Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev Pragad, the president and chief executive officer, and Johnathan Davis, who sits on the board; each owns 50% of the company.
In August 2010, revenue decline prompted the Washington Post Company to sell Newsweek to audio pioneer Sidney Harman for one US dollar and an assumption of the magazine's liabilities. Later that year, Newsweek merged with the news and opinion website The Daily Beast, forming The Newsweek Daily Beast Company, later called NewsBeast. Newsweek was jointly owned by the estate of Harman and the company IAC. Newsweek continued to experience financial difficulties, leading to the suspension of print publication at the end of 2012.
In 2013, IBT Media, the owner of the International Business Times, acquired Newsweek from IAC; the acquisition included the Newsweek brand and its online publication, but did not include The Daily Beast. IBT Media rebranded itself as Newsweek Media Group and in 2014 relaunched Newsweek in both print and digital form. In 2018, the company split into Newsweek Publishing and IBT Media. The split was accomplished one day before the Manhattan District Attorney indicted IBT Media co-owner Etienne Uzac on fraud charges.
History
Founding and early years (1933–1961)
News-Week was launched in 1933 by Thomas J. C. Martyn, a former foreign news editor for Time. He obtained financial backing from a group of U.S. stockholders "which included Ward Cheney, of the Cheney silk family, John Hay Whitney, and Paul Mellon, son of Andrew W. Mellon". Paul Mellon's ownership in News-Week marked "the first attempt of the Mellon family to function journalistically on a national scale". The group of original owners invested around million. Other large stockholders prior to 1946 were public utilities investment banker Stanley Childs and Wall Street corporate lawyer Wilton Lloyd-Smith.Journalist Samuel T. Williamson served as the first editor-in-chief of News-Week. The first issue of the magazine was dated February 17, 1933. Seven photographs from the week's news were printed on the first issue's cover. In 1937, News-Week merged with the weekly journal Today, which had been founded in 1932 by future New York Governor and diplomat W. Averell Harriman and Vincent Astor of the prominent Astor family. As a result of the deal, Harriman and Astor provided $600,000 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.
In 1937, Malcolm Muir took over as president and editor-in-chief. He changed the name of the magazine to Newsweek, emphasized interpretive stories, introduced signed columns, and launched international editions.
Under ''Post'' ownership (1961–2010)
The magazine was purchased by The Washington Post Company in 1961. Osborn Elliott was named editor of Newsweek in 1961 and became the editor-in-chief in 1969.File:March 1, 1976 Newsweek story on Bill and Emily Harris.jpg|thumb|left|A story from March 1, 1976, about SLA members Bill and Emily Harris
In 1970, Eleanor Holmes Norton represented sixty female employees of Newsweek who had filed a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that Newsweek had a policy of allowing only men to be reporters. The women won the suit with the support of the American Civil Liberties Union and Newsweek agreed to allow women to be reporters. The day the claim was filed, Newsweek 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.
Edward Kosner became editor from 1975 to 1979 after directing the magazine's extensive coverage of the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974. Richard M. Smith became chairman in 1998. Also in 1998, the magazine inaugurated its "Best High Schools in America" list, a ranking of public secondary schools based on the Challenge Index, which measures the ratio of Advanced Placement or International 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 average SAT scores above 1300 or average ACT scores above 27 are excluded from the list; these are categorized instead as "Public Elite" high schools. In 2008, there were 17 Public Elites.
Smith resigned as board chairman in December 2007.
Restructuring and new owner (2008–2010)
During 2008–2009, Newsweek undertook a dramatic business restructuring. 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 issue from May 24, 2009. Its subscriber base shrank from 3.1million to 2.6million in early 2008, to 1.9million in July 2009, and then to 1.5million in January 2010a decline of 50% in one year. Jon Meacham, editor-in-chief from 2006 to 2010, 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. 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 hoped Newsweek would return to profitability.The financial results for 2009 as reported by The Washington Post Company showed that advertising revenue for Newsweek was down 37% in 2009 and the magazine division reported an operating loss for 2009 of million compared to a loss of million in 2008. During the first quarter of 2010, the magazine lost nearly million.
By May 2010, Newsweek had been losing money for the past two years and was put up for sale. The sale attracted international bidders. One bidder was Syrian entrepreneur Abdul Salam 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 by Newsweek bankers, Allen & Co.
The magazine was sold to audio pioneer Sidney Harman on August 2, 2010, for in exchange for assuming the magazine's financial liabilities. Harman's bid was accepted over three competitors. Jon Meacham left the magazine upon completion of the sale. Sidney Harman was the husband of Jane Harman, at that time a member of Congress from California.
Merger with ''The Daily Beast'' (2010–2013)
At the end of 2010, Newsweek merged with the online publication The Daily Beast, following extensive negotiations between the respective proprietors. Tina Brown, The Daily Beast editor-in-chief, became editor of both publications. The new entity, The Newsweek Daily Beast Company, was 50% owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp and 50% by Harman.Redesign (2011)
Newsweek was redesigned in March 2011. The new Newsweek moved the "Perspectives" section to the front of the magazine, where it served as a summary of the past week's news reported on by The 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 of The Daily Beast. This is where the Newsweek staple "Conventional Wisdom" was located. Brown retained Newsweek 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.Cessation of print format (2012)
On July 25, 2012, the company operating Newsweek 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 the Newsweek/''Daily Beast operation had pulled out.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. The online edition was renamed Newsweek Global''.
Spin-off to IBT Media, return to print (2013–2018)
In April 2013, IAC chairman and founder Barry Diller said at the Milken 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".On August 3, 2013, IBT Media acquired Newsweek from IAC on terms that were not disclosed; the acquisition included the Newsweek brand and its online publication but did not include The Daily Beast. On March 7, 2014, IBT Media relaunched a print edition of Newsweek with a cover story on the alleged creator of Bitcoin that was criticized for lacking substantive evidence. The magazine stood by its story.
IBT Media announced that the publication returned to profitability on October 8, 2014. In February 2017, IBT Media appointed Matt McAllester, then editor of Newsweek International, as global editor-in-chief of Newsweek.
In January 2018, Newsweek offices were raided by the Manhattan District Attorney's office as part of an investigation into co-owner Etienne Uzac. Columbia Journalism Review noted the probe "focused on loans the company took out to purchase the computer equipment", and several Newsweek reporters were fired after reporting on the issue. Uzac pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering in 2020.