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.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-predictions28-2009dec28,0,3539110,full.story
2010 predictions: Another turbulent year ahead for media
“For propaganda to be valuable, someone has to read it.”
They have a whole team of editors and writers who appear regularly on cable and network TV, all singing in harmony with White House spokesmen. Communication goes well beyond the printed word.
Ultra-rich conservatives should aim to take over these publications. Our side should buy Newsweek. Even better would be to buy the New York Times. We should buy them all. Make them profitable. Co-opt the lofty brand names of the left, which pretend to be mainstream authority. Capturing the NY TImes would be like capturing a fort or an air base. If Fox News is any measure, they could, under the right management, be successful. And to many of the brain dead Americans out there, it would still retain its brand equity. It would still be THE New York Times. Newsweek would continue to be ubiquitous in waiting rooms across the country. Our side should buy entertainment magazines as well. Imagine if people were conservative-owned and operated. You would still fill it full of petty celeb gossip. But that would just be the bait. The disguise. Hidden within each issue, cunningly interwoven with the celeb news and pictures, would be subtle conservative messages, humor, attitudes, presented without comment, as if it’s simply a part of the pop culture zeitgeist. In this way, you de-program, counter-program the weak minded.
people = People Magazine
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