 | |
 Cover of the September 5, 1983, issue | |
| Editor-in-chief | Jennifer Cunningham[1] |
|---|---|
| Former editors |
|
| Categories | Magazine,publisher |
| Publisher | Dev Pragad, president and CEO[4][5] |
| Total circulation (2015) | 100,000[6] |
| First issue | February 17, 1933; 92 years ago (1933-02-17) |
| Company |
|
| Country | United States |
| Based in | New York City |
| Language | English, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Romanian, Spanish,Rioplatense Spanish, Arabic,Serbian |
| Website | newsweek |
| ISSN | 0028-9604 |
| OCLC | 818916146 |
Newsweek is an American weeklynews magazine. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933,Newsweek was widely distributed during the 20th century and had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned byDev Pragad, the president andchief executive officer (CEO), and Johnathan Davis, who sits on the board; each owning 50% of the company.[7]
In August 2010, revenue decline promptedthe Washington Post Company to sell the publication to the audio pioneerSidney Harman for one US dollar and an assumption of the magazine's liabilities.[8] Later that year,Newsweek merged with the news and opinion websiteThe Daily Beast, formingThe Newsweek Daily Beast Company, later calledNewsBeast.Newsweek was jointly owned by the estate of Harman and the diversified American media and Internet companyIAC.[9][10]Newsweek continued to experience financial difficulties leading to the suspension of print publication at the end of 2012.
In 2013,IBT Media acquiredNewsweek from IAC; the acquisition included theNewsweek brand and its online publication but did not includeThe Daily Beast.[11] IBT Media, which also owns theInternational Business Times, rebranded itself as Newsweek Media Group and in 2014 relaunchedNewsweek in both print and digital form. In 2018, IBT Media split into two companies, Newsweek Publishing and IBT Media. The split was accomplished one day before thedistrict attorney of Manhattan indicted Etienne Uzac, the co-owner of IBT Media, on fraud charges.[12][13][14]
UnderNewsweek's current co-owner and CEO Dev Pragad, the business is profitable, growing 20–30% per year[citation needed]; according toComscore, its monthly unique visitors rose from about 30 million to 48 million between May 2019 and May 2022.[citation needed] Since Pragad became CEO in 2016, readership has grown to 100-million readers per month, the highest in its 90-year history.[citation needed][15][16] TheHarvard Business School published a case study of the company in 2021.[17]
News-Week was launched in 1933 byThomas J. C. Martyn, a former foreign news editor forTime. He obtained financial backing from a group of U.S. stockholders "which includedWard Cheney, of the Cheney silk family,John Hay Whitney, andPaul Mellon, son ofAndrew W. Mellon".[18]: 259 Paul Mellon's ownership inNews-Week marked "the first attempt of the Mellon family to function journalistically on a national scale".[18]: 260 The group of original owners invested aroundUS$2.5 million (equivalent to $60.73 million in 2024). Other large stockholders prior to 1946 were public utilities investment banker Stanley Childs and Wall Street corporate lawyer Wilton Lloyd-Smith.
JournalistSamuel T. Williamson served as the first editor-in-chief ofNews-Week. The first issue of the magazine was dated February 17, 1933. Sevenphotographs from the week's news were printed on the first issue's cover.[19] In 1937,News-Week merged with the weekly journalToday, which had been founded in 1932 by future New York Governor and diplomatW. Averell Harriman andVincent Astor of the prominentAstor family. As a result of the deal, Harriman and Astor provided $600,000 (equivalent to $13,124,000 in 2024) in venture capital funds and Vincent Astor became both the chairman of the board and its principal stockholder between 1937 and his death in 1959.[citation needed]
In 1937Malcolm Muir took over as president and editor-in-chief. He changed the name toNewsweek, emphasized interpretive stories, introduced signed columns, and launched international editions.[citation needed]
The magazine was purchased byThe Washington Post Company in 1961.[20]Osborn Elliott was named editor ofNewsweek in 1961 and became the editor-in-chief in 1969.
In 1970,Eleanor Holmes Norton represented sixty female employees ofNewsweek who had filed a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission thatNewsweek had a policy of allowing only men to be reporters.[21] The women won the suit with the support of theAmerican Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) andNewsweek agreed to allow women to be reporters.[21] The day the claim was filed,Newsweek's cover article was "Women in Revolt", covering the feminist movement; the article was written by a woman who had been hired on a freelance basis since there were no female reporters at the magazine.[22]
Edward Kosner became editor from 1975 to 1979 after directing the magazine's extensive coverage of theWatergate scandal that led to the resignation of PresidentRichard Nixon in 1974.Richard M. Smith became chairman in 1998. Also in 1998, the magazine inaugurated its "Best High Schools in America" list,[23] a ranking of publicsecondary schools based on theChallenge Index, which measures the ratio ofAdvanced Placement orInternational Baccalaureate exams taken by students to the number of graduating students that year, regardless of the scores earned by students or the difficulty in graduating. Schools with averageSAT scores above 1300 or averageACT scores above 27 are excluded from the list; these are categorized instead as "Public Elite" High Schools. In 2008, there were 17 Public Elites.[24]
Smith resigned as board chairman in December 2007.[25]
During 2008–2009,Newsweek undertook a dramatic business restructuring.[26][27] Citing difficulties in competing with online news sources to provide unique news in a weekly publication, the magazine refocused its content on opinion and commentary beginning with its May 24, 2009, issue. Its subscriber base shrank from 3.1 million to 2.6 million in early 2008, to 1.9 million in July 2009 and then to 1.5 million in January 2010—a decline of 50% in one year.Jon Meacham, editor-in-chief from 2006 to 2010,[3] described his strategy as "counterintuitive" as it involved discouraging subscription renewals and nearly doubling subscription prices as it sought a more affluent subscriber base for its advertisers.[28] During this period, the magazine also laid off staff. While advertising revenues were down almost 50% compared to the prior year, expenses were also diminished, whereby the publishers hopedNewsweek would return to profitability.[29]
The financial results for 2009 as reported by The Washington Post Company showed that advertising revenue forNewsweek was down 37% in 2009 and the magazine division reported an operating loss for 2009 ofUS$29.3 million (equivalent to $42.94 million in 2024) compared to a loss ofUS$16 million in 2008 (equivalent to $23.37 million in 2024).[30] During the first quarter of 2010, the magazine lost nearlyUS$11 million (equivalent to $15.86 million in 2024).[31]
By May 2010,Newsweek had been losing money for the past two years and was put up for sale.[32] The sale attracted international bidders. One bidder was Syrian entrepreneur Abdulsalam Haykal, CEO of Syrian publishing company Haykal Media, who brought together a coalition of Middle Eastern investors with his company. Haykal later claimed his bid was ignored byNewsweek's bankers,Allen & Co.[33]
The magazine was sold to audio pioneerSidney Harman on August 2, 2010, forUS$1 in exchange for assuming the magazine's financial liabilities.[8][34] Harman's bid was accepted over three competitors.[35] Jon Meacham left the magazine upon completion of the sale. Sidney Harman was the husband ofJane Harman, at that time a member of Congress from California.
At the end of 2010,Newsweek merged with the online publicationThe Daily Beast, following extensive negotiations between the respective proprietors.Tina Brown,The Daily Beast's editor-in-chief, became editor of both publications. The new entity,The Newsweek Daily Beast Company, was 50% owned byIAC/InterActiveCorp and 50% by Harman.[9][10][36]
Newsweek was redesigned in March 2011.[37] The newNewsweek moved the "Perspectives" section to the front of the magazine, where it served as a summary of the past week's news reported on byThe Daily Beast. More room was made available in the front of the magazine for columnists, editors, and special guests. A new "News Gallery" section featured two-page spreads of photographs from the week with a brief article accompanying each one. The "NewsBeast" section featured short articles, a brief interview with a newsmaker, and several graphs and charts for quick reading in the style ofThe Daily Beast. This is where theNewsweek staple "Conventional Wisdom" was located. Brown retainedNewsweek's focus on in-depth, analytical features and original reporting on politics and world affairs, as well as a new focus on longer fashion and pop culture features. A larger culture section named "Omnivore" featured art, music, books, film, theater, food, travel, and television, including a weekly "Books" and "Want" section. The back page was reserved for a "My Favorite Mistake" column written by celebrity guest columnists about a mistake they made that helped shape who they are.[37]
On July 25, 2012, the company operatingNewsweek indicated the publication was likely to go digital to cover its losses and could undergo other changes by the next year.Barry Diller, chairman of the conglomerate IAC/InterActiveCorp, said his firm was looking at options since its partner in theNewsweek/Daily Beast operation had pulled out.[38]
At the end of 2012, the company discontinued the American print edition after 80 years of publication, citing the increasing difficulty of maintaining a paper weekly magazine in the face of declining advertising and subscription revenues and increasing costs for print production and distribution.[39] The online edition was renamedNewsweek Global.[40]
In April 2013, IAC chairman and founder Barry Diller said at theMilken Global Conference that he "wished he hadn't bought"Newsweek because his company had lost money on the magazine and called the purchase a "mistake" and a "fool's errand".[41]
On August 3, 2013,IBT Media acquiredNewsweek from IAC on terms that were not disclosed; the acquisition included theNewsweek brand and its online publication, but did not includeThe Daily Beast.[11] On March 7, 2014, IBT Media relaunched a print edition ofNewsweek[42] with a cover story on the alleged creator ofBitcoin that was criticized for lacking substantive evidence. The magazine stood by its story.[43]
IBT Media announced that the publication returned to profitability on October 8, 2014.[44] In February 2017, IBT Media appointed Matt McAllester, then editor ofNewsweek International, as global editor-in-chief ofNewsweek.[45]
In January 2018,Newsweek offices were raided by theManhattan District Attorney's office as part of an investigation into co-owner and founder, Etienne Uzac.Columbia Journalism Review noted the probe "focused on loans the company took out to purchase the computer equipment",[46] and severalNewsweek reporters were fired after reporting on the issue. Uzac pleaded guilty to fraud andmoney laundering in 2020.[47]
In September 2018, after completing the strategic structural changes introduced in March of the same year, IBT Media spun offNewsweek into its own entity, Newsweek Publishing LLC, with co-ownership toDev Pragad and Johnathan Davis of IBT Media.[48][14]
In 2020,Newsweek's website hit 100 million unique monthly readers, up from seven million at the start of 2017.[49] In 2021, its revenues doubled to $75 million and traffic increased to 48 million monthly unique visitors in May 2022 from about 30 million in May 2019 according to Comscore.[15][16] The "rebirth" ofNewsweek was the subject of a study byHarvard Business School.[17]
In September 2023,Newsweek announced it would be making use ofgenerative AI in its operations.[50][51] Its AI policy states that generative AI can be used in "writing, research, editing, and other core journalism functions" as long as journalists are involved throughout the process. In 2024, it rolled out an AI video production tool and started hiring an AI-focusedbreaking news team.[51]
In 2003, worldwide circulation was more than 4 million, including 2.7 million in the U.S; by 2010 it reduced to 1.5 million (with newsstand sales declining to just over 40,000 copies per week).Newsweek publishes editions inJapanese,Korean,Polish,Romanian,Spanish,Rioplatense Spanish,Arabic,Turkish,Serbian, as well as anEnglish-languageNewsweek International.Russian Newsweek, published since 2004, was shuttered in October 2010.[52]The Bulletin (an Australian weekly until 2008) incorporated an international news section fromNewsweek.
Based in New York City, the magazine claimed 22 bureaus in 2011: nine in the U.S.:New York City,Los Angeles,Chicago/Detroit,Dallas,Miami,Washington, D.C.,Boston andSan Francisco, and others overseas inLondon,Paris,Berlin,Moscow,Jerusalem,Baghdad,Tokyo,Hong Kong,Beijing,South Asia,Cape Town,Mexico City andBuenos Aires.[citation needed]
According to a 2015 column in theNew York Post, after returning to print publication,Newsweek was selling c. 100,000 copies per month, with staff at that time numbering "about 60 editorial staffers", up from a low of "less than 30 editorial staffers" in 2013, but with plans then to grow the number to "close to 100 in the next year".[6]
In 1970,Eleanor Holmes Norton represented sixty female employees ofNewsweek who had filed a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission thatNewsweek had a policy of allowing only men to be reporters.[21] The women won, andNewsweek agreed to allow women to be reporters.[21] The day the claim was filed,Newsweek's cover article was "Women in Revolt", covering the feminist movement. The article was written by Helen Dudar, a freelancer, in the belief that there were no female writers at the magazine capable of handling the assignment. Those passed over includedElizabeth Peer, who had spent five years in Paris as a foreign correspondent.[53]
The 1986 cover ofNewsweek featured an article that said "women who weren't married by 40 had a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than of finding a husband".[54][55]Newsweek eventually apologized for the story and in 2010 launched a study that discovered 2 in 3 women who were 40 and single in 1986 had married since.[54][56] The story caused a "wave of anxiety" and some "skepticism" amongst professional and highly educated women in the United States.[54][56] The article was cited several times in the 1993Hollywood filmSleepless in Seattle starringTom Hanks andMeg Ryan.[54][57] Comparisons have been made with this article and the current rising issues surrounding the social stigma of unwed women in Asia calledsheng nu.[54]
Former Alaska Governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nomineeSarah Palin was featured on the cover of the November 23, 2009, issue ofNewsweek, with the caption "How do you Solve a Problem Like Sarah?" featuring an image of Palin in athletic attire and posing. Palin herself, theLos Angeles Times and other commentators accusedNewsweek ofsexism for their choice of cover in the November 23, 2009 issue discussing Palin's book,Going Rogue: An American Life. "It's sexist as hell", wrote Lisa Richardson for theLos Angeles Times.[58]Taylor Marsh ofThe Huffington Post called it "the worst case of pictorial sexism aimed at political character assassination ever done by a traditional media outlet".[59] David Brody ofCBN News stated: "This cover should be insulting to women politicians."[60] The cover includes a photo of Palin used in the August 2009 issue ofRunner's World.[61][62][63] The photographer may have breached his contract withRunner's World when he permitted its use inNewsweek, asRunner's World maintained certain rights to the photo until August 2010. It is uncertain, however, whether this particular use of the photo was prohibited.[64]
Minnesota Republican Congresswoman and presidential candidateMichele Bachmann was featured on the cover ofNewsweek magazine in August 2011, dubbed "the Queen of Rage".[65] The photo of her was perceived as unflattering, as it portrayed her with a wide-eyed expression some said made her look "crazy".[66] Conservative commentatorMichelle Malkin called the depiction "sexist",[67] and Sarah Palin denounced the publication.Newsweek defended the cover's depiction of her, saying its other photos of Bachmann showed similar intensity.[68]
In June 2024,Newsweek published an opinion piece with the title "Taylor Swift Is Not a Good Role Model",[69] which claimed that American singer-songwriterTaylor Swift was a bad role model for young girls due to being unmarried, childless and having been in multiple relationships.[70][71] The article was condemned as sexist,[70][71][72][73] including by tennis playerMartina Navratilova.[74]
Unlike most large American magazines,Newsweek has not used fact-checkers since 1996. In 1997, the magazine was forced to recall several hundred thousand copies of a special issue calledYour Child, which advised that infants as young as five months old could safely feed themselveszwieback toasts and chunks of raw carrot (to the contrary, both represent a choking hazard in children this young). The error was later attributed to a copy editor who was working on two stories at the same time.[75]
In 2017,Newsweek published a story claiming that the First Lady of Poland refused to shake U.S. PresidentDonald Trump's hand; fact-checking websiteSnopes described the assertion as "false".[76]Newsweek corrected its story.[76]
In 2018,Newsweek ran a story alleging that President Trump had colored the American flag incorrectly while visiting a classroom;Snopes was unable to corroborate the photographic evidence.[77]
In August 2018,Newsweek incorrectly reported that theSweden Democrats, afar-right party, could win a majority in the 2018 Swedish parliamentary elections. Polls showed that the party was far away from winning a majority. By September 2018,Newsweek's article was still up.[78]
In November 2022, during theMahsa Amini protests in Iran,Newsweek incorrectly reported that Iran had ordered the execution of over 15,000 protesters. The claim was widely shared on social media, including by actressesTrudie Styler,Sophie Turner andViola Davis, and Canadian prime ministerJustin Trudeau. The number was actually derived from estimates from aUnited Nationshuman rightsrapporteur and otherhuman rightsorganizations of how many people were detained in Iran in connection with the protests, andNewsweek later retracted the underlying claim leading to the inference that the people faced a death sentence.[79][80]
In October 2023,Newsweek incorrectly reported that a viral video of U.S. senatorTommy Tuberville falling down a flight of stairs while exiting an airplane had been recorded that month. The reporting byNewsweek drew comparisons to Tuberville's criticism of PresidentJoe Biden similarly tripping on stairways. In reality, the video highlighted byNewsweek was filmed in 2014, nine years prior, before Tuberville's tenure as senator.[81]
TheManhattan District Attorney's office raidedNewsweek's headquarters inLower Manhattan on January 18, 2018, and seized 18 computer servers as part of an investigation related to the company's finances.[13] IBT, which ownedNewsweek at the time, had been under scrutiny for its ties toDavid Jang,[13] a South Korean pastor and the leader of a Christian sect called "the Community".[82] In February 2018, under IBT ownership, severalNewsweek staff were fired and some resigned stating that management had tried to interfere in articles about the investigations.[13][83][84]
Fareed Zakaria, aNewsweek columnist and editor ofNewsweek International, attended a secret meeting on November 29, 2001, with a dozen policy makers, Middle East experts and members of influential policy research organizations that produced a report for PresidentGeorge W. Bush and his cabinet outlining a strategy for dealing with Afghanistan and the Middle East in the aftermath ofSeptember 11, 2001. The meeting was held at the request ofPaul D. Wolfowitz, then theDeputy Secretary of Defense. The unusual presence of journalists, who also includedRobert D. Kaplan ofThe Atlantic Monthly, at such a strategy meeting was revealed inBob Woodward's 2006 bookState of Denial: Bush at War, Part III. Woodward reported in his book that, according to Kaplan, everyone at the meeting signed confidentiality agreements not to discuss what happened. Zakaria toldThe New York Times that he attended the meeting for several hours but did not recall being told that a report for the president would be produced.[85] On October 21, 2006, after verification, theTimes published a correction that stated:
An article in Business Day on October 9 about journalists who attended a secret meeting in November 2001 called by Paul D. Wolfowitz, then Deputy Secretary of Defense, incorrectly referenced Fareed Zakaria, editor ofNewsweek International and aNewsweek columnist, regarding his participation. Mr. Zakaria was not told that the meeting would produce a report for the Bush administration, nor did his name appear on the report.[85]
The cover story of the January 15, 2015, issue, titled "What Silicon Valley Thinks of Women" caused controversy, due to both its illustration, described as "the cartoon of a faceless female in spiky red heels, having her dress lifted up by acursor arrow", and its content, described as "a 5,000-word article on the creepy, sexist culture of the tech industry".[86][87] Among those offended by the cover wereToday Show co-hostTamron Hall, who commented "I think it's obscene and just despicable, honestly."Newsweek editor-in-chief James Impoco explained "We came up with an image that we felt represented what that story said about Silicon Valley ... If people get angry, they should be angry."[87] The article's author,Nina Burleigh, asked, "Where were all these offended people when women likeHeidi Roizen published accounts of having a venture capitalist stick her hand in his pants under a table while a deal was being discussed?"[88]
In January 1998,Newsweek reporterMichael Isikoff was the first reporter to investigate allegations of a sexual relationship between U.S. PresidentBill Clinton andMonica Lewinsky, but the editorsspiked the story.[89] The story soon surfaced online in theDrudge Report.
In the2008 U.S. presidential election, theJohn McCain campaign wrote a lengthy letter to the editor criticizing a cover story in May 2008.[90]
Newsweek journalists have expressed criticism of the editorial quality of its reporting since its change in ownership in 2013. In 2018, formerNewsweek journalistJonathan Alter wrote inThe Atlantic that since being sold to theInternational Business Times in 2013 the magazine had "produced some strong journalism and plenty of clickbait before becoming a painful embarrassment to anyone who toiled there in its golden age".[91] FormerNewsweek writer Matthew Cooper criticizedNewsweek for running multiple inaccurate stories in 2018.[92]
In December 2019, journalist Tareq Haddad said he resigned fromNewsweek when it refused to publish his story about documents published byWikiLeaks concerning theOrganisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons' report into the 2018Douma chemical attack. Haddad said his information was inconvenient to the U.S. government which had retaliated after the chemical attack. ANewsweek spokesperson responded that Haddad "pitched a conspiracy theory rather than an idea for objective reporting.Newsweek editors rejected the pitch."[93]
In August 2020,Chapman University professorJohn C. Eastman wrote aNewsweek op-ed asking ifKamala Harris's parents were U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents at the time of her birth or if they were temporary visitors. He then stated that if they were temporary visitors, then "under the14th Amendment as originally understood", she would not be considered a U.S. citizen andwould not be eligible for her then-current position in the Senate.[94] The op-ed resulted in the spread of 'birther-ism' conspiracy theories surrounding Kamala Harris.[95]Newsweek later apologized for the op-ed, saying they had "entirely failed to anticipate the ways in which the essay would be interpreted, distorted and weaponized" and that their publication of it "was intended to explore a minority legal argument about the definition of who is a 'natural-born citizen' in the United States."[96][97]
In December 2021, comedianJon Stewart criticized Newsweek, declaring in a podcast titled "Clickbait is Arson," that its "business model is ... arson", after the magazine reported that he accusedHarry Potter authorJ. K. Rowling of antisemitism.[98]
In September 2022,Recorder published an investigation on press financing in Romania by the political parties in government. In the investigation, it accusedNewsweek Romania of being paid €8,000 per month (€3,000 by Payment Services directive (PSD) and €5,000 by PNL[expand acronym][99]) to publish positive articles about the government.[100] After the publication of the investigation,Newsweek Romania published an investigation aboutRecorder's owner who is the son of a former communist ambassador and also a nephew of a former KGB general.[101] In response,Recorder's journalists accusedNewsweek Romania of denigrating them.[102]
In November 2022, theSouthern Poverty Law Center reported thatNewsweek had "taken a markedradical right turn by buoying extremists and promoting authoritarian leaders" since it hired conservative political activistJosh Hammer aseditor-at-large. It noted the magazine's elevation ofconspiracy theorists, publication of conspiracy theories aboutCOVID-19, views such as support for a ban on all legal immigration to the United States and denying adults access totrans-affirming medical care, and failure to disclose potentialconflicts of interest in the content published on Hammer's opinion section and podcast.[103]
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Notable contributors or employees have included:
Those who held the positions of president, chairman, or publisher under The Washington Post Company ownership include:
Newsweek publishes World's Best Hospitals annually, a ranking of the best hospitals in 20 countries based on the opinions of medical professionals, patient survey results and key medical performance indicators. The countries monitored are the United States, Canada, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Israel, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, India, Thailand, Australia, Argentina, and Brazil.[113]
On Tuesday, Nancy Cooper, interim editor of Newsweek, was given the job permanently, the company said. Cooper had moved over from her job as editor of International Business Times after the NMG fired Newsweek editor Bob Roe, executive editor Ken Li and investigative reporter Celeste Katz for investigating a story on NMG's possible financial ties to Olivet University, a small San Francisco Bible college founded by followers of controversial South Korean cleric Rev. David Jang.
Elliott became editor in chief in 1969 and within three years took on the additional roles of president, chief executive and chairman.
After serving as Managing Editor of Newsweek for eight years, Meacham was the Editor of the magazine from 2006 to 2010.
As the CEO of Newsweek, Dev Pragad was looking to equip himself with the tools required to take his company to the next level and expand his own leadership skills.
His success saw him acquire the license to publish Newsweek International edition from London between 2014 and 2016. His business acumen lead to the eventual acquisition of the US business of Newsweek in 2016, which was completed in 2018 with him becoming a majority owner of the Newsweek publication.
The circulation is still small. Impoco put it at just "over 100,000."
Pursuant to the transaction, IBT Media will acquire the Newsweek brand and the operations of the online publication, not including The Daily Beast.
Newsweek will be owned by Johnathan Davis and Dev Pragad, with Pragad serving as CEO overseeing all of Newsweek's operations.
After losing a good deal of money with this early partisan of the New Deal, which subsequently reversed policy, Harriman and Astor bought a large interest early in 1937 inNews-Week. There they joined a group of other important stockholders, which included Ward Cheney, of the Cheney silk family, John Hay Whitney, and Paul Mellon, son of Andrew W. Mellon.
Jon Meacham admits it is hard to explain, even to his own people, why chopping Newsweek's circulation in half is a good thing. [...] "It's hugely counterintuitive," the magazine's editor says. "The staff doesn't understand it."
The decreases in revenue for 2009 and the fourth quarter of 2009 are due to advertising revenue declines at Newsweek of 37% and 36%, respectively, resulting from fewer ad pages at both the domestic and international editions. [...] The division had an operating loss in 2009 of $29.3 million, compared to an operating loss of $16.1 million in 2008; operating income for the fourth quarter of 2009 totaled $0.4 million, compared to operating income of $10.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2008.
Folio's Jason Fell was in touch with the CEO of the Syria-based publishing company Haykal Media during the Newsweek auction. [...] The CEO, Abdulsalam Haykal, told Fell early on that he was rounding up investors make a bid for the magazine. After the sale, Fell checked back in with him. Turns out he was ignored by The Washington Post Co.'s banker, Allen & Co.
A deal to sell Newsweek to a 91-year-old stereo equipment magnate will be announced later this afternoon, a move that will signal the end of a half-century of ownership by the Washington Post Company. [...] One person familiar with the sale process confirmed that the Post Company was preparing to make the news public, having formally wrapped up its discussions with Sidney Harman, the magazine's new owner. [...] The financial details of the sale were not known, though one person with knowledge of Mr. Harman's bid said last week that he would pay $1 in exchange for absorbing Newsweek's considerable financial liabilities.
