Obamacare death panels won't save legacy media's Newsweek: You could've been a MSM news mogul for the small introductory price of $1

On September 18, 2009, I wrote a post about my observations about Newsweek magazine's future, and as you can tell from the title I gave that post, Obamacare Death Panels have bad news for Newsweek: Doctors will pull the plug on mag at $75 a year; Newsweek R.I.P.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/obamacare-death-panels-have-bad-news.html
I suggested that the reality was that there wasn't much of a future for them, because they had become increasingly irrelevant to the larger public discourse going on in America, in large part, due to their own insular liberal, hipper-than-thou parochialism and dis-connectedness to the country west and south of the Hudson River, and some rather uninspired editorial choices.
It was a mess.

Not that I was alone in my observations, given Michael Kinsley's spot-on take in The New Republic, Backwards Runs Newsweek, which could've easily been made the year before it ran last May and been just as accurate.
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/backward-runs-newsweek

It's hardly breaking news that Newsweek had never been relevant in the first place in longstanding public policy backwaters like South Florida, since as far as I can remember, it was never ever cited by anyone at any time at any public policy gathering I or any of my civic-minded friends ever attended from the mid-'70's on.

But in certain places throughout the country where ideas, especially new ideas, still really matter and have not just currency but urgency, and are argued about and discussed at length -and I don't mean that in a pejorative fashion but simply as a descriptive- it actually was relevant as recently as ten years ago.

I know because I've been to places where that really was true, at least among a certain sub-group of the local population that I knew, which is to say, friends of mine whom reporters and columnists call for quotes.

Places with serious, smart and well-educated people who read voraciously and who consume multiple hard news sources and trade/specialty journals weekly by the barrel and mega-bite.

Cities like Boston, New York, New Haven, Washington, D.C. , The Research Triangle in North Carolina, Atlanta, Nashville, Louisville, Austin, Chicago and Evanston, Champaign/Urbana, Milwaukee, Madison, Ann Arbor, Columbus, Lawrence (KS), Albuquerque, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Berkeley, Palo Alto and Silicon Alley, Sacramento, certain parts of Los Angeles and Orange County, and yes, Bloomington.

See http://www.theatlantic.com/richard-florida/ for more on why it is certain U.S. cities are incubators of ideas, public policy amd innovation, while other places, like South Florida, aren't.



To its own dismay, Newsweek had become the proverbial boyfriend who hadn't gotten the hint that he was about to be tossed overboard in favor of the new, more-interesting boyfriend, who was lurking discreetly off-camera, who doesn't take her for granted.

Boyfriend #1 is blindsided, of course, but to anyone actually paying any attention, it had seemed self-evident and rather inevitable since it was clear that there were no longer any sparks in the relationship, just a drab, mundane sameness and shallow me-too-ism. Loser.

Well today, or rather yesterday, we learned that you, too, could have become a media mogul for the low introductory price of exactly $1.

But the fact that one American dollar was more than hundreds of people and entities thought Newsweek magazine was worth as a going concern is perhaps the most salient fact of all, and a real warning to those who currently take their dwindling readership for granted, like the Miami Herald and South Florida Sun-Sentinel, who are barely relevant or trusted in their very own neighborhoods, as they continue to dangerously list.
Man the lifeboats!

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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/06/AR2010100606096_pf.html
Post Co. discloses Newsweek's price tag: $1

The Associated Press
Wednesday, October 6, 2010; 7:11 PM

NEW YORK -- The Washington Post Co. has revealed exactly how much cash that audio equipment magnate Sidney Harman paid for Newsweek magazine this summer: $1.

The Post Co. also agreed to cover up to $10 million of Newsweek's existing bills. And it will hold on to certain employee pension liabilities, though it did not spell out a dollar figure in a regulatory filing Wednesday.

No one thought Harman paid much for Newsweek, which lost almost $30 million last year amid circulation and advertising declines.

But the magazine's sale for less than its $5.95-per-issue price on newsstands is still a grim milestone for a brand that was once a prized asset at the Post Co., which bought Newsweek in 1961.

The filing comes as speculation builds that Harman's Newsweek will form some kind of partnership with The Daily Beast, a news and opinion site owned by Barry Diller's media conglomerate, IAC/InterActiveCorp, and run by former New Yorker magazine editor Tina Brown.

In a piece commemorating the site's second anniversary on Wednesday, Brown answered the buzz about a deal with Newsweek by saying, "Yes, there have been some interesting discussions going on, as we have with potential partners large and small all the time."

Calls to The Daily Beast and Newsweek seeking further comment were not immediately returned. The Post Co. also declined to elaborate on its filing.

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The Daily Beast: http://www.thedailybeast.com/

Media and investigative reporter Howard Kurtz joins The Daily Beast as Washington Bureau Chief.
By Tina Brown
October 5, 2010 12:40pm
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-05/howard-kurtz-joins-the-daily-beast/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsR4

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New York magazine's Daily Intel blog
What Would a Tina Brown–Helmed Daily Beast–Newsweek Hybrid Look Like?
By Chris Rovzar
10/6/10 at 3:20 PM
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/10/so_what_would_a_tina_brown-hel.html

New York magazine's Daily Intel blog
Michael Kinsley Attacks the New Newsweek, and We Feel Bad About It
By Jessica Pressler
5/22/09 at 10:11 AM
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/05/michael_kinsley_hates_the_new.html

New York magazine's Daily Intel blog
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/