That mass audience is gone. Newsweek's circulation is half what it was two years ago.
The bizarre thing is that much of the decline was intended.
They discouraged renewals and new subscriptions and tried to charge more for the magazine, thinking that people would actually pay more for what was actually less and less.
They thought they could be like the Nation or the New Republic or National Review or the Weekly Standard -- an ideologically focused publication that didn't bother with people who thought differently. But those magazines look much more deeply at things than Newsweek does, and they still lose money! They're subsidized by wealthy patrons and contributions.
The business plan was ridiculous. Meecham and Thomas would go on and on about how they wanted a magazine for serious thinkers and opinion leaders, but they'd publish articles by Evan Thomas's twenty-something daughter who was straight out of college. So much for depth and quality. There was something bizarre about the whole episode, and few will shed tears over Newsweek when it goes under.
But even without the strategic fiasco, there just isn't a big audience for general news magazines. The news cycle moves too quickly, and the magazines are usually pretty superficial compared to what's available elsewhere.
Really, the newsweeklies’ only role is that of the doctor’s office. They were supposed to be middle-of-the-road, largely inoffensive magazines that added class to an endtable.
Like all things, the Lefties took revered institutions, infiltrated them and took advantage of the years of carefully-cultivated good will. That’s why Newsweek could be a hyper-partisan mag and still sell.
But nobody reads newsweeklies anymore, unless they have nothing else to read.
They hired Evan Thomas’ daughter because that’s all they could afford.