[mhneu]

So great!

Today, this wouldn't even be possible - Newsweek doesn't even have a print edition.

(Also, just as bad: Newsweek is now a zombie publication who sold its name and trademark and has become a fairly right-wing operation)

https://newrepublic.com/article/158968/newsweek-rise-zombie-...

Amid a larger reckoning about the role of journalism in legitimizing anti-democratic ideas, Newsweek had largely stayed out of notice until Eastman’s op-ed. Newsweek claims that it is just asking questions, but its faux innocence is undercut by Hammer’s credentials and the ideological tilt of most of its contributors. Newsweek, the magazine you once read at the dentist, is like a [...] version of the opinion section of The Wall Street Journal.

[eyelidlessness]

So it’s the NYT opinion section without journalism? I don’t mean to be glib but this is what I’ve assumed happened to all of the news magazines. They already were this, and the winds shifted for all of them.

[rchaud]

These magazines exist only because of the value of the fading goodwill they still have. I'm an older millennial and remember large bookstores, so TIME, Forbes, Fortune, Newsweek are all still in my brain as mastheads of general-interest commentary.

The reality is that ownership of these names have changed hands so many times, and been through so many restructurings, they have no clear editorial voice or clear target audience anymore. They are chasing ad dollars, affiliate link bucks and "contributor" programs to churn out tons of filler to throw more ads on to.

The book "Disrupted" by Dan Lyons (book about Newsweek editor who gets fired and takes an ill-fated job at Hubspot) talks about how writers used to have decades-long careers at publications that let them create a clear voice that persisted over time. Those times are long gone.