May
21Newsweek’s Uphill Battle
The other impressive premiere this week was that of a magazine, not a movie. The “new Newsweek” represents a completely re-invented news magazine, except it has no news. Jon Meacham, the editor, in his introduction, tells readers, “We know you already know what the news is.” Hence the new Newsweek wants to focus on comment and analysis.What emerges is a cross between the Atlantic and the Economist. The stories run much longer than those of the Economist but they don’t attempt the depth of the Atlantic. Most are staff written, but there also are pieces by folks like Tina Brown and Mayor Michael Bloomberg and even a “roundtable” involving past winners of “American Idol.”
“I did a tour in Southeast Asia and they were tripping out,” observes Taylor Hicks. OK, that advances my understanding of pop culture.
The cover story is an “exclusive interview” with President Obama, but this interview subject is so cautious with his words that the piece offers no new insights.
There’s no mystery as to why Newsweek wants to reinvent itself. As the astute James Rainey points out in the Los Angeles Times, the 76-year-old magazine suffered a decline in ad revenues of 19% in the first quarter alone and lost 400,000 readers over the past year.
All this reflects the overall freefall in the magazine business. Portfolio recently went under and Kit Rachlis is out as editor of Los Angeles Magazine, which he managed to dumb down for a decade.
Will the “new Newsweek” succeed? Jon Meacham wants to target a smaller upscale audience and charge more for his product. His initial issue is intelligent but it’s hard to get comfortable with, like most magazine re-designs.
I hope he wins.
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Posted by: usedcarauction | 9/14/2009 5:52:52 AM
No update any more? Still waiting
Posted by: Island | 8/1/2009 6:24:41 AM
They should just come clean and call the magazine, "Obama Week".
Posted by: Darren | 6/30/2009 9:19:17 PM
My extended family and I subscribed faithfully for the past 20 years, enjoying Newsweek's mix of news, analysis, reflection, essays, photojournalism, and occasional recognition that certain pop culture events or trends have reached critical mass. Now: subtract all the above except "essays" and you have the "new" Newsweek. (Again, we loved: the mix!) We're cancelling our two subscriptions. R.I.P., old friend.
Posted by: Kosmi | 6/22/2009 11:24:24 PM
Why waste money on the "print" version of all this Journalistic Fellatio on Obama, when you can tune in to MSNBC and watch Olbermann and Matthews do it right there on the screen.
Posted by: Harry Longbough | 6/21/2009 12:08:57 AM
So long as Fareed Zakaria''s sublime analysis remains, Newsweek shall continue to arrive at my home. The pop culture stuff is as tedious as it is awkward though. How long before all letters to the editor begin "Dear Sir"?
Posted by: mikeodd | 6/19/2009 12:40:54 AM
I first quit Newsweek during the last makeover a couple of years ago not because of a bias but because it had become a soundbite magazine. Gone were the longer articles that did not quite fit in a column. The quality of writing, the breadth of writing, and the quantity of the writing shrunk miserably. Then I left Time too. Don''t know if the essay format will work for Newsweek, but the problem with magazines these days is that they think shorter is better, to save paper and postage. I had read those magazines for almost forty years. I miss them. What really upsets me is the idea that readers won''t sit and read a whole page of text. We sit here and read and read and read all sorts of texts on the Internet, blogs, short pieces or long articles, books, but somehow someone decided we couldn''t read two columns in a magazine. I am baffled.
Posted by: Cath | 6/15/2009 3:21:44 PM
I was a subscriber to both Time and Newsweek but over the years their right wing slant became tiresome so I cancelled my subscriptions one by one. First Newsweek, then Time and most recently, US News and World Report.
Posted by: murhpy | 6/8/2009 1:05:01 PM
If "liberal slant" is what your worried about, then go back to Fox Noise and get the fear and loathing they spread. Conservatives ruined this country and your complaining about "liberal slants?". Waaaaaaaaaa!
Posted by: Dlowryaz | 6/3/2009 2:57:18 PM
Committed subscriber since 1967. I get what Meacham is trying to do and applaud it. It is less of a news magazine and I could have done without the "American Idol" crap, but the most of the writing is thoughtful. I never liked what Newsweek had become before the transformation, trying to be hip with the 10-second read bites.
My subscription expires 2012, so I'm staying with it.
Liberal slant? Don't you have something better to bitch about?
Posted by: dysney | 6/3/2009 12:38:16 AM
Re-invented, my eye! Just take one look at the cover of their "new" issue and you'll understand why they're in the toilet, which is where they belong. Same old cr@p.
Posted by: Ronnie VZ | 6/1/2009 2:48:09 PM
I was a subscriber to the magazine for years, but became increasingly frustrated by its liberal slant (from cover-to-cover). I'm sure I'm not alone.
Posted by: Geo | 5/27/2009 11:31:02 AM