It’s been on life support for a while, and once journalism’s Kevorkian, Tina Brown, attached the parasitic Daily Beast to the sinking ship, it was almost certain, but now we have confirmation: Newsweek will stop printing at the end of the year.
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[…] 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 […]
schrodinger's cat
So now what happens to our favorite blogger, the blogger we love to mock?
beltane
I am so sorry for your loss. Well, no, but whatever.
rlrr
Newsweek was still alive?
greennotGreen
I used to subscribe to Newsweek – until their cover story was about how David Kaczynski “betrayed” his brother Ted. That was so lacking in understanding about mental illness and one sibling’s love for another that I wrote them and asked them to terminate my subscription right then and there. I think they’ve only gone farther downhill since then.
mistermix
@schrodinger’s cat: Newsweek is dead, the Daily Beast lives on. Tina’s writing the obit so it’s clear that she came in, took over, and won.
NorthLeft12
Boo Freaking Hoo. Sounds like they will continue to provide
enlightening and challenging investigative journalismtheir crap over the Google. Hurrah.NorthLeft12
Boo Freaking Hoo. Sounds like they will continue to provide
enlightening and challenging investigative journalismtheir crap over the Google. Hurrah.arguingwithsignposts
If only it’s failure would spell the end of Tina brown’s career. Sadly no.
Derelict
And ‘m going to guess that the bidding has al;ready started to secure Tina’s services for some other publication.
She’s the poster-child for the failing-ever-upward principle. I can’t think of a single publication she’s been associated with that actually prospered under her hand (though she’s left a whole string of them smoking on the side of the road). Yet, she’s never without a million-dollar-plus job offer to go ruin someone else’s magazine.
PeakVT
Too bad it won’t take a bunch of shitty bloggers with it.
jon
I can’t wait to read the Newsweekington Post for free. Oh wait, it’s subscription? Uh… what’s the point? What will they have that the free sources won’t? No popup ads? Andrew Sullivan cover stories? Celebrity nip slips and upskirts?
I’ll take the answer offline, where it can be safely ignored.
Mudge
Newsweek is no longer Newsweek without the print edition, no matter the name. It’s sort of like Medicare not being Medicare after there are vouchers. Or New Coke.
Big R
Irony: I am seeing ads on this page for a “death with dignity” book.
jeffreyw
Now that I have a tablet to take with me to the Dr’s office I doubt that I would have noticed. To be fair, given the usual age of the magazines in the rack, it may take up to six years for them to disappear.
the Conster
How would we know, and why would we care? Newsweek
iswas the print version of Abe Vigoda.dmsilev
@schrodinger’s cat: In an ideal world, he’d have to go get a real job somewhere.
Sadly, we live in an imperfect world.
Short Bus Bully
It’s about the shitty writing and the feeling that they needed to try and compete on the level of the tabloids. Once they became just another tabloid… Ah, fuck it. Who really cares?
Snarki, child of Loki
And so once-proud Newsweek joins the ranks of publications that once were ink on paper, and now are bits in the ether.
Like the Weekly World News.
I miss the WWN a *lot* more than I’ll miss Newsweek. WWN had more credibility, for one, and moar Bat-Boy also, too.
SensesFail
Thank FSM. They deserve at least as much for publishing this recent cover story.
Larkspur
I agree with most of the comments so far, and I swear to dog I am not being a concern troll, but I hate to think of the collateral damage: a lot of support staff and businesses around the offices (like diners, suppliers, etc.) will lose business. And are the remaining staffers going to work from home, or will they be monopolizing tables at Starbucks? Tina Brown I do not worry about. It’s just weird to see, again, how lucrative a scorched-earth policy can be with print and paper.
Rusty
Is TNR all digital? What other former print magazines are now in digital form only?
SenyorDave
@Snarki, child of Loki: I think Bat-Boy grew up to be Paul Ryan.
Villago Delenda Est
@arguingwithsignposts:
Tina’s in the Club. Once you’re in the Club, no fuckup is too great to be removed from it. See Jack Welch, Carly Fiorina, George W. Bush, etc.
Which is why, when The Revolution comes, the members of the Club will be hunted down like the dogs they are and destroyed.
Newsweek lost me back in the 90’s (I had been a subscriber since I was in high school) with their approach to the Clinton Administration. It was so obviously in the Fools for Scandal mode that there was no way I’d read, even for free, let alone pay, for such garbage.
KXB
@Derelict:
That is the part that upsets me. Tina Brown has one of the worst track records in publishing, yet she continues to find highly renumerative employment. Meanwhile, some journalist will lose his/her job.
Before we get too giddy about the decline of Old Media, I’m wondering how New Media will pay for original reporting. New Media is very good at poking holes in stories, linking primary sources. But you do need to pay someone to do the drudgery – whether it is sitting in on a city council meeting, or trying to sit down with a jirga in Afghanistan.
David
How will people waiting to see the dentist fill their time?
Tom Levenson
Newsweek and Beast were both losing money when they merged. The idea was to allow DB to promote high concept covers — Newsweek goes Vanity Fair. (Remember former intellectual Niall Ferguson’s work? Me either.)
Now Beastliness will persist on its own. I don’t see any reason to believe that the site, still led by the same management that couldn’t make an economic go of it before the merger, will prosper now.
As for survivors of the wreckage — if I were Andrew, I wouldn’t worry; he’s a brand on his own and has shown he can move from venue to venue and retain his audience.
McArdle? I might be just a bit nervous in her shoes.
Warren Terra
Maybe Niall Ferguson can troll the country with a fact-free screed on the cover of each of the remaining ten-or-so issues.
Keith
I picked one up at a doctor’s office recently and was surprised at how thin it had gotten. IIRC it had a single substantive article (at about 3 pages, including pictures) and the rest was ads and a few paragraph-long fluff pieces.
ThresherK
@rlrr: As per Cal Coolidge, “How could you tell?”
Forum Transmitted Disease
Kevorkian only killed people who wanted to die.
Tina Brown kills everything she touches.
anibundel
Breaking: After years of failure, Tina Brown finally manages to fold print magazine.
Higgs Boson's Mate
While sitting in the waiting room last time I went to the doctor I heard a tiny voice crying “Braaaaaaiiins! Braaaaaaiiins!” Took me a while to realize that it was a two year old copy of Newsweek mouldering in a pile of other old magazines on the table.
Bulworth
Is Time for Kids still in print?
Elizabelle
Newsweek deserved a more dignified end.
Tina Brown used it as a vehicle to print that appalling Niall Ferguson “anti-Obama” screed that made it clear Newsweek does not value fact-checking. Just eyeballs.
I don’t read Daily Beast either. Takes too long to load, and too sensational and simplistic.
Argive
@greennotGreen:
They actually wrote that? Wow. I met David Kaczynski when I was in college; this group I was in brought him to campus to give a speech. He’s one of the most moral, upstanding people I’ve ever met. He basically bared his soul to a bunch of strangers for 90 minutes, talking about the incredible struggle he went through before turning his brother in. It was quite something.
Violet
So I guess Andrew Sullivan killed Newsweek?
cmorenc
@David:
Most dentist’s offices have several magazine subscriptions devoted to Caribbean vacations, gourmet food, hip-person health magazines like “Men’s Health” and the women’s equivalent thereof, and sometimes semi-escapist adventure mags like “Outside”. They’re also disproportionately fond of installing tropical fish tanks in the waiting room.
JUST BE GRATEFUL most of them don’t put more politically substantive magazines out in the waiting room; a disproportionate percentage of dentists see themselves as yeoman small-business entrepreneurs struggling against the oppressive hand of government (that taxation and regulation thing interfering with their ability to take Caribbean vacations and run their businesses) in precisely the image Mitt Romney tries to paint of such. Better tropical fish tanks and non-substantive mags than a teevee tuned to FoxNews in the waiting room. They’re an R-leaning demographic if ever there was one.
PaulW
@schrodinger’s cat:
The print version is dying, yes? does the Daily Beast still endure?
Jorge
So, did Brown hasten the inevitable trend away from print or is the belief that print isn’t as dead as people think?
Culture of Truth
One more cover with Jesus and they will rise from the dead
PaulW
@Violet:
I doubt Sully had a hand in the revenue woes the magazine endured (unless he was commanding a seven-figure salary like Rush Limbaugh). That’s more a fault of the leadership upstairs (Ms. Brown).
Forum Transmitted Disease
@KXB: They don’t have to. Turns out plenty of people will do it for free.
I have four friends who are professional, card-carrying lifelong journalists. One of them is still working, albeit at starvation-level wages. He had to move to Spain. Two of them didn’t count on retiring in their early fifties, but got canned by their publications, and have realized they’ll never work again – at least for money.
The last one married rich, but that’s not an option for everyone.
blingee
People still buy magazines? I’m surprised people still buy newspapers. It’s all stuff I read on the internet the day before. The saying “useless as yesterdays newspaper” now applies to todays newspaper.
Poopyman
Charlie got there first. Again.
Hal
Forum Transmitted Disease
@cmorenc: Dentists gave money to pass Prop 8 out here in California more than every other occupation combined. Not sure what’s up with dentists, but it’s pretty clear that a lot of them aren’t into the idea of gay marriage.
Culture of Truth
Generic mags like Newswek started getting crappier and crappier just as the Internet exploded with free quality content that was also timely, so perhaps this was inevitable.
As content moves online, the way I see it providers have three choices, one go out of business or pursue another line of work (I’m not being sarcastic, maybe PR or consulting, etc) two, provider truly high quality niche content that people will be willing to pay for, even if it’s a small amount spread out over many readers, or three, chase eyeballs, which could mean free quality content, niche or otherwise, or loads of cat videos, TMZ-style gossip, or reliable and interesting news.
grandpa john
@David: At ages 75 , my wife and I spend a lot of time in doctors offices, my solution is to carry my Kindle , loaded with free books , with me,. I find this a much better solution than old copies of People or Golf Digest or Field & Stream.
Joel
Good riddance. Perhaps Niall Ferguson can crawl into that hole beneath the dustbin of history, where he belongs.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Derelict:
Weird how almost every macro problem we’re facing right now seems to rhyme with this story.
‘Accountability’ is for the Little People.
dr. bloor
@David: Highlights for Children. It has more intellectual heft than Newsweek, and Gallant to fact-check Goofus Sullivan.
Violet
@KXB:
Remember the story that came out a few months ago about offshored writers who were “covering” local news? I think they work in the Philippines or something and write for a company that sells stories to local papers. They changed their names to sound more “American” on the bylines. Of course local reporters had lost their jobs.
The story I heard about it on the radio (NPR, I think) talked about how it meant that no, they didn’t have that reporter at city hall. This company just had people write from the press release or something. People in the area suffer because they don’t have any idea what their city council is doing outside of what the city council, or company, or whatever wants them to know from press releases.
Origuy
My dentist has Smithsonian magazines, which I never get to finish because she gets me in pretty fast. I think she’s a liberal, too, because she’s in a Renaissance Faire re-enacter group.
Paul in KY
When thay put that harridan on the cover they became dead to me. Good riddance.
Amir Khalid
Reposted from an open thread:
gocart mozart
They still print Newsweek?
Roy G.
Newsweek was the gateway drug for FOX News. Good Riddance, and I hope Time follows you to the grave!
sherparick
The mass weekly was a creation of the mid-19th century technical revolution of railroads and cheap mechanical printing. Harper’s Weekly was the standard, and if somehow the crew that ran it from 1857 to 1887 could be resurrected, it would be great today (love to see what Thomas Nast would do with Mittens). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper's_Weekly#Early_1900s
Then Henry Luce came up with “Time,” which a great concept for 1920s to the 1970s.
However, even before the Internet, TV, particularly with the arrival of cable news, started eating at the weeklys’ raison d’etre. After the Internet, who needs a printed weekly summary of events when one can check Google news, Yahoo, or the NY Times web page?
So, unlike the printed book (hard covers I expect will endure because of the tactile experience and writing side notes and softcovers, with less certainity since they still are useful if reading in places where you might be anxious seeing your Tablet, Kindle, or Nook lost or destroyed) the Internet basically toasted the business model of the weekly news magazines as a summary of the important events of the last week, with features on stories of more enduring or recurring significance. Does anyone remember when U.S. News and World Report (my Mom’s old work place) stopped publishing? Their whole business model now is publishing “College” “guides” and other top 100 ratings.
I will always be grateful for the Newsweek of the 1960s and early seventies for their terrific coverage of the Vietnam War, the politics and discontents of 1968, and the Nixon era. If you have a chance, go back and read those articles from 1968-69.
themann1086
@SensesFail: Yeah, my comment to my family (my aunt has a subscription; when I asked why, she admitted she didn’t know) was “Newsweek is trying to kill me.” There’s also a terribly-written article about “men DNA in women brains OMG”. It’s just such… shlock!
Brachiator
@cmorenc:
My dentist’s office has coffee table books, especially ones about Los Angeles and California history. One was so good I actually ordered it.
No fish tanks. A big screen TV with a looping faux news cast infomercial about various dental issues.
@sherparick:
Agree that news weeklies are especially vulnerable to the Internet and other sources. On the other hand, google news, Yahoo, etc are news aggregators. They don’t do any original reporting or commentary. And the NY Times is disappearing more and more behind a paywall.
We’ve got more stuff competing for our attention, but less in the way of actual original reporting.
Mr Furious
This is long overdue. No news magazine that wants to be taken seriously or have any kind of credibility at all puts Tina Brown in charge and guts the brand by tying it to something called “The Daily Beast”
I work in magazines and usually mourn the demise of any title, but to this I say good riddance.
KXB
@Violet:
While a Presidential election grabs the most headlines and space, it is often the boring local races that will have a more immediate impact on people’s lives. As those races are given less coverage, this allows money to wield greater influence.
Another Halocene Human
@cmorenc: My dentist has decorated his office with vintage dental paraphenalia. Some of it’s a little disturbing, most is just cute (and behind glass). I think it’s cool that my dentist is into dentistry. His hygienists are really awesome. Keeps my business. I pay cash and the rates are reasonable.
I saw some quotes in the fancy part of town and they were charging 3-5 times what I was paying for the same services!!
The worst part is that a lot of that greedball rate just goes to posh side of town rent.
El Tiburon
Fuck Newsweek in the face.
I subscribed to that rag until that british douchebag wrote the biggest fluff piece on Bush.
What a joke of a rag.
Hope all of them go to hell!
Humanities Grad
@Villago Delenda Est:
I must vigorously protest your likening of Jack Welch, Carly Fiorina, and Tina Brown to dogs.
Dogs are loving, loyal, and noble creatures. What have the poor dogs ever done to deserve this kind of associational slander?
Another Halocene Human
@KXB: This is very true where I live now and the only people complaining are some libertarian weirdos and some nutty, greedy teabaggers.
Brachiator
@Violet:
Expect more of this, at least in the short term. Newspapers and newsmagazines are dying. What’s replacing them are opinion sites and amateur news sites.
And consider this. With the election coming up, there are fewer newspapers which offer a guide to national, state and local elections. You certainly cannot depend on TV and radio for this.
And since not everyone owns a computer or has reliable Internet access, I have to wonder whether democracy is being harmed by the loss of newspapers and magazines and the spotty access and quality of alternative media.
pseudonymous in nc
The New Yorker and the Economist seem to be doing okay, but they have very different approaches to subscriptions — i.e. they ask money of their readers in exchange for their product, instead of bulking up the sub numbers with cheap annual rates and using those to set their ad card. Also, the demographic difference is pretty telling. Sports Illustrated survives, too.
We joke about the dentist’s office, but the idea once was that those newsweeklies could provide inoffensive topical distraction to middle America. Not longer the case.
(My barber subscribes to Western Horseman, which I find utterly fascinating. It’s a glimpse into a culture that’s totally outside my field of reference.)
Brachiator
@pseudonymous in nc:
Don’t know about The New Yorker, but the Economist charges a relatively high price for subscriptions, but then turns around and charges advertisers premium rates on the theory that they are getting access to upscale potential customers.
Gawker, of all places, has a good story on Newsweek’s problems, and includes this little nugget.
Problems embedding links, but more can be found, hopefully, here.
stateofthemedia.org/2012/magazines-are-hopes-for-tablets-overdone/
Ruckus
@David:
How will people waiting to see the dentist fill their time?
I’m going to do I like I have for years, twiddle my thumbs. It is a more useful pass time than reading newsweek has been for a very long time.
McJulie
Back in the mid 1980s, I was a journalism major for three years. Cable news was just a baby and bulletin boards were all the rage in the CompSci department. Print journalism was already seen to be “dying” because of television. USA Today was supposedly an answer to that — make print journalism more like TV! And that was seen as the model to follow, but even as an undergrad, I thought it was the opposite of the approach they should be taking. Print could never be faster or more flashy than television, but it could be *better* — clearer, more interesting, more in-depth.
Nobody cared what I thought.
dance around in your bones
I lived in Mexico for 16 years, and friends would bring me magazines and newspapers from the States. Over the years, I watched both Time and Newsweek getting thinner and thinner, and dumber and dumber. It seemed like they were written for a 6th grader.
Lost interest in both magazines many years ago. RIP, I guess.
max
@the Conster:
except that Abe Vigoda displayed talent and value.
Bitter Scribe
They lost me for good with that asinine “Pulling the Plug on Grandma” cover.
I wonder if “Newsweek” will come back periodically in various zombie forms, like Life, which, after its death, reappeared as a monthly, a quarterly, a newspaper supplement and, for all I know, a bubblegum wrapper.