pull it off. They are not starting from a clean slate, a large segment of the market thinks of it as a weekly news magazine for mass consumption. Its like if Kia, were trying to convince the car buying populace that they are not a budget brand but a luxury brand like Mercedes, not impossible but difficult.
mcc
I’ve not really read Newsweek in years. The reason why I’ve not really read it in years seems to hint at a reason why dropping their weekly-news-recap coverage might actually be sort of a risky-genius move: because it’s gotten so so easy to get high-quality daily news recaps from any number of professional and unprofessional online sources plus the four or five cable news networks plus Comedy Central. All Newsweek offers on that point by now is being four days out of date.
But… their commentary has always been their weakest point. Especially in the fragments of the magazine I’ve encountered in recent years. And now they’re going to make it a more important part of the magazine?
How do you start with the perception of being dumber than the New Yorker or the Economist and leveraging that into becoming like the New Yorker or the Economist?
Dave C
I was under the impression that 95% of Newsweek’s and Time’s subscriptions came from high school Social Studies departments.
Comrade E.B. Misfit
I suppose that if Newsweek can target their subscription base to a wealthier demographic, then the advertising rates that they could charge might make up for the decreased circulation, and they’d have a smaller cost for printing and mailing.
They have an 80-year old brand name and reputation, though, and it all seems akin to Chevrolet retooling themselves to go head-to-head with Mercedes Benz.
Halteclere
@bedtimeforbonzo:
Bedtime, concerning newspapers I agree with you. There are several good reporters in various cities that provide an in-depth look into national news. And newspapers also are a good place to go for local reporting.
But I cannot think of any significant story that has been produced by a weekly news magazines (Newsweek, Time or US News). Yes, they may be in a position to break a significant national news story after spending weeks and months of research, but they don’t! There are no hard-hitting investigations or original sourcing, just info-news, big-think pieces, and bland stores following up someone else’s work.
gnomedad
@KCinDC:
Also, Benedict’s plan for the Catholic Church.
superking
To be fair to Newsweek, the new redesign looks good, and I appreciated the interview with Obama–it’s the only part I’ve read so far. I hope their strategy of generating more original reporting and forward looking reporting works out. Especially with the internet, when I get to the end of the week, I don’t need someone to tell me what just happened. But if they can tell me something I don’t know, I’m all for it.
Beyond that, I think newsweek is in a decent position with it’s partnership with WaPo, Foreign Policy, Slate, and the other sites in that stable. It seems that they are moving much of their operations online and are providing content for free. You generally don’t pay for content at any of those sites (could be wrong about FP, don’t remember right now). In that case, reducing circulation likely cuts overhead significantly while going online ensures that you’re reaching a younger demographic.
So, it’s quite possible that Newsweek will be able to make this work, especially as the other sites become intertwined. Slate already does this where they have links to their “top stories” on their front that shuttle you off to their spin off sites The Big Money, The Root, and Double X. That actually sounds like a decent strategy to me.
What am I missing?
Lavocat
Nothing screams impending extinction like telling your customers that you don’t want half of them and that the other remaining half get to pay twice – to cover the cost of the customers you no longer want.
Sounds like the business model that made Yugos popular the world over.
wasabi gasp
When Spy magazine fell apart before my subscription ran out, the unfulfilled months were replaced with Cracked. The irony was better than anything beyond the cover.
KCinDC
Gnomedad, I think Benedict’s plan for the Catholic Church involves growing numbers of conservative Christians in Africa and Latin America, so it seems more realistic than the GOP plan, unless the GOP starts advocating annexation of Africa and Latin America, or at least allowing citizens of those places to vote against gays in US elections.
bedtimeforbonzo
“Readers have never paid the costs of a big newspapers operations and they’re less likely to now than ever, when we’ve gotten used to being able to check sources and get background or more information info via links (which print can’t do), or find info from around the world about what we are interested and not just what our local daily deems we should be interested in.”
Janet Strange: Respectfuly, where do you think the background or information — the original reporting — comes from?
Where do you think the links come from?
There is no internet news fairy.
Greg6: Krauthammer and Kristol do not write for Newsweek. Also, just curious: What do you have against Publius?
Michael
My personal gripe is that too many journalistic operations have substituted punditry for factfinding, and are suffering as a result.
Cyrus
@bedtimeforbonzo:
I think “puzzled” s/b “concerned.” Either way, though, comments 7, 28 and 48 all seem to have answered your question before you asked it. The mainstream original reporting on national and international issues has sucked for years. It’s homogenized, it’s too corporate, it’s ossified…
When McClatchy goes under, or some other media outlet that has spent the past decade asking important questions and covering meaningful issues, then you’ll hear some lamentations.
Peter VE
My local fishwrap, formerly the Providence Journal, just went up 35% for home delivery, and they trimmed about 1 inch from the width. That’s on top of a 20% jump about a year ago. More money for less local content doesn’t seem to be a path to success….
Shade Tail
The basic problem, as others above have pointed out, is that printing a magazine ++costs money++. It is a very expensive process. You have to write up the articles, compile everything, find advertisers, place the ads in the newspaper, bundle it all together, send it off to the printing press, and then send all the printed copies out to where they need to go.
And that is a very cursory summary of the process. It is extremely complicated. And therefore expensive.
So yes, cutting their circulation in half could very well save them tons of money and bring them back up into the black. It sounds counter-intuitive, but it really could work. Particularly when, also as others have pointed out above, the subscribers are not really the customers, and therefore not really where the money is made.
Keith G
I think it’s easy for Jon Meacham to explain…. Cut reporters and he gets to keep his position as an “important” villager-lite (as he is prolly based in NYC.
You Can't Put Lipstick On A Repig
Just print it in China. That’ll fix things right up.
Last worker left in America, please turn out the lights.
schrodinger's cat
Also outsource Meacham’s job to India.
AhabTRuler
I have never understood the customer base of Cracked. Is it for people for whom Mad is too sophisticated?
ConservativesMindless contrarians? People stuck in second-rate airport magazine shops? Who?Brachiator
@Comrade E.B. Misfit:
If they think that going after a wealthier demographic will save them, then they are truly delusional. They would have to transform themselves into something with snob appeal and then compete against whatever the wealthier demographic is currently reading.
But what if the wealthier demographic is not reading much at all, just like everyone else? What if they are unwilling to give a re-branded Newsweek a chance?
Imagine if Chevrolet said “we are going to take our cheapest car and sell it to people who only buy top end BMWs.”
I’ve seen other companies chase after wealthier demographics only to find this a rocketship to oblivion.
They also miss an essential point. The idea is not to go after people who have money, but to go after people who spend money.
By the way, someone raised the most important side-issue here: what are we supposed to read while waiting in the doctor’s office if there are no more physical magazines and newspapers?
AhabTRuler
Not 100. Not 1000. Not an infinite number. Just one. I can live with “the blurst of
timesNewsweeks.”@Brachiator: Don’t Worry, People still sells like hotcakes!
wasabi gasp
In the context of failing news organizations, the following line seems most appropriate: Not to get carried away, but this is how realignments happen.
mcc
I see it’s easy to bash and critique Newsweek, WaPo and the like. It’s fashionable, it’s fun, it’s something that makes you feel smarter, superior. I, for one, am puzzled at the lack of appreciation and understanding for original reporting
Personally when I bash these things it is specifically because I perceive that insofar as original reporting goes, they don’t seem to have been doing a very good job of it lately.
I think there is economic demand for original reporting. I find it hard to believe that these institutions are doing reporting just as some sort of public service. In other words, I don’t think journalism as a concept is bound up in the three or four institutions who did it best in the 70s-80s. If those institutions ceased to exist, other institutions would emerge to fill the economic demand for reporting. Someone made a comparison to the car companies above– this would be like if someone was cheering GM going out of business, and someone said “why don’t you respect cars?”. What? There may be a number of bad things that would happen if Chrysler and GM died, but cars ceasing to exist is not one of them.
I see lots of good reason to worry about the continued health and existence of professional journalism in an age of blogs and ad-revenue-only business models. But insofar as that goes I kind of see the “newsroom decline” at institutions like newspapers as a bigger problem than that some individual newspapers going out of business– that is, the death of the current newspaper business system may be a threat to professional journalism, but there are also threats in the continued existence of that system in its current unsustainable form. So when I worry about professional journalism it goes in terms of not “the newspapers’ business model is failing– how can we save them?” it’s “how can we shift professional journalism such that it is no longer dependent on a group with a failed business model?”
In the meantime, if Newsweek and the Washington Post want my respect, or want me to care whether they live or die, they need to get back to quality original reporting.
asiangrrlMN
@mcc: Yes, this, please. My bank has issues of Newsweek lying around, and I blew through four of them in about twenty minutes. There was nothing of interest, and most of it was poorly-written, to boot.
As for the Washington Post, only Gene Robinson is worth my time there.
I want good journalism to continue, but I don’t really care too much for propping up crappy media.
mcc
You will read Twitter, on your Kindle. The future is a terrible place.
Shawn in ShowMe
In a word, yes. And the magazine went out of business earlier this year. Only the web operation remains. And judging by all the views, they’ve got more readers than they ever got with the magazine.
schrodinger's cat
Well how about an Indian rhesus monkey?
AhabTRuler
@schrodinger’s cat: Hey, I’ll take a balloon monkey; it can only lead to a marked improvement in the quality of the product.
Brachiator
By the way, this points out another problem. There are fewer newsstands for Newsweek to hit.
My favorite newsstand, and a neighborhood anchor, closed a couple of years ago. Fewer people bought magazines, newspapers and books, and the landlord thought he could raise the rent and make out like a bandit (this was just before the economy turned to crap).
This place probably would have appealed to Newsweek’s ideal new reader base. The newsstand carried many out-of-town and foreign newspapers, and people would sometimes drive here from other areas of the city because they knew that Bungalow News would likely have the periodical they were looking for.
And impulse buying came into play. A hot cover might invite further interest or a purchase.
But fewer vendors and decreased circulation? Not a winning hand.
But reading People in a doctor’s office will make you sick.
bedtimeforbonzo
I should note that I fully realize Newsweek and Time both have problems and could do a better job. Halteclere is correct when noting the scarcity of big-time breaking news they have produced, which isn’t the same as saying they do not do good reporting.
As far as the biggest story impacting me — the Great Recession — Newsweek and Time have given me a better perspective in layman’s terms than the web or cable news. Same thing with the swine flu and recent stories I have read in both regarding the debate around guns.
I think the news mags benefit with these types of stories by being able to step back and breathe — before reacting and, more significantly, overreacting. Of course, the trick is to make it seem relevant and urgent when so many of us feel we know what we need to already before they arrive in our mailbox.
I like the analogy Jvill draws with the impressive quality of The New Yorker, although I suspect Newsweek will seek to be more news-oriented. Like Jvill, I fear Newsweek will also try to do things on the cheap. (My guess is The New Yorker is expensive to produce.)
Schrodinger’s cat also makes a good point about the challenge of rebranding.
I sell used cars. The new-car side of our dealership features Hyundai, of which my wife and I own one. I would call Hyundai a growing brand. However, I still regularly come across a great many customers who dismiss the brand out of hand; to them Hyundai says cheap and unreliable, and lacking status.
Still, Newsweek deserves credit for taking a new approach and being proactive in a rapidly changing market that has made making a profit on journalism of any kind difficult. (That said, I am mystified why any outlet would seek to shrink its market.)
Martin
Weeklies and monthlies have a REALLY hard time breaking big stories, mostly because of the lag between when they send the publication to print and when it reaches readers. Any one of the hundreds of people involved in printing and distribution can leak that story to a daily or TV outlet and get it out first.
Newspapers have a short enough turnaround that they can pull it off, and often intentionally release the story the night before to help boost newsstand sales the next morning, and TV and the internet just do it on the fly.
The weeklies are much better suited for broad or in depth stories that require more research, but aren’t earthshattering, and big interviews where they have the time to put a fair chunk of research and investigation around the interview itself. The only subscription I have left is The Atlantic, which I’ve had since I was in high-school. I don’t think we have as much need for news as people think, but we desperately need context, which the faster news outlets can’t do at all, but publications such as The Atlantic have had Fallows in China for years churning out pieces on how China works and is changing. That’s a hell of a lot more important for us to know than whether Pelosi deserves a thumbs up or down based on what the public perception of her is for the last week. I’m hoping that the other weekly/monthlies can get back to providing more context and less news.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
While this is a very valid point with regard to the media as a whole, I must confess to being underwhelmed by the validity of its application to Newsweek specifically. What stories of significance over the last several years were driven by original reporting which they and they alone supported?
The other problem with them and with the Wa-Po family more broadly is if a media outlet (regardless of whether it is dead-tree or net based) is to be successful at justifying itself based on original reporting, they have to have unimpeachable credibility. Original news reporting is an activity which claims to be establishing new facts, not just weighing in on their significance. That only works if the reader can trust them not to be just making shit up, or grossly distorting what facts there are.
And in that respect, Newsweek and many other big media outlets have spent the last decade (at least) making it painfully clear that they can’t be trusted. That is a killer problem in an area where Caesar’s Wife rules apply. It isn’t that we don’t need original reporting any more, it is that we need original reporting in the hands of new folks who are not demonstrably and reliably a bunch of bad actors. But in order for that to happen, first the old dinosaurs have to die in order to clear the ground for somebody new to emerge to take their place.
So when I hear this sort of special pleading for Newsweek and others of similar ilk, it strikes me as sounding like a restaurant which has been caught one too many times serving up meals with arsenic and rat droppings in the food saying “if we go away, what will you have to eat?”. To which my reply is “I think Mr. Market will come up with a solution for that problem, it just doesn’t involve you“. (“you” meaning in this case Newsweek and the Fall of the House of
UsherHiatt)James Gary
My favorite newsstand, and a neighborhood anchor, closed a couple of years ago….people would sometimes drive here from other areas of the city because they knew that Bungalow News would likely have the periodical they were looking for.
That breaks my heart. I used to live in Pasadena, and I loved Bungalow News.
geg6
@bedtimeforbonzo:
If Newsweek’s plan is to go all in on commentary (and I have no idea what they mean by “reporting,” so I won’t comment on that), how long before WaPo sends their pundits over to be writing for Newsweek as a way to make their ridiculous salaries worthwhile and increase the “voices” at the mag?
As for Publius, I have nothing but the greatest of admiration for Publius. The Federalist Papers are some of the greatest commentary ever written.
The Other Steve
@Brachiator:
Viagra Weekly, a new promo magazine from the makers of Viagra. :-)
Persia
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Yeah, Newsweek was only valuable (as much as it was valuable) for shallow-pool news and the occasional good interview. My favorite part of the magazine was the wrap-up of quotes and political cartoons.
If they can find the right people to advertise to, this’ll work. If they can’t, what the hell, they were sinking anyway. Worth a try.
Groucho48
I’ve subscribed to Time or Newsweek for many years, now. Good bathroom or late night in bed reading.
My sub to Newsweek runs out in a few months. In the general course of things, the next sub will be to Time. But, if it were the other way around, I’m not sure I would switch from Time to Newsweek, if Newsweek costs significantly more. There just isn’t that much difference between them. I just checked on Amazon and a one year sub to Time is $20. and a one year sub to Newsweek is $40. Now, a $20. difference is trivial. If I liked Newsweek more than Time, I wouldn’t switch to save $20. But, I don’t.
If Newsweek wants to charge more, it’s going to have to offer more. And, it should start offering more before it raises prices. Give subscribers a reason to stay. If they, for example, beefed up their international coverage, that would give me a reason to stay. But, sounds like they, if anything, are going to trim news coverage even more. That’s a mistake. I can get all the commentary I need off the internet. But, a convenient round up, and some in-depth discussion of, world happenings would appeal to me.
Cat Lady
@mcc:
I totally agree with this. There is a huge market for straight reporting. Sy Hersh and Dana Priest and Charlie Savage need to figure out how to work around the newspapers by selling their services directly to the consumer, like on Amazon, which could have a product called “Journalism”. Not sure how to market it – you get a subscription for their product, perhaps, but they possess a highly specialized skill, and need to be kept from being co-opted like all the other media hacks have been. There’s a business model in there somewhere.
Shawn in ShowMe
What’s your basis for this statement?
omen
@Groucho48:
2 things i remember about newsweek. one, they revealed the fact that the pentagon brass and ashcroft switched from flying commercial to private charter planes in the weeks leading up to 9/11. the other, early in the afghanistan war, they made a war atrocity the cover story with screaming headlines that blared WAR CRIMES. that shocked the sh*t out of me. time would never have done that.
problem with the magazine though was they’d mention something controversial once, but then, too often, they wouldn’t nurture it and give it any sustained energy.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Over the years Newsweek and the WaPo family more generally were good for telling you what the center-right (aka “Liburl media”) establishment view of the world was. The problem is, I don’t give a shit what those people think any more. I just want to spit in their faces and kick them in the junk. They were to the crimes and follies of the Bush/Cheney admin. what the idiot German industrialists were to Hilter in the early 1930s – the key enablers who should have known better.
When Newsweek starts doing the kind of reporting that the New Yorker and Harpers and TPM have been doing, and backing it up by calling for war crimes trials, then my subscription check will be in the mail. Until then, they can go DIAF.
Comrade Kevin
@AhabTRuler:
Apparently, they don’t have one any more. The magazine stopped publishing a while ago. There’s a website, I think.
J. A. Baker
Well, it’s the same logic that brought us subprime mortgages, credit default swaps, the production of gas-guzzling SUVs to the exclusion of all else at a time when gas prices are at an all-time record high, the Enron Loophole, massive bonuses for CEOs who ran their compnanies into the ground, etc. etc. etc.
Cat Lady
@Shawn in ShowMe:
Newspaper circulation is declining, but online news consumption is growing. There is a huge demand for “news”, among those of us who like to know what’s going on in the world. Bloggers and blog readers who are also online news consumers want actual news content, not news “analysis”, a/k/a opinion, which is what the newspapers rely on more and more as news bureaus are being closed. It’s just being given away, so maybe the right word is not “market”. Which is why we are where we are.
bedtimeforbonzo
“Sy Hersh and Dana Priest and Charlie Savage need to figure out how to work around the newspapers by selling their services directly to the consumer, like on Amazon, which could have a product called ‘Journalism’. Not sure how to market it – you get a subscription for their product, perhaps, but they possess a highly specialized skill, and need to be kept from being co-opted like all the other media hacks have been. There’s a business model in there somewhere.”
Finding where the business model is indeed the trick, Cat Lady. (And if it were as easy as it sounds, it would be out there already.)
Let’s take your example. I’d bet Dana Priest makes a low six-figure salary. Can Amazon afford to pay that? Their business model is based as much on volume as it is quality. Can Amazon offer Ms. Priest health insurance? A 401k? Office space and equipment? An expense report?
Linking from one story to the next on a website is so easy it seems cheap. But most convienences come with a high cost somewhere before it gets to the consumer.
Thank you Martin for saying what I wish I had. I agree with you in that we are swamped with news and commentary, attaining some of it simply by osmosis. Context is what makes any of it meaningful. (ThatLeftTurn: I think original reporting can help sharpen and provide context in addition to sourcing what we regard as flat-out news.)
An aside: I imagine that Newsweek and Time are embarassed today in being scooped by GQ on the Donald Rumsfeld story, where his over-the-top/Biblically-themed brief covers indicate he was serving up propoganda to an ignorant and easily-played George Bush. While this doesn’t reflect positively on them, it certainly shows what Old Media can produce.
Sometimes I think I am simply too old-fashioned to have a dog in this fight.
I was not raised on the Internet and did not embrace it until the past couple years. I like the intimacy and convienence of a newspaper or magazine. I like being able to read them on the John (glad I am not alone, Groucho48), in the tub, on the couch or in my hammock. (Perhaps I will feel differently about their portability when I can afford a laptop).
Still, I have an infinity for the printed word, colored by the fact that I worked in the newspaper business for two decades. It saddens me to realize newspapers, if not magazines, will cease to exist. At age 46, hopefully, I will be able to outlast them.
Little Dreamer
So they either have too many customers (??) or else they don’t like the ones they have… well, I’m certain a bunch of someones can arrange for them to sell less copies. ;)
Little Dreamer
@Cat Lady:
There’s only one problem with the “stop printing and publish online” thing, there are a lot of older people who are not computer literate, don’t want to be and want their news delivered on the doorstep in the morning. Trust me, I used to work in newspaper circulation management, I know these people, many of them are afraid of getting their news online, it’s a phobia to them.
Shawn in ShowMe
Maybe I’m missing something but what I see are sites fueled by outrage at MSM reporting with huge userbases and sites geared toward original “straight news” reporting with much smaller userbases.
Jamey
Irv Zimmerman for the American Cancer Society.
The joys of having an older brother who left his Cheech and Chong albums in an unlocked cupboard!
Also: YOU PEOPLE SUCK! 106 comments about Newsweek’s bizplan–and not a SINGLE mention of underpants gnomes.
Little Dreamer
OT, but regarding this title, did you know that ovaries are intelligent? I lost an ovary in 2003, and my remaining ovary knew when the other one was gone, so doubled up and made sure to produce an egg every month instead of averaging about every other month. I wish I had half the menstrual cycles, instead I get double the cramps and pain.
Probably more info than anyone wanted. ;)
Cyrus
@AhabTRuler:
I don’t know, I like(d) it. I haven’t seen a Cracked paper magazine in 10+ years probably, but I’ve stumbled on the Web site a few times, and laughed.
@Little Dreamer:
Did you check between the sofa cushions?
omen
what about publications that are shockingly overpriced because people write off the cost of the subscription from their taxes?
Cat Lady
@Shawn in ShowMe:
When news is reported straight, based on facts, there isn’t outrage at the reporting. An example of this is Bush’s signing statements, which were irrefutable and had gone unreported, or the Walter Reed expose, which was undeniably outrageous by everyone’s measure. The blogosphere outrage comes when the reporting is shoddy – when it’s deliberately wrong, like Judith Miller’s “reporting”, or when the news is not actually news but rather anonymously sourced rumors or gossip which serves to promote a hidden agenda, or stenography without reporting the relative merits of the arguments presented, or presented in the form of false equivalencies, or presented without any context which makes the information meaningless. This happens all the time, and that’s why good reporters provide such an invaluable service. The difference between the left and right blogosphere is that the left wants the reporters to do a better job, and the right wants them to be persecuted for doing a better job. It infuriates me to hear media members insist since everyone’s mad at them, they must be doin’ it right. That’s the problem.
Little Dreamer
@Cyrus:
Damn, I knew I missed something. ;)
bedtimeforbonzo
To further the point that Schrodinger’s cat mentioned about the challenge of rebranding:
I was a longtime subscriber of The Sporting News, another example of Old Media read by old fogeys like me. One day not that long ago, with little fanfare or advance notice, I opened my mailbox and received something that bore no resemblance to The Sporting News I grew up with and still enjoyed. Instead, it was clear right away that I was reading a ripoff of ESPN The Magazine, right down to the every-other-week delivery (versus weekly).
Like the ESPN product, the new TSN mag featured loads of snark. It was evident that good, concise writing, and information, was no longer a priority. Fanboy journalism was. The unkindest cut of all was the reliance of articles, or what passes for them, authored by current and former jocks. (Obsidian Wings regular John Thullen could riff much better than I on newsmakers reporting on the very news they make, so I won’t try.)
The Sporting News’ trademark stat wraps from the week gone by and varied statistical takes on season leaders had become passe; same thing with the newsy notes on all of the pro teams. Yet these were my two favorite departments, especially during football and baseball seasons. (The Internet is ripe with this stuff, and younger fans absorb and obsess over it 24/7. Clearly, I was no longer part of TSN’s targeted demographic.)
I gave the new TSN two issues and had seen enough, got the number to cancel my subscription — the lady on the other end took my call robotically and dispassionately — and in short order my refund check of $40 or so was in the mail.
Ironcially, I subscribe to ESPN The Magazine — yes, I am a newspaper and magazine junkie; plus, a two-year trial sub at $19.97 was hard to pass up (I feel the mag is nothing more than a quick bathroom read and I would not re-up at a higher price). Bottom line: I did not need two ESPN The Magazines and, frankly, felt betrayed by TSN. Hopefully, the changeover has paid off for the historic publication.
Post script: One of the best sports articles I have read in recent years appeared in The Sporting News last summer. It was about Cowboys offensive coordinator Jason Garrett, his brothers and his dad, a longtime coaching guru at all levels, and their informal football camp. Basically, it’s open to any of the neighborood kids who show up — the Garrett clan runs it every summer at their Jersey Shore beachfront property. Trust me, it reads much better and touchingly than I describe. TSN would not run that story today; neither would ESPN; neither would any website known to man. Sports Illustrated might, although its quality is being diminished by an increase of fanboy journalism.
Steve D
I don’t know if this will work in the US, but in England, there’s a computer gaming magazine called The Edge that charges around $100 per year for a subscription (as opposed to the typical $20-30 we pay here). The price keeps readership lower, but they are profitable. And they have some of the best content in the industry.
sameasiteverwas
@LittleDreamer,
You don’t have to worry about that problem; it will be solved actuarially.
bedtimeforbonzo
Sorry for the strange way my link to The Sporting News article turned out. At least it worked.
While I was perusing the TSN site, I saw this and thought I would pass it along to NFL fans here. I welcome the news: Tony Kornheiser is out and Jon Gruden is in the Monday Night Football booth. If he is candid and doesn’t play it safe, Gruden should offer insightful and entertaining color.
bedtimeforbonzo
Omen: “2 things i remember about newsweek. one, they revealed the fact that the pentagon brass and ashcroft switched from flying commercial to private charter planes in the weeks leading up to 9/11. the other, early in the afghanistan war, they made a war atrocity the cover story with screaming headlines that blared WAR CRIMES. that shocked the sh*t out of me. time would never have done that.”
I see the anti-Newsweek crowd did not notice Omen’s observation, or this sort of original reporting that Newsweek has done.
Whether it’s Newsweek or Time, a timely cover — especially a blunt, brutal photograph or a blaring headline like WAR CRIMES — can make a very strong and unique impact on the country.
The sad part is, as Omen notes, “problem with the magazine though was they’d mention something controversial once, but then, too often, they wouldn’t nurture it and give it any sustained energy.”
The blogosphere and cable news — especially Rachel Maddow’s program — have been especially good at giving sustained energy to the torture debate. Time and Newsweek have mostly dropped the ball.
HyperIon
@Steve D:
Is there much investigative reporting on gamers in the UK? ;=)
James Gary
I don’t know if this will work in the US, but in England, there’s a computer gaming magazine called The Edge that charges around $100 per year for a subscription…
If that’s one of the Future Publications magazines, I say: they rock. As a professional 3D artist, I’ve found their 3D World well worth the price (~US$150/yr when you include the overseas postage.) I really wish more American magazines would adopt their model: give the readers unique quality content that’s worth paying for.
Screamin' Demon
Actually, it’s “R. Zimmerman.” You’re supposed to notice the speaker is imitating Bob Dylan.
Janet Strange
@bedtimeforbonzo: I’m unclear as to your objection to what I said, which was that people are increasingly wanting to read their news online. It has nothing to do with the reporting – I don’t believe that reporting is inextricably linked to paper and ink. Good reporting can be published on the internet just as easily (more easily) as on paper.
The problem is how to pay for the reporting. Ink on paper classifieds and full page ads by local auto dealerships aren’t paying the bills anymore. Attempting to make the readers pay enough to make up the lost income is not going to work, any more than it ever has. The newspapers need to look at who has always paid the bills – the advertisers – and figure out how to get them to pay enough to support the reporting. They can’t just complain that web ads don’t pay enough. They need to start thinking about how to increase their web ad revenue. Unless they can find a way to support journalism without advertising – which seems less likely.
BTW, the “sources” I was referring to are not newspaper articles. I meant the primary sources that the reporters have used to write the article. Thomas at the LIbrary of Congress to read the entire text of a bill discussed in the article. The CDC in an article on H1N1. Historical documents. Etc. Those of us who are now used to getting our news from the web expect links. Paper doesn’t have links. Newspaper websites have been slow to figure this out, but I’m noticing that more and more are beginning to include links in their reporting. I mean useful links, not just links to definitions of words or stock quotes when a company is mentioned.
And I do think, when reporters have to show their primary sources, the reporting gets better. For one thing, it increases the likelihood that the reporter actually has primary sources and is not just regurgitating a press release.
Brian J
It depends on if a smaller but presumably more wealthy, educated, and/or elite demographic can make the magazine more money. This seems like the sort of trend all sorts of media formats are taking, no matter what sort of demographic the institution in question is chasing. Specialization in economics, or something like that.
It makes a lot of sense if you think that there are a lot of ways to get the same information, particularly if you did what Newsweek used to do. However, it seems like a pretty big jump to cut the circulation in half, because, after all, you can’t keep cutting your circulation into smaller chunks. Eventually, you won’t have anyone left. But who knows? They have access to the information that we don’t have.
bedtimeforbonzo
Janet Strange: Sorry if I came off sounding harsh or if I misunderstood you. Actually, reading things again, plus your new comment, I think we are mostly in agreement and, most importantly, clearly care about the future of news and news gathering.
There is no doubt that most people these days want, and get, their news online. (I obviously don’t object to that — my rub is when the MSM is simply being cast aside as obsolete or invaluable, when much of it, is better than what is on the Internet, already on the Internet, and being used on the Internet by the very people who criticize.)
I think it will be a long and difficult process of trial and error — which Newsweek is doing — before most news outlets find a business model that is successful.
Over at my regular hangout, Obsidian Wings, on a related topic, I mentioned that the search for profitability is the Internet’s Holy Grail.
Over here yesterday, I mentioned in response to Cat Lady how Amazon providing a product — we were simply calling it Journalism, meaning good journalism — is, in theory, a good idea but in practice would no doubt be costly, if not workable.
Using the example that a Dana Priest’s work would be worth purchasing and supplied by Amazon, I noted the obvious and less-than-obvious costs she would probably require as a full-time employee: a low six-figure salary, health insurance, a 401k plan, office space and equipment, and, something I forgot to mention: legal backup and support, something that all big news organizations like WaPo or Newsweek or NBC provide and is necessary in today’s lawsuit world — and a cost, I am sure, that goes overlooked by the MSM’s critics. None of this fits Amazon’s streamlined business model.
But American business and American media are enterprising.
While many have and will continue to fail and die off in this new media age, some will survive and thrive. I hope to be around to see it.
Thanks for engaging me here.
Anoniminous
The only time I read Time and Newsweek is in the dentist’s office. But I do read ’em – months late – and there’s a singular problem with this:
When
1. Your reporters don’t know shit from shinola about anything
2. Your writers wouldn’t can’t write a coherent argument because (see #1, above.)
Until they find some reporters and writers who can actually report and write “high educated high-information readers” will continue to bypass Newsweek.
Even at twice the price.