Newsweek is dying, but Tina Brown, its editor in chief, refuses to give up the ghost. Interviewed on Nightline, Brown acknowledged that although the $30 million Newsweek is reportedly losing is an exaggeration, the magazine is still in the red: “We are certainly not losing that amount, but we aren’t making money yet and we won’t make money for another couple of years, but we will as long as we can build the brand back up again…” In 2010, Brown took an aggressive posture toward the Magazine’s financial woes, claiming that Newsweek would be profitable in two years. Now she’s more careful: “”I think we are sort of 40 percent there … It seems to me that we have stopped Newsweek from failing and we are now on our way back up.”
The two years are up, and advertising revenues are down $20 million. Sid Harman, a committed leftist dedicated to rescuing the magazine despite its problems, bought the magazine for its assumed debt and $1 in 2010. In spring of 2011, Newsweek offered a two-year subscription for 90% off the cover price. In June of 2011, 4.6 % of the magazines delivered to people were post-expiration copies — copies for people whose subscriptions had run out.
After the merger of the Daily Beast and Newsweek in 2010, a move that was designed to boost the faltering magazine, leftists hoped Newsweek would be bolstered by the alliance, but Newsweek is still heading south. Its unabashed leftism (can there be one more glowing cover featuring Barack Obama?) seems to be guiding it toward the trash heap. But so far, Tina Brown survives.
When Newsweek goes under, can Brown please move over to Time?
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