Old Media Deathwatch, first in a series
Last month, The Washington Post Company announced its intention to sell Newsweek. Today, the bids for Newsweek are in. And it doesn't look like much of a bidding war. There aren't many prospective buyers.
Which is kind of sad. As a kid, living in Europe, I remember reading Newsweek like it was a letter from home. And I still love the post-war glamour of the logo, sitting atop newsstands in Paris and Rome.
There are probably a lot of reasons for its demise -- paper costs, the web, the usual suspects. And also the gradual, stately progression the newsweeklies made towards a suffocating, pompous, know-it-all liberalism. Right around the time they stopped using the word reporter -- with its grubby, cynical, wise-cracking tradition -- and switched to the insufferably self-dramatizing weasel-word journalist the whole enterprise was doomed.
Sure, print is old fashioned. But somehow nothing seems as old and tired and worn-out as the predictable bien pensant Manhattan-dinner-party stance that zombified not just Newsweek, but Time and The New York Times and everyone else in the news business. They took all of the fun out of the news and turned it into homework. And nobody likes homework.
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May '10
Re: Old Media Deathwatch, first in a series
Many liberals find the web's influence on print media, particularly upon liberal print media, very threatening and would have the government subsidize it to keep it afloat. It would not surprise me if news media bailouts were within our future.
May '10
Re: Old Media Deathwatch, first in a series
I'd be very surprised if they could pull that off, Michael. Then again, yesterday I heard that some legislator or some such was advocating that Americorps be used to train and employ an army of "journalists" for, you know, the public good. Beautiful.
Re: Old Media Deathwatch, first in a series
Newsmaxweek! A crushing blow to the establishment ego. Harder to bear even than Foxnewsweek...
May '10
Re: Old Media Deathwatch, first in a series
Nowadays I get all my news online, but recently I picked up a copy of Newsweek in a dentist's waiting room. I was shocked--shocked!--at how bad it was. Bland propaganda for kindergarteners is what it looked like. The readership was assumed to know nothing. The editorials contained no interesting insight, but were of the most patronizing, here's-the-Correct-way-to-think-about-this-issue variety. The writers seemed to have every last ounce of personality and independent thinking savagely beaten out of their prose. Honestly, I couldn't imagine how anyone could stand that crap. It was dreadful, dreadful, dreadful.
Newsweek deserves to die.
May '10
Re: Old Media Deathwatch, first in a series
Good content will always sell. Newsweek doesn't sell. Therefore....
I will always like to be able to have the choice to sit and read a hard copy. I don't want to waste that time on Pabulum.
May '10
Re: Old Media Deathwatch, first in a series
The market for liberal news-opinion is saturated. If any liberal can get the exact same opinion and analysis from free sources - Huffington Post, MSNBC - why would they pay $5 for week old opinions from Newsweek? Even if one is inclined towards the feel and experience of reading from a non-electronic source, the vanguard of liberalism remains the New York Times which provides quicker and better analysis.
Another poetic blow for the creative destruction of capitalism.
May '10
Re: Old Media Deathwatch, first in a series
Thank God for the WSJ. And although all the web extras are great, I have to say there is something wonderful about reading the paper paper.
May '10
Re: Old Media Deathwatch, first in a series
At least the Conventional Wisdom bit gave you something to look at while waiting at the doctor's office.
Re: Old Media Deathwatch, first in a series
The untold story of the internet's attack on print media might well be that online charticles, not articles, beat news magazines at their own game.
May '10
Re: Old Media Deathwatch, first in a series
If only I could get all of my news from SteynOnline.
I happened to notice yesterday that Wolf Blitzer is the only national news reporter in decades to sport a beard. Are bearded men considered untrustworthy?
May '10
Re: Old Media Deathwatch, first in a series
Surprised they could pull off 'Print Media Bailouts', Michael? We all felt that about the Health Control Bill. All the stops are going to be pulled before their public disembowelment in November.