Newsweek

Newsweekis an American weeklynews magazine. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933,Newsweekwas widely distributed during the 20th century and had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned byDev Pragad, the president andchief executive officer(CEO), and Johnathan Davis, who sits on the board; each owning 50% of the company.
In August 2010, revenue decline promptedthe Washington Post Companyto sell the publication to the audio pioneerSidney Harmanfor one US dollar and an assumption of the magazine's liabilities.Later that year,Newsweekmerged with the news and opinion websiteThe Daily Beast, formingThe Newsweek Daily Beast Company, later calledNewsBeast.Newsweekwas jointly owned by the estate of Harman and the diversified American media and Internet companyIAC.Newsweekcontinued to experience financial difficulties leading to the cessation of print publication and a transition to an all-digital format at the end of 2012.
In 2013,IBT MediaacquiredNewsweekfrom IAC; the acquisition included theNewsweekbrand and its online publication but did not includeThe Daily Beast.IBT Media, which also owns theInternational Business Times, rebranded itself as Newsweek Media Group and in 2014 relaunchedNewsweekin both print and digital form. In 2018, IBT Media split into two companies, Newsweek Publishing and IBT Media. The split was accomplished one day before thedistrict attorneyof Manhattan indicted Etienne Uzac, the co-owner of IBT Media, on fraud charges.
UnderNewsweek's current co-owner and CEO Dev Pragad, the business is profitable, growing 20–30% per year; according toComscore, its monthly unique visitors rose from about 30 million to 48 million between May 2019 and May 2022.Since Pragad became CEO in 2016, readership has grown to 100-million readers per month, the highest in its 90-year history.TheHarvard Business Schoolpublished a case study of the company in 2021.
News-Weekwas launched in 1933 byThomas J. C. Martyn, a former foreign news editor forTime. He obtained financial backing from a group of U.S. stockholders "which includedWard Cheney, of the Cheney silk family,John Hay Whitney, andPaul Mellon, son ofAndrew W. Mellon".Paul Mellon's ownership inNews-Weekmarked "the first attempt of the Mellon family to function journalistically on a national scale".The group of original owners invested aroundUS$2.5million (equivalent to $58.84million in 2023). Other large stockholders prior to 1946 were public utilities investment banker Stanley Childs and Wall Street corporate lawyer Wilton Lloyd-Smith.
JournalistSamuel T. Williamsonserved as the first editor-in-chief ofNews-Week. The first issue of the magazine was dated February 17, 1933. Sevenphotographsfrom the week's news were printed on the first issue's cover.In 1937,News-Weekmerged with the weekly journalToday, which had been founded in 1932 by future New York Governor and diplomatW. Averell HarrimanandVincent Astorof the prominentAstor family. As a result of the deal, Harriman and Astor provided $600,000 (equivalent to $12,717,000 in 2023) in venture capital funds and Vincent Astor became both the chairman of the board and its principal stockholder between 1937 and his death in 1959.
In 1937Malcolm Muirtook over as president and editor-in-chief. He changed the name toNewsweek, emphasized interpretive stories, introduced signed columns, and launched international editions.
The magazine was purchased byThe Washington Post Companyin 1961.Osborn Elliottwas named editor ofNewsweekin 1961 and became the editor-in-chief in 1969.
In 1970,Eleanor Holmes Nortonrepresented sixty female employees ofNewsweekwho had filed a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission thatNewsweekhad a policy of allowing only men to be reporters.The women won the suit with the support of theAmerican Civil Liberties Union(ACLU) andNewsweekagreed to allow women to be reporters.The day the claim was filed,Newsweek'scover article was "Women in Revolt", covering the feminist movement; the article was written by a woman who had been hired on a freelance basis since there were no female reporters at the magazine.
Edward Kosnerbecame editor from 1975 to 1979 after directing the magazine's extensive coverage of theWatergate scandalthat led to the resignation of PresidentRichard Nixonin 1974.Richard M. Smithbecame chairman in 1998. Also in 1998, the magazine inaugurated its "Best High Schools in America" list,a ranking of publicsecondary schoolsbased on theChallenge Index, which measures the ratio ofAdvanced PlacementorInternational Baccalaureateexams taken by students to the number of graduating students that year, regardless of the scores earned by students or the difficulty in graduating. Schools with averageSATscores above 1300 or averageACTscores above 27 are excluded from the list; these are categorized instead as "Public Elite" High Schools. In 2008, there were 17 Public Elites.
Smith resigned as board chairman in December 2007.
During 2008–2009,Newsweekundertook a dramatic business restructuring.Citing difficulties in competing with online news sources to provide unique news in a weekly publication, the magazine refocused its content on opinion and commentary beginning with its May 24, 2009, issue. Its subscriber base shrank from 3.1million to 2.6million in early 2008, to 1.9million in July 2009 and then to 1.5million in January 2010—a decline of 50% in one year.Jon Meacham, editor-in-chief from 2006 to 2010,described his strategy as "counterintuitive" as it involved discouraging subscription renewals and nearly doubling subscription prices as it sought a more affluent subscriber base for its advertisers.During this period, the magazine also laid off staff. While advertising revenues were down almost 50% compared to the prior year, expenses were also diminished, whereby the publishers hopedNewsweekwould return to profitability.
The financial results for 2009 as reported by The Washington Post Company showed that advertising revenue forNewsweekwas down 37% in 2009 and the magazine division reported an operating loss for 2009 ofUS$29.3million (equivalent to $41.61 million in 2023) compared to a loss ofUS$16million in 2008 (equivalent to $22.64 million in 2023).During the first quarter of 2010, the magazine lost nearlyUS$11million (equivalent to $15.37 million in 2023).
By May 2010,Newsweekhad been losing money for the past two years and was put up for sale.The sale attracted international bidders. One bidder was Syrian entrepreneur Abdulsalam Haykal, CEO of Syrian publishing company Haykal Media, who brought together a coalition of Middle Eastern investors with his company. Haykal later claimed his bid was ignored byNewsweek'sbankers,Allen & Co.
The magazine was sold to audio pioneerSidney Harmanon August 2, 2010, forUS$1in exchange for assuming the magazine's financial liabilities.Harman's bid was accepted over three competitors.Jon Meacham left the magazine upon completion of the sale. Sidney Harman was the husband ofJane Harman, at that time a member of Congress from California.
At the end of 2010,Newsweekmerged with the online publicationThe Daily Beast, following extensive negotiations between the respective proprietors.Tina Brown,The Daily Beast'seditor-in-chief, became editor of both publications. The new entity,The Newsweek Daily Beast Company, was 50% owned byIAC/InterActiveCorpand 50% by Harman.
Newsweekwas redesigned in March 2011.The newNewsweekmoved the "Perspectives" section to the front of the magazine, where it served as a summary of the past week's news reported on byThe Daily Beast. More room was made available in the front of the magazine for columnists, editors, and special guests. A new "News Gallery" section featured two-page spreads of photographs from the week with a brief article accompanying each one. The "NewsBeast" section featured short articles, a brief interview with a newsmaker, and several graphs and charts for quick reading in the style ofThe Daily Beast. This is where theNewsweekstaple "Conventional Wisdom" was located. Brown retainedNewsweek'sfocus on in-depth, analytical features and original reporting on politics and world affairs, as well as a new focus on longer fashion and pop culture features. A larger culture section named "Omnivore" featured art, music, books, film, theater, food, travel, and television, including a weekly "Books" and "Want" section. The back page was reserved for a "My Favorite Mistake" column written by celebrity guest columnists about a mistake they made that helped shape who they are.
On July 25, 2012, the company operatingNewsweekindicated the publication was likely to go digital to cover its losses and could undergo other changes by the next year.Barry Diller, chairman of the conglomerate IAC/InterActiveCorp, said his firm was looking at options since its partner in theNewsweek/Daily Beastoperation had pulled out.
At the end of 2012, the company discontinued the American print edition after 80 years of publication, citing the increasing difficulty of maintaining a paper weekly magazine in the face of declining advertising and subscription revenues and increasing costs for print production and distribution.The online edition was renamedNewsweek Global.
In April 2013, IAC chairman and founder Barry Diller said at theMilken Global Conferencethat he "wished he hadn't bought"Newsweekbecause his company had lost money on the magazine and called the purchase a "mistake" and a "fool's errand".
On August 3, 2013,IBT MediaacquiredNewsweekfrom IAC on terms that were not disclosed; the acquisition included theNewsweekbrand and its online publication, but did not includeThe Daily Beast.On March 7, 2014, IBT Media relaunched a print edition ofNewsweekwith a cover story on the alleged creator ofBitcointhat was criticized for lacking substantive evidence. The magazine stood by its story.
IBT Media announced that the publication returned to profitability on October 8, 2014.In February 2017, IBT Media appointed Matt McAllester, then editor ofNewsweek International, as global editor-in-chief ofNewsweek.
In January 2018,Newsweekoffices were raided by theManhattan District Attorney's office as part of an investigation into co-owner and founder, Etienne Uzac.Columbia Journalism Reviewnoted the probe "focused on loans the company took out to purchase the computer equipment",and severalNewsweekreporters were fired after reporting on the issue. Uzac pleaded guilty to fraud andmoney launderingin 2020.
In September 2018, after completing the strategic structural changes introduced in March of the same year, IBT Media spun offNewsweekinto its own entity, Newsweek Publishing LLC, with co-ownership toDev Pragadand Johnathan Davis of IBT Media.
In 2020,Newsweek's website hit 100 million unique monthly readers, up from seven million at the start of 2017.In 2021, its revenues doubled to $75 million and traffic increased to 48 million monthly unique visitors in May 2022 from about 30 million in May 2019 according to Comscore.The "rebirth" ofNewsweekwas the subject of a study byHarvard Business School.
In September 2023,Newsweekannounced it would be making use ofgenerative AIin its operations.Its AI policy states that generative AI can be used in "writing, research, editing, and other core journalism functions" as long as journalists are involved throughout the process. In 2024, it rolled out an AI video production tool and started hiring an AI-focusedbreaking newsteam.
In 2003, worldwide circulation was more than 4 million, including 2.7 million in the U.S; by 2010 it reduced to 1.5 million (with newsstand sales declining to just over 40,000 copies per week).Newsweekpublishes editions inJapanese,Korean,Polish,Romanian,Spanish,Rioplatense Spanish,Arabic,Turkish,Serbian, as well as anEnglish-languageNewsweek International.Russian Newsweek, published since 2004, was shuttered in October 2010.The Bulletin(an Australian weekly until 2008) incorporated an international news section fromNewsweek.
Based in New York City, the magazine claimed 22 bureaus in 2011: nine in the U.S.:New York City,Los Angeles,Chicago/Detroit,Dallas,Miami,Washington, D.C.,BostonandSan Francisco, and others overseas inLondon,Paris,Berlin,Moscow,Jerusalem,Baghdad,Tokyo,Hong Kong,Beijing,South Asia,Cape Town,Mexico CityandBuenos Aires.
According to a 2015 column in theNew York Post, after returning to print publication,Newsweekwas selling c. 100,000 copies per month, with staff at that time numbering "about 60 editorial staffers", up from a low of "less than 30 editorial staffers" in 2013, but with plans then to grow the number to "close to 100 in the next year".
In 1970,Eleanor Holmes Nortonrepresented sixty female employees ofNewsweekwho had filed a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission thatNewsweekhad a policy of allowing only men to be reporters.The women won, andNewsweekagreed to allow women to be reporters.The day the claim was filed,Newsweek'scover article was "Women in Revolt", covering the feminist movement. The article was written by Helen Dudar, a freelancer, in the belief that there were no female writers at the magazine capable of handling the assignment. Those passed over includedElizabeth Peer, who had spent five years in Paris as a foreign correspondent.
The 1986 cover ofNewsweekfeatured an article that said "women who weren't married by 40 had a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than of finding a husband".Newsweekeventually apologized for the story and in 2010 launched a study that discovered 2 in 3 women who were 40 and single in 1986 had married since.The story caused a "wave of anxiety" and some "skepticism" amongst professional and highly educated women in the United States.The article was cited several times in the 1993HollywoodfilmSleepless in SeattlestarringTom HanksandMeg Ryan.Comparisons have been made with this article and the current rising issues surrounding the social stigma of unwed women in Asia calledsheng nu.
Former Alaska Governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nomineeSarah Palinwas featured on the cover of the November 23, 2009, issue ofNewsweek, with the caption "How do you Solve a Problem Like Sarah?" featuring an image of Palin in athletic attire and posing. Palin herself, theLos Angeles Timesand other commentators accusedNewsweekofsexismfor their choice of cover in the November 23, 2009 issue discussing Palin's book,Going Rogue: An American Life. "It's sexist as hell", wrote Lisa Richardson for theLos Angeles Times.Taylor MarshofThe Huffington Postcalled it "the worst case of pictorial sexism aimed at political character assassination ever done by a traditional media outlet".David Brody ofCBN Newsstated: "This cover should be insulting to women politicians."The cover includes a photo of Palin used in the August 2009 issue ofRunner's World.The photographer may have breached his contract withRunner's Worldwhen he permitted its use inNewsweek, asRunner's Worldmaintained certain rights to the photo until August 2010. It is uncertain, however, whether this particular use of the photo was prohibited.
Minnesota Republican Congresswoman and presidential candidateMichele Bachmannwas featured on the cover ofNewsweekmagazine in August 2011, dubbed "the Queen of Rage".The photo of her was perceived as unflattering, as it portrayed her with a wide-eyed expression some said made her look "crazy".Conservative commentatorMichelle Malkincalled the depiction "sexist",and Sarah Palin denounced the publication.Newsweekdefended the cover's depiction of her, saying its other photos of Bachmann showed similar intensity.
In June 2024,Newsweekpublished an opinion piece with the title "Taylor Swift Is Not a Good Role Model",which claimed that American singer-songwriterTaylor Swiftwas a bad role model for young girls due to being unmarried, childless and having been in multiple relationships.The article was condemned as sexist,including by tennis playerMartina Navratilova.
Unlike most large American magazines,Newsweekhas not used fact-checkers since 1996. In 1997, the magazine was forced to recall several hundred thousand copies of a special issue calledYour Child, which advised that infants as young as five months old could safely feed themselveszwiebacktoasts and chunks of raw carrot (to the contrary, both represent a choking hazard in children this young). The error was later attributed to a copy editor who was working on two stories at the same time.
In 2017,Newsweekpublished a story claiming that the First Lady of Poland refused to shake U.S. PresidentDonald Trump's hand; fact-checking websiteSnopesdescribed the assertion as "false".Newsweekcorrected its story.
In 2018,Newsweekran a story alleging that President Trump had colored the American flag incorrectly while visiting a classroom;Snopeswas unable to corroborate the photographic evidence.
In August 2018,Newsweekincorrectly reported that theSweden Democrats, afar-rightparty, could win a majority in the 2018 Swedish parliamentary elections. Polls showed that the party was far away from winning a majority. By September 2018,Newsweek'sarticle was still up.
In November 2022, during theMahsa Amini protestsin Iran,Newsweekincorrectly reported that Iran had ordered the execution of over 15,000 protesters. The claim was widely shared on social media, including by actressesTrudie Styler,Sophie TurnerandViola Davis, and Canadian prime ministerJustin Trudeau. The number was actually derived from estimates from aUnited Nationshuman rightsrapporteurand otherhuman rightsorganizationsof how many people were detained in Iran in connection with the protests, andNewsweeklater retracted the underlying claim leading to the inference that the people faced a death sentence.
In October 2023,Newsweekincorrectly reported that a viral video of U.S. senatorTommy Tubervillefalling down a flight of stairs while exiting an airplane had been recorded that month. The reporting byNewsweekdrew comparisons to Tuberville's criticism of PresidentJoe Bidensimilarly tripping on stairways. In reality, the video highlighted byNewsweekwas filmed in 2014, nine years prior, before Tuberville's tenure as senator.
TheManhattan District Attorney's office raidedNewsweek's headquarters inLower Manhattanon January 18, 2018, and seized 18 computer servers as part of an investigation related to the company's finances.IBT, which ownedNewsweekat the time, had been under scrutiny for its ties toDavid Jang,a South Korean pastor and the leader of a Christian sect called "the Community".In February 2018, under IBT ownership, severalNewsweekstaff were fired and some resigned stating that management had tried to interfere in articles about the investigations.
Fareed Zakaria, aNewsweekcolumnist and editor ofNewsweek International, attended a secret meeting on November 29, 2001, with a dozen policy makers, Middle East experts and members of influential policy research organizations that produced a report for PresidentGeorge W. Bushand his cabinet outlining a strategy for dealing with Afghanistan and the Middle East in the aftermath ofSeptember 11, 2001. The meeting was held at the request ofPaul D. Wolfowitz, then theDeputy Secretary of Defense. The unusual presence of journalists, who also includedRobert D. KaplanofThe Atlantic Monthly, at such a strategy meeting was revealed inBob Woodward's 2006 bookState of Denial: Bush at War, Part III. Woodward reported in his book that, according to Kaplan, everyone at the meeting signed confidentiality agreements not to discuss what happened. Zakaria toldThe New York Timesthat he attended the meeting for several hours but did not recall being told that a report for the president would be produced.On October 21, 2006, after verification, theTimespublished a correction that stated:
The cover story of the January 15, 2015, issue, titled "What Silicon Valley Thinks of Women" caused controversy, due to both its illustration, described as "the cartoon of a faceless female in spiky red heels, having her dress lifted up by acursorarrow", and its content, described as "a 5,000-word article on the creepy, sexist culture of the tech industry".Among those offended by the cover wereToday Showco-hostTamron Hall, who commented "I think it's obscene and just despicable, honestly."Newsweekeditor-in-chief James Impoco explained "We came up with an image that we felt represented what that story said about Silicon Valley ... If people get angry, they should be angry."The article's author,Nina Burleigh, asked, "Where were all these offended people when women likeHeidi Roizenpublished accounts of having a venture capitalist stick her hand in his pants under a table while a deal was being discussed?"
In January 1998,NewsweekreporterMichael Isikoffwas the first reporter to investigate allegations of a sexual relationship between U.S. PresidentBill ClintonandMonica Lewinsky, but the editorsspikedthe story.The story soon surfaced online in theDrudge Report.
In the2008 U.S. presidential election, theJohn McCaincampaign wrote a lengthy letter to the editor criticizing a cover story in May 2008.
Newsweekjournalists have expressed criticism of the editorial quality of its reporting since its change in ownership in 2013. In 2018, formerNewsweekjournalistJonathan Alterwrote inThe Atlanticthat since being sold to theInternational Business Timesin 2013 the magazine had "produced some strong journalism and plenty of clickbait before becoming a painful embarrassment to anyone who toiled there in its golden age".FormerNewsweekwriter Matthew Cooper criticizedNewsweekfor running multiple inaccurate stories in 2018.
In December 2019, journalist Tareq Haddad said he resigned fromNewsweekwhen it refused to publish his story about documents published byWikiLeaksconcerning theOrganisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons' report into the 2018Douma chemical attack. Haddad said his information was inconvenient to the U.S. government which had retaliated after the chemical attack. ANewsweekspokesperson responded that Haddad "pitched a conspiracy theory rather than an idea for objective reporting.Newsweekeditors rejected the pitch."
In August 2020,Chapman UniversityprofessorJohn C. Eastmanwrote aNewsweekop-ed asking ifKamala Harris'sparents were U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents at the time of her birth or if they were temporary visitors. He then stated that if they were temporary visitors, then "under the14th Amendmentas originally understood", she would not be considered a U.S. citizen andwould not be eligiblefor her then-current position in the Senate.The op-ed resulted in the spread of 'birther-ism' conspiracy theories surrounding Kamala Harris.Newsweeklater apologized for the op-ed, saying they had "entirely failed to anticipate the ways in which the essay would be interpreted, distorted and weaponized" and that their publication of it "was intended to explore a minority legal argument about the definition of who is a 'natural-born citizen' in the United States."
In December 2021, comedianJon Stewartcriticized Newsweek, declaring in a podcast titled "Clickbait is Arson," that its "business model is ... arson", after the magazine reported that he accusedHarry PotterauthorJ. K. Rowlingof antisemitism.
In September 2022,Recorderpublished an investigation on press financing in Romania by the political parties in government. In the investigation, it accusedNewsweek Romaniaof being paid €8,000 per month (€3,000 by Payment Services directive (PSD) and €5,000 by PNL) to publish positive articles about the government.After the publication of the investigation,Newsweek Romaniapublished an investigation aboutRecorder's owner who is the son of a former communist ambassador and also a nephew of a former KGB general.In response,Recorder's journalists accusedNewsweek Romaniaof denigrating them.
In November 2022, theSouthern Poverty Law Centerreported thatNewsweekhad "taken a markedradical rightturn by buoying extremists and promoting authoritarian leaders" since it hired conservative political activistJosh Hammeraseditor-at-large. It noted the magazine's elevation ofconspiracy theorists, publication of conspiracy theories aboutCOVID-19, views such as support for a ban on all legal immigration to the United States and denying adults access totrans-affirming medical care, and failure to disclose potentialconflicts of interestin the content published on Hammer's opinion section and podcast.
Notable contributors or employees have included:
Those who held the positions of president, chairman, or publisher under The Washington Post Company ownership include:
Newsweek publishes World's Best Hospitals annually, a ranking of the best hospitals in 20 countries based on the opinions of medical professionals, patient survey results and key medical performance indicators. The countries monitored are the United States, Canada, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Israel, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, India, Thailand, Australia, Argentina, and Brazil.