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Newsweek Dies (Dinosaur Media DeathWatchâ„¢)
Newser.com ^ | December 12, 2009 | Michael Wolff

Posted on 12/29/2009 7:19:47 AM PST by abb

Less than a year ago, during yet another public discussion about the future of traditional media, I said that it seemed extremely unlikely that, for instance, Newsweek would last another five years, provoking guffaws among blogger types and stout denials from the magazine (i.e. a minor kerfuffle).

Newsweek and its parent, the Washington Post Co., announced yesterday a significant cut in its rate base, a further round of buyouts and layoffs, and a plan to make an already anorexic magazine even thinner. The Washington Post Co., for good measure, added its own bad news and bleak outlook.

My prediction about Newsweek seems to have been significantly optimistic (when I made it, I confess to thinking it was irresponsibly exaggerated). I would revise it now to two years: Sometime around the fourth quarter of next year, Newsweek will be shuttered (possibly there’s a phase where it goes bi-weekly, or even monthly).

The people at Newsweek and at the Washington Post Co. will be as adamant and dismissive about denying this as they were about my original assertion. And yet, they obviously can’t be certain they have a positive future (or any future).

All they can honestly say is that they are trying to find a way to go forward that will keep them in business, but they haven’t found it yet. Now, I am not sure that would be a good idea to say—it might further cause advertisers and readers to desert the magazine, and further demoralize the staff.

On the other hand, it might be this gap between putting on a good face and the stark reality of the present mess that is making people so much more desperate and crazy. Not that long ago, the covers of Newsweek and Time were among the most important individual pieces of media in the nation. Now they are irrelevant and unmentioned.

This decline and approaching death does not merely have to do with the present circumstance. The present circumstance (we have yet to coin a useful and evocative name for this terrible present circumstance) is really just the deus ex machina.

The weak and lingering will no longer be able to resist. But how do you confront this? How do you say to your colleagues and your customers, while we’re still here today, in all honesty we’re toast tomorrow?

Saying anything other than that is so obviously corporate baloney, as well as the natural human inability to face the abyss.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: advertising; dbm; liberalmedia; magazines; msmdeathwatch; newsweak; newsweek; wp
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To: kcvl

Geez, those extra-large images of Bozo and the First Water Buffalo nearly induced a spontaneous retch.


61 posted on 12/29/2009 9:23:48 AM PST by Magic Fingers
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To: abb
Photobucket Bring out your dead!
62 posted on 12/29/2009 9:32:27 AM PST by Clay Moore (Roaches, predators, and theives typically work under the cover of darkness. So it is with congress.)
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To: pnh102
Call me a cynic. The New York Times has been “at death’s door” for years now and it still continues to exist. I won’t believe “death” until I see it.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Exactly! It isn't dead until it is. While gasping their so-called last gasps they continue to seriously hurting our nation.

Please, someone call me when they are finally dead and buried and having the funeral luncheon.

63 posted on 12/29/2009 9:44:13 AM PST by wintertime
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To: pnh102
Call me a cynic. The New York Times has been “at death’s door” for years now and it still continues to exist. I won’t believe “death” until I see it.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Exactly! It isn't dead until it is. While gasping their so-called last gasps they continue seriously hurting our nation.

Please, someone call me when they are finally dead and buried and having the funeral luncheon.

64 posted on 12/29/2009 9:44:45 AM PST by wintertime
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To: AGreatPer

My doctor told me he has never bought a magazine subscription.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Same with me. I never bought a magazine subscription for the office.

I am retired now. Some years ago I just started throwing them away or giving them to the staff. The ads of nearly naked ( or even fully naked rear views) of the models were simply too close to porn for my comfort.


65 posted on 12/29/2009 9:48:15 AM PST by wintertime
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To: abb

Stimulus money, saving jobs... the only way out.


66 posted on 12/29/2009 9:51:16 AM PST by DoughtyOne (Good news. HC bill will not cover illegal aliens. Bad news. 20-35 million will become citizens.)
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To: SmokingJoe
The New York Times continues to exist like a guy in a coma continues to exist.

Guys in comas do not publish daily.

67 posted on 12/29/2009 10:56:13 AM PST by pnh102 (Regarding liberalism, always attribute to malice what you think can be explained by stupidity. - Me)
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To: pnh102
Guys in comas do not publish daily.

True.
But companies in a coma(financial meltdown, chapter 11 etc) continue to operate due to financial trickery.
Question is, for how long can they avoid the inevitable?

68 posted on 12/29/2009 11:08:06 AM PST by SmokingJoe
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To: wintertime
It isn't dead until it is. While gasping their so-called last gasps they continue seriously hurting our nation”

The New York Times is not even close to being as influential today, as they were say 20 years ago.
As at right now, I'd say Glenn Beck is vastly more influential, and reaches far more people on his radio and TV programs and his constantly best selling books than the New York Times does. Same with Rush.
The days when "it wasn't news till the New York Times says it is news" are long gone. The New York Times totally ignored the Van Jones and the ACORN stories. Glenn Beck run with those stories, and Glenn Beck won.

69 posted on 12/29/2009 11:15:55 AM PST by SmokingJoe
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To: wintertime
It isn't dead until it is. While gasping their so-called last gasps they continue seriously hurting our nation”

The New York Times is not even close to being as influential today, as they were say 20 years ago.
As at right now, I'd say Glenn Beck is vastly more influential, and reaches far more people on his radio and TV programs and his constantly best selling books than the New York Times does. Same with Rush.
The days when "it wasn't news till the New York Times says it is news" are long gone. The New York Times totally ignored the Van Jones and the ACORN stories. Glenn Beck run with those stories, and Glenn Beck won.

70 posted on 12/29/2009 11:16:05 AM PST by SmokingJoe
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To: supremedoctrine
... you can figure out who or what exactly who owned those “two stones”.

Wasn't anybody at Newsweak, that's for sure!

71 posted on 12/29/2009 12:07:01 PM PST by GenXFreedomFighter
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To: SmokingJoe
In fact, don't be surprised among the very first newspapers that will go to the new digital format for tablet computers is the Wall Street Journal itself--their online edition only needs a few modifications to make itself compatible with these new digital formats.
72 posted on 12/29/2009 12:07:18 PM PST by RayChuang88 (FairTax: America's economic cure)
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To: billhilly
Newsweek, after all, is a valuable part of their propaganda machine.

For propaganda to be valuable, someone has to read it.

73 posted on 12/29/2009 12:11:38 PM PST by hopespringseternal
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To: abb

http://steveouting.com/
Farewell, E&P: The last of my 14-1/2 years of columns


74 posted on 12/29/2009 12:20:58 PM PST by abb ("What ISN'T in the news is often more important than what IS." Ed Biersmith, 1942 -)
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To: kcvl; abb; BOBTHENAILER; SierraWasp; Liz; BIGLOOK; tubebender; Ernest_at_the_Beach

Thanks. My lunch appetite has been ruined.

However, your pictorial display of NewsWeak’s love affair with Obozo is another excellent reason to say goodbye to the liberal excrement known as NewsWeak.

I stopped subscribing to NewsWeak and Slime shortly after Ronald Reagan became our president inspite of these two left wing waste of trees posing as news mags.


75 posted on 12/29/2009 12:49:16 PM PST by Grampa Dave (Does 0b0z0 have any friends, who aren't traitors, spies, tax cheats and criminals?)
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To: abb

I don’t subscribe to or buy Newsweek.

Recently I came across a copy of it in an office and browsed through it. I was very surprised to see the ads in the back of it: many of them were for “get rich quick” schemes and seemed to be aimed at a very undereducated readership.

This made quite an impression on me, but perhaps it was because I had not read this magazine for a while. I don’t recall that it always carried ads like that. Certainly they weren’t the same sort of ads you’d find in The New Yorker or The Atlantic or a similar magazine.


76 posted on 12/29/2009 12:54:57 PM PST by thecodont
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To: Grampa Dave; kcvl; BOBTHENAILER; SierraWasp; Liz; Ernest_at_the_Beach

If Newsweek goes belly up, does Gibbs lose his job too?


77 posted on 12/29/2009 12:56:39 PM PST by BIGLOOK (Keelhaul Congress!)
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To: AGreatPer

The drug companies wouldn’t waste their money on Newsweak subscription.

For close to two decades Newsweak and Slime and out here on the West Coast, the Gay Frisco Chronicle have sent free copies to Drs/Dentist and other health care providers with offices.

Most places, where we get our hair cut and whatever, haven’t
subscribed to NewsWeak/Slime for probably a decade. Yet, they still get the weakly posers.

Yet it is a safe bet that somehow these free mags are counted as subscriptions.

One of our neighbors had 3 kids in the local community college. . The college had a requirement for the kids to subscribe to basically free, NY Slimes, Gay Frisco Chronicle, NewsWeak/ Slime.

Their youngest child finished a decade ago. Yet their parents, our neighbors still get the NY Slimes, Gay Frisco Chronicle, NewsWeak/ Slime delivered for free. They get billed, and they never pay. They have tried to stop the free delivery and still get the trash. So their blue recycle container gets these unwanted pieces of trash every day and week.


78 posted on 12/29/2009 1:07:59 PM PST by Grampa Dave (Does 0b0z0 have any friends, who aren't traitors, spies, tax cheats and criminals?)
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To: Interesting Times

Their last issue will have massively signed page blaming Bush and Cheney for their demise.


79 posted on 12/29/2009 1:09:43 PM PST by Grampa Dave (Does 0b0z0 have any friends, who aren't traitors, spies, tax cheats and criminals?)
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To: BIGLOOK

“If Newsweek goes belly up, does Gibbs lose his job too?”

Naah, he will just cut out the middle men re his propaganda posing as news.


80 posted on 12/29/2009 1:12:58 PM PST by Grampa Dave (Does 0b0z0 have any friends, who aren't traitors, spies, tax cheats and criminals?)
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