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Newsweek to Cease Print Publication at End of Year
- cschmidt 14y agoThere was also speculation this week that the Guardian would go digital only. That was denied by the Guardian Editor in Chief. However, @tomstandage, an editor of the Economist tweeted: Claims Guardian will ditch print edition could be half right, despite @arusbridger's denials; they could go weekly (as I expect NYT to) That would be quite a change. No more daily print New York Times, or Guardian.
- nicholassmith 14y agoIt'd definitely be a shame to see The Guardian go, I stopped reading around the point where they started cutting big chunks of content out to get the costs down, but I understand why they did it. Still use them as my primary news source, although the quality has dropped some what in the past 6 months.
- cschmidt 14y agoThe Guardian is owned by a trust, intended to keep it going in perpetuity. That should shield it from commercial pressure. However, the trust only has finite resources, so it can't run at a loss forever. I agree it is a shame.
- mattmanser 14y agoI'm actually a bit worried about that to be honest. At the moment we have the BBC and the Guardian, both completely shielded from having to turn a profit. The BBC is fairly easy for the government to meddle with, the Guardian is pretty extreme lefty. It's very easy to forget as they have such a great website, but the Guardian is an extremely biased paper. If you have the Daily Mail on the right the Guardian occupies the same spot on the left. I worry that these non-commercial, but well funded, enterprises are actually not very healthy for the the long-term future of UK journalism.
- nicholassmith 14y agoI wouldn't say The Guardian is really well funded, it's got a trust so profitability isn't a huge concern but if the money runs out they're done for. The Guardian is pretty far left, but they do try and present a balance at times (not always), and the traditional readership is often reasonable enough to have a discourse and not shout at each other.
- mseebach2 14y agoThe problem isn't The Guardian or The Daily Mail, it's that people read them and use them to prop up their very narrow worldviews. Either group could trivially shift their paper of choice to the other (or one of the more moderate alternatives) -- it's not an issue of availablity. While The Guardian isn't for profit, they still rely on the market to provide money for them, either through buying the paper or donating to the trust. The fact that the BBC which can (and sometimes does) shut it self away from any money raising concerns is more centric than the Guardian suggests that the ownership model doesn't inform the editorial much.
- cschmidt 14y agoI love the phrase "pretty extreme lefty" :-). I think that's been a difference in British journalism compared to the US. There are so many papers in the UK, that they have each staked out their own niche readership. The Guardian serves left leaning readers. The Daily Mail for the right, etc. As long as enough papers survive that there is a diversity of viewpoints, things will be fine. (That's certainly not a given, however.)
- makomk 14y agoFrom what I can tell they're a bit narrower than merely "extreme lefty" though - they actually seem to be biased towards a particular kind of niche feminism. Not even towards feminism as a whole (and yes, there are conflicts between that and the broader left wing), but to a very specific, narrow ideology within it.
- freshhawk 14y agoWhat is your worry about removing the most significant conflict of interest from a news organization exactly? It seems like it might cause other issues but I can't think of a reasonable reason that it would do anything but reduce the amount of bias present. And really? The Daily Fucking Mail? First of all: middle ground fallacy. Second: What sane person takes the Daily Mail's position on anything as a serious data point about where on the political spectrum a hypothetical unbiased news source would lie. I'm finding it difficult not to stereotype you as an american who feels the middle ground between the Democrats and Republicans is a true middle ground (and that reality therefore has a left wing bias).
- malsme 14y agoI guess a weekly edition would make sense, keeping up-to-date with a daily newspaper can be practically a chore.
- mseebach2 14y agoThat's the main attraction of The Economist to me.
- cschmidt 14y agoThat was an attraction for me as well. I used to read the NYT each day, but it was easier (and less paper) when I switched to the Economist. Now after reading it, I'm just an Economist fanboy because of the content.
- jahmed 14y agoI enjoy that the Economist takes a strong editorial line. Sometimes I agree and sometimes I disagree but I respect their opinion and color.
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- etrain 14y agoWe subscribed to Newsweek throughout my childhood, even living overseas. I recall excitedly going through it every time it arrived. As far as the news digest format went, in those days they mixed topic areas fluidly, while keeping their readers informed. I canceled my personal subscription years ago. To me, the format changes had made it less comprehensive, the quality of writing had declined, and it had become too political. Or, maybe I'd just outgrown it. Sure, they'll have a digital version, but they have far smaller staff (and impact) than they once did. They're a marginally iconic publication, who were unable to adapt to the new world, and are thus a victim of the changing landscape of journalism.
- willholloway 14y agoI had the exact same childhood experience. Fond memories of sitting on the front porch in summer reading every article. I remember when Time darkened the OJ Simpson cover to make him appear more sinister! Newsweek was on the right side of that one, and soon they will be gone. It was foundational learning, along with Sid Meier's Civilization and Winston Groom's Forest Gump and the sequel Gump & Company. The Gump books are funny enough to keep the attention of a fourth grader, and teach modern American history along the way. We really, really, really have to figure a way to distribute the bounty of our bigger than ever economy a bit better, so professional journalism can continue.
- at-fates-hands 14y ago> the quality of writing had declined, and it had become too political. In my mind it has become way too Liberal. Maybe I didn't realize it when I was growing up and reading it every month, but it certainly has changed. Too bad really, in a time when there's so much opinion pieces and media outlets are all slanted one way or another, it would be nice to have a news organization which simply reported the news and didn't have a vested interest in some political party which slanted its views.
- swordswinger12 14y agoAny magazine that features cover stories from Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Niall Ferguson is hardly 'liberal'.
- SODaniel 14y agoVery melancholy morning realizing that the defining English language publication of my childhood and early 20s is ceasing dead-tree production. Makes me wish I had saved all the in-flight Newsweek's through the years.
- davidw 14y agoMy family used to get Newsweek when I was growing up, but even as a teenager I wasn't very impressed with the quality of the writing. It's been a while since I've had the chance to read them 'head to head', but The Economist pretty much blows it out of the water.
- klsvu 14y agoI agree, it's sad though they did some groundbreaking coverage in the past. I thought that tablet based reading would help the media industry a lot more than it has to date.
- pnathan 14y agoSame, it's been surface-level content for a loooong time. I find Atlantic, Financial Times, CS Monitor far superior.
- tsotha 14y agoMy family got Newsweek when I was growing up as well. I never did after I moved out, though, because I realized if I just read the content and skipped the ads I could read it cover to cover in about ten minutes. And yeah, The Economist takes a lot longer to get through. But the advent of the web has been particularly hard on news magazines. I wonder how much longer even The Economist will be around.
- dmfdmf 14y agoInternet social revolution still in progress; http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/ http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking...
- Alex3917 14y agoSo now that it's going to be digital, will Americans still get a special version designed for dumb people?
- cpeterso 14y ago[citation needed]?
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- gavinlynch 14y agoI really think the company will suffer greatly during the transition. They are no longer a unique product and frankly the quality of writing is negligible. They are still a brand name, and that will help for a while, but in this flattened world of competition that won't cut it. Hopefully, for whomever is in charge, they can make the type of transition the Atlantic started making years and years ago. But to be totally honest I doubt it. They don't really have much to offer. In my own personal news consumption, there is a stratification going on: For every-day information, I'm 90% in the social media (mostly Twitter) camp. For insightful analysis, I'm going to specialized publications such as the Atlantic or the Economist. Not that I'm an expert on media, but I wonder if that type of polarization will continue, with the guys and gals in-between becoming dinosaurs.
- naner 14y agoPretty bold. In the short-term they are going to lose a lot of subscribers.
- ahi 14y agoAll 5 of them.
- TheFuture 14y agoBold? They're losing money like crazy. Advertisers haven't been paying the rates they need to survive for almost a decade. It was bold to keep printing and mailing the thing for the last 5 years as it became absolutely clear that printing news on paper has no future at all. I'm surprised that so many major daily newspapers are still being printed today. That shoe is going to drop any month now.
- patrickgzill 14y agoIt was a case of suicide, plain and simple. They wanted to spin things their way and they were not interested in hard-hitting objective reporting. "Want share? Try the truth!"