Newsweek's hazy future

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 6, 2010; 8:54 AM

Can Newsweek magazine survive?

The answer is that no one, including the people who work there, knows for sure.

With yesterday's bombshell announcement that The Washington Post Co. is putting the magazine up for sale, Time remains the last newsmagazine standing. U.S. News & World Report has long since gotten out of the print weekly business.

Now a perfectly fine buyer may emerge, but it seems a foregone conclusion that Newsweek at best will be a shriveled version of its former self. In fact, some people think that's already the case.

Don Graham, the Post Co. chief executive, told me it was a difficult decision to sell the magazine that his father acquired in 1961 -- the sale was brokered by Ben Bradlee, then JFK's pal and Newsweek's Washington bureau chief -- but harder, obviously, for the people who work there.

Bradlee told me last night: "I hate to see any change because I was so involved with Newsweek. I loved it. It gave me my first shot. It was a great magazine. It is a great magazine."

But, he added, "nobody says you have to keep a magazine that is costing an arm and a leg. I understand why Don put it on the market. Someone's going to run it, I think."

Almost exactly one year ago, Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham was telling me that deliberately cutting its circulation in half -- from what had been a high of 3.1 million to 1.5 million -- would not destroy the money-losing magazine. He and his staff had decided to go upscale. The question, he said, involved advertisers: "Will they accept a more affluent Newsweek demographic, given that they've been acculturated all these years to think of us as a mass vehicle?" The answer is now apparent.

Part of the strategy was a radical redesign. I was not a fan of it, and neither, I can tell you, were a number of people who work there. By lumping a bunch of columnists together, playing up opinion and analysis in what Meacham called the "reported narrative" and the "argued essay," he transformed the magazine into an odd hybrid. In practice, it did seem to turn Newsweek into a version of the New Republic or the Economist.

Sometimes the cover stories were politically or culturally sharp, sometimes not, but they increasingly seemed to lean left. I lost track of the number of Barack and Michelle covers, one of them based on a Meacham interview with the president. And a couple of its top political writers double as MSNBC commentators.

Editorially, though, I've always liked Newsweek (it is based in New York and editorially separate from The Post, and we see ourselves as competitors). I've enjoyed reading Meacham, Jonathan Alter, Howard Fineman, Evan Thomas, Mike Isikoff, Fareed Zakaria, Robert Samuelson and others. But the Web site was stuck around 1999, and in a digital world, that's an unforgivable sin.

Newsweek has had its ups and downs but is intertwined with history. There was the tough story about Adm. Jeremy Boorda and his medals that led to Boorda's suicide; the cover about Vice President George H.W. Bush and the "wimp factor"; the famous decision to hold Isikoff's Monica Lewinsky scoop, which leaked to Drudge.

(And Newsweek invented the much-copied Conventional Wisdom Watch. I suppose we must award the magazine a down arrow these days.)

Newsmagazines can no longer cling to the old Henry Luce formula in the Twitter age. No one really needs them as a digest of the week's news, and newspapers now do the instant analysis and textured tick-tocks in which the newsmags used to specialize. Even the old head-to-head competition was diminished once Time shifted to Thursday publication while Newsweek stuck with the traditional Monday.

Time took some of the steps that Newsweek did -- including a redesign that gave the magazine a stronger point of view -- but started earlier, in 2006. "The competition is for people's mindspace," Time Managing Editor Rick Stengel told me. Time, which also beefed up its Web site with, for example, the "Swampland" blog, is backed by the resources of a bigger company, Time Warner.

The buzz in the magazine world is that the Post Co. must have quietly tried to unload Newsweek before yesterday's announcement. I don't know whether that's true, and I can think of a couple of rich guys who'd love to own it. The question is whether it can still be a viable weekly -- and whether its stars will start jumping ship before a potential owner emerges.

In that May 2009 piece, I concluded: "Newsweek appears to have no Plan B. If the effort fails, its future as a print magazine could be in doubt."

Unfortunately, I was right.

Some other voices, starting with MarketWatch's Jon Friedman:

"I have another idea: Why can't the Washington Post Co. combine Newsweek and Slate, another of its well regarded media holdings, into one all-online operation?

"The move would accomplish one big priority: saving money. Newsweek would go forward with a smaller staff and still preserve some of the jobs of staffers currently at the magazine.

"The news that the Post Co. may unload the money-losing Newsweek should hardly come as a shock. All over the industry, big names, new and old, have been vanishing, such as Gourmet and Portfolio. BusinessWeek received a stay of execution when Bloomberg stepped in at the 11th hour and acquired the publication from McGraw-Hill."

Newsweek is far bigger than Slate, so that might not have accomplished much.

The Wrap asks whether anyone will buy Newsweek: "With ad pages and newsstand sales tanking -- and carrying a name that's become redundant in the 24-hour news age -- the short answer is: Probably not." But it gives the best odds to Bloomberg News and Meacham himself, who is reaching out to investors.

"According to multiple sources," says New York magazine, "Meacham enjoys the company of a small camp that is very loyal to him, largely centered on the top of the masthead -- including assistant managing editor Mark Miller and editor-at-large Evan Thomas and a handful of longtime writers. 'But virtually 100 percent of the employees under 40' believe that Meacham is hurting the magazine, says one such print staffer. 'For a journalist, he is bizarrely incurious about the world," this source continues, complaining that Meacham's "interests extend to history, politics, and. . . . well, that's about it.' Younger workers believe that Meacham listens to few people outside of his inner circle and gripe about the obsession with historical figures and staid stories. . . .

"He also pursues an outside work schedule that makes David Remnick look like a slacker. He co-hosts a weekly PBS show and has a two-book deal to write biographies of Thomas Jefferson and George H.W. Bush, on the heels of the success of his Jackson biography."

Meacham, despite the graying hair and sometimes serious demeanor, is 40.

At True/Slant, Michael Roston says:

"For all intents and purposes, Graham is stating that the magazine is defunct, and the only thing that's worthwhile about it is the brand. So, who wants to buy the corpse called Newsweek and re-animate it into whatever they imagine?

"And when you think about it, Newsweek doesn't really have any other assets to sell, does it? Much has been made recently about the whiplash faced by staffers as they keep being forced to move offices repeatedly. So the sale of Newsweek will really just be to whomever wants to control the name, the URL, and the archives -- not to some private equity firm that wants to make a mint by flipping their expensive headquarters."

David Carr says the mag has "very meager prospects":

"Mention Newsweek and people will wonder whether you've been going to the dentist a lot lately. . . .

"Newsweek is your father's magazine, and no amount of reinvention could fix that. The brand still has recognition, but beyond helping its editor, Jon Meacham, get on television and sell some books, it hard to tell what the brand is really worth at this point. . . .

"Mr. Meacham said he had already had voice-mails from 'two billionaires' about the magazine, but when someone named Donald E. Graham says, 'We don't see a sustained path to profitability for Newsweek,' you have to hope they are rich guys in the habit of losing money."

I wish a couple of billionaires would leave me voice-mails. I've got lots of media ideas.

Times Square fallout

The suspect -- I guess we have to call him that, even though he's confessed -- may be in custody, but the debate over the failed bombing rages on. Michelle Malkin examines something many of us have wondered about this Connecticut resident:

"Faisal Shahzad's U.S. citizenship status caused a bit of shock and awe. The response of Jeffrey Goldberg, a writer for The Atlantic magazine, was typical: 'I am struck by the fact that he is a naturalized American citizen, not a recent or temporary visitor.' Well, wake up and smell the deadly deception.

"Shahzad's path to American citizenship -- he reportedly married an American woman, Huma Mian, in 2008, after spending a decade in the country on foreign-student and employment visas -- is a tried-and-true terror formula. Jihadists have been gaming the sham-marriage racket with impunity for years. And immigration-benefit fraud has provided invaluable cover and aid for U.S.-based Islamic plotters, including many other operatives planning attacks on New York City. . . .

"Jihadists have knowingly and deliberately exploited our lax immigration and entrance policies to secure the rights and benefits of American citizenship while they plot mass murder -- and we haven't done a thing to stop them."

Shahzad may or may not have had a fake marriage, but Malkin cites plenty of examples of terrorists who became citizens by taking a wife here, and that is cause for concern.

At Hot Air, Allahpundit goes off on a WSJ piece:

"Igor Djuric, a broker who showed Mr. Shahzad the 1,356-square-foot home he eventually bought, said he remembered that Mr. Shahzad was quiet about himself, but was openly critical of President Bush in the aftermath of the Iraq war. '"I didn't take it for anything, since a lot of people didn't like Bush," Mr. Djuric said, "but he was a little bit strong about expressing it.' . . .

"That's buried in a lo-o-ong profile of the bomber compiled by the Journal. . . . Truth be told, I think the media's actually going to throw us a curveball on this. The Bush/Iraq scapegoat is old and busted, for the simple reason that Iraq's been off the political radar screen for so long. Lefties are about as likely to protest the ongoing occupation there these days as they are the fact that Gitmo's still open, which is to say, basically never. The new hotness is withdrawal from Afghanistan; they're still peeved at The One for doubling down on that, so if Shahzad's smart enough to cough up a rhetorical hairball about how he was driven to this by, say, the coming 'aggression' against Kandahar, he'll be in media hog heaven before he knows it."

Sorry, I don't see how you draw a straight line between quoting some neighbor and advancing a theory of the case.

The liberal advocacy group Think Progress offers something that goes against the narrative:

"One fact being ignored in the American media's sensationalist narrative about the failed bombing is that the man who was responsible for police finding the bomb was Muslim. The UK's Times Online reports that Aliou Niasse, a Senagalese Muslim immigrant who works as a photograph vendor on Times Square, was the first to bring the smoking car to the police's attention."

First Lady factor

Will Michelle become more of a political asset? Lynn Sweet reports:

"First Lady Michelle Obama, after a thus-far cautious and non-risky tenure at the White House, on Friday debuts in her first political role since the presidential campaign -- headlining a Democratic National Committee fundraiser. . . .

"Whether she decides to stump for the DNC and related committees, or for individual candidates -- and if so, how intensely -- is an open question with millions of political dollars in the balance.

"That's because Mrs. Obama would not only be a hot draw at voter registration and get-out-the vote rallies but a major lure for the very top donors who write checks themselves or generate millions of dollars from their networks of friends, family and acquaintances. At that level, donors expect face time with the principals."

Blacks and the GOP

Commentary's Jennifer Rubin tees off on the NYT:

"The New York Times is caught by surprise. 'Unanticipated,' (by whom? liberal reporters?) the Gray Lady calls the discovery that 'at least 32 African-Americans are running for Congress this year as Republicans, the biggest surge since Reconstruction, according to party officials."

"The Times hastens to assure us that this is Obama's doing -- inspiring and trailblazing for Republicans -- but hastens to cast gloom and doom on their prospects: 'But Democrats and other political experts express skepticism about black Republicans' chances in November.' "

But that's what they said, and besides, there hasn't been a black Republican in Congress since 2003. So how many of the 32 are likely to be successful? The Times should get credit for spotlighting the trend.

Florida's 3-way fight

This Daily Caller piece is obviously anecdotal, but may be on to something:

"At least a handful of Florida's 5 million registered Democrats plan to vote for Independent Senate candidate Charlie Crist. The Daily Caller spoke to five who belong to a Facebook group called 'Democrats for Charlie Crist for Senate 2010,' which has a total of 91 members, about their reasons for supporting the former Republican. All say they can't abide Marco Rubio winning, and not one has a lick of faith in Democratic Senate candidate Kendrick Meek."

A Rasmussen poll, admittedly taken after the publicity surrounding the governor's independent bid, has it Crist 38, Rubio 34 and Meek 17.

Candidate Zucker?

Picking up on my chat with NBC chief executive Jeff Zucker, who confirmed that he's mulling a future bid for public office, the Daily Beast's Peter Lauria says:

"Ironically, Zucker may be more suited to politics than entertainment. While his creative acumen is suspect, there's no denying that he can manage a budget better than many of his media peers, at one point delivering seven straight quarters of earnings growth at NBCU before the recession hit in late 2008. He has the Machiavellian instincts needed to succeed in office, the gut to make tough decisions and the thick skin necessary to handle the criticism, as evidenced by the Leno-O'Brien debacle."

But he goes on to speculate about how Zucker would do in his native Florida, when Z told me that if he runs it would definitely be from New York.

An Arizona statement

The Phoenix Suns wore their "Los Suns" jerseys in last night's NBA playoffs "to honor [the] Latino community and the diversity of our league, the state of Arizona, and our nation."

Message received.

Howard Kurtz also works for CNN and hosts its weekly media program, "Reliable Sources."