I can’t take credit for it, actually. One of the front-pagers over at Balloon Juice came up with that one.
My feelings as well. I can understand Newsweek deciding it needed to switch to a new model. But they did a poor job in the model they chose.
There’s a market for light entertainment and a market for serious commentary. But who’s looking for light commentary?
My racist baby is very sad.
I’ve been getting it for a couple of years now - our local NPR station gives you a free subscription when you donate during their pledge drives.
I might flip through the latest issue while eating breakfast, and occasionally even read a story. But, yeah, it’s a become a pretty odd creature since Tina Brown took over. Some weeks it’s a left wing rag, some weeks it’s right week rag, some weeks it’s a pop culture rag and some weeks they’re just looking to get a WTF reaction out of readers. And it all feels really gimmicky.
Like a lot of other people here, I’m sad about the circumstances that led to its demise, but I can’t say I’ll miss it when I stop getting it.
I’m paid through Nov. 13 hope they are planning on sending me a refund.
Just got in the mail today a 2 for 1 gift offer, need to reply by Oct. 31. WTF?
They couldn’t compete with the print edition of The Onion. But then again, who can??
I happened to be in a magazine store today. And I saw another magazine had its last issue on the stands: OK! Admittedly OK! magazine was never a big player. More like if Us Weekly was the poor man’s People then OK! was the poor man’s Us Weekly. But still, another one bites the dust.
What really surprised me though was seeing a copy of TV Guide. They still publish that?
I used to subscribe, but I grew weary of paying for pro-establishment, pro-war newspeak.
A friend had a couple old issues from the late '60s. Man, those issues were dense with copy, small b/w photos, long paragraphs. No callouts, no blurbs. I wonder what the word count was per page back then.
They should have kept the hyphen.
I remember when Zillions went online only and it went no where. same with Exceptional parent…I think they bought into the OMG the nets the new place. then again those were very specialized publications. ( zillions was consumer reports for kids)
Re: What happens to remaining subscriptions.
I went thru this with Spy magazine. My subscription was rolled over into an unrelated men’s magazine I never heard of, which extended the subscription in order to give me a chance to fall in love with it and renew. That mag went out of business and so I got switched to yet another even less worthwhile magazine (something like GQ) with yet another extension. Had years of crap once a month that went straight into recycling.
I don’t know what they’ll do in this case since the parent company doesn’t seem to own any other print publications.
The subscriber list will be sold, though. That’s about the only valuable property involved.
We used to subscribe to Newsweek a very long time ago. Stopped it during the 80s when it became a love fest for Reagan and stopped fact checking all the Republican crap that went on in that era. So I was constantly amused to hear claims about Newsweek having a liberal bias. (That’s when I learned the “liberal media bias” stuff was propaganda.)
I have been getting a lot of unsolicited magazines in the mail lately…and have been for months now. Maxim, Newsweek, GQ and I think some Latin-centric rag. I find it ironic in light of the demise of the printed word as it used to exist in newspapers and magazines.
Its like they are trying for one last push for subscribers in order to stave off their bitter demise.
I’ve had a subscription to Newsweek since I graduated from college, and my parents had a subscription before that. It’s definitely gone downhill over the years, precipitously so in the last couple of years.
They tried a redesign a couple of years ago in which they announced that the print quality (?!) would be more high-end, the coverage would be more in-depth, and that the price was going to double. This only lasted a short time. About the time that the Washington Post sold it it went into a deep decline, IMHO. Still, I got enough out of it that it was worth the $20-25/year I paid for it. I did start renewing in only 1-year increments, because I felt like it was circling the drain.
The whole idea of a weekly newsmagazine actually appeals to me. I only have time to skim the daily newspaper, and I liked the idea of a weekly wrap-up of events I heard about only in passing. I also liked the weekly commentary/opinion.
I did pick up a Time subscription as well about 12 years ago, but I will still miss Newsweek.