Newsweek To Go Digital-Only In 2013 110
Tony Isaac writes "Newsweek has announced that it will cease print publication at the end of the year, going all-digital. The new digital edition will still be based on a subscription model. Who will be next?"
The problem isn't the medium - it's the title (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem with Newsweek isn't the medium - it's the title. Who waits a week for their news, even their analysis anymore?
Re:The problem isn't the medium - it's the title (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, actual analysis would be worth it.
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TIME's - er, Onion's - answer to that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TT81o4hL4c [youtube.com]
Re:The problem isn't the medium - it's the title (Score:5, Funny)
Who waits a week for their news
Slashdotters?
Re:The problem isn't the medium - it's the title (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but we do get the same news multiple times, which makes up for that.
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And we get sensationlist tabloid trash headlines with them to boot, so we never have to buy a National Enquirer or Globe
Re:The problem isn't the medium - it's the title (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, but we do get the same news multiple times, which makes up for that. ;)
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The Economist? http://economist.com/ [economist.com] I like it too.
Re:The problem isn't the medium - it's the title (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all weekly news magazines are doing horribly. The Economist and the New Yorker are both doing fairly well, for somewhat different reasons (New Yorker focuses on long-form journalism, The Economist on concise analytical journalism). I think Newsweek basically gambled the wrong way. I used to subscribe to it in the 1990s, but eventually dropped it as they went in a more pop-news direction. They probably thought that was a good move to broaden their audience, but it left them in a position where it's not clear why you'd read Newsweek rather than any other somewhat trashy news source.
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Not all weekly news magazines are doing horribly. The Economist and the New Yorker are both doing fairly well
In fairness, The Economist and (IMO, to a lesser extent) the New Yorker aren't general gossip rags unfit for use even as birdcage liner.
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The economist is an example of a magazine that is expensive but worth it...proving that people will pay for solid information. The economist circulation has actually risen 50% in the last 12 years.
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The economist is an example of a magazine that is expensive but worth it...proving that people will pay for solid information. The economist circulation has actually risen 50% in the last 12 years.
As a long time subscriber, I must agree!
Re:The problem isn't the medium - it's the title (Score:5, Insightful)
Replying to myself: Actually come to think of it, what really did them in was probably stuff like the Huffington Post. Newsweek correctly guessed in the late 1990s that concise, not very cerebral, cribbed-from-somewhere-else summaries of generic news would have a wider audience than "serious" news, and be cheap to produce, too. So they moved in that direction, and it worked for a while. But then blogs happened, and now, why would you pay for Newsweek when the Huffington Post is almost exactly that, but free and updated more often?
It's hard to say it was a bad decision without using hindsight, because I'm not sure I would've predicted it at the time myself, but they picked the niche that was almost the worst possible niche to be in for competing against online news.
The problem is the medium (Score:5, Interesting)
Rather than adapt to changing technology, many print magazines opted to cut costs by cheapening the content, and catering to the dumbing down of the public. You don't need to wait for hindsight to know that's a bad idea. I've seen many a restaurant go the same way. Try to cut costs so much that the quality of the food suffers, and end up going out of business even faster as customers run away. US News and World Report tried to replace much news with Top 100 lists. I suppose those are cheaper to produce than real news, but they simply aren't that useful or interesting though they did make a big deal over the Top 100 universities with difficult to credit claims that the schools cared so much about it that they were all striving to improve their rankings in the magazine. Recently, US News went under and moved all their remaining subscribers to Time. I wouldn't be surprised if Time died in the near future.
Another bad idea is screwing with subscription models. Used to be that you'd get a renewal notice. Now, many magazines and newspapers are pushing the highly annoying automatic renewal with of course automatic charges, trotting out very lame and pathetically contrived reasoning that everyone is doing it, it's for our convenience so that we won't miss a single precious issue, and we asked for it, etc. Condescending and insulting. And clingy and desperate. Not qualities that inspire confidence in their journalism. Just this year, Reader's Digest made automatic renewal the default method, though at least it is optional. I quit the local newspaper when they wouldn't offer any subscription that didn't include automatic renewal.
Science News tried a bit better approach. They changed from a weekly to a biweekly to cut postage costs. It's a start, but ultimately, magazines must move entirely online. The cost difference alone dictates this move. But there is more. Online archives are far better than a shelf full of old issues. Much easier to search, and saves hugely on space. Dead tree is dying. Whenever I have moved, one thing that I did not lug with me were magazine collections.
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I've actually been looking into getting a subscription to The Economist and I was looking at their online options. Your last point about the availability of back issues is pointed because it's not universal. Apparently with The Economist, you have access to that week's issue only. Now, with a news magazine, maybe knowing what happened two or three weeks ago isn't quite as important. On the other hand, sometimes it takes me longer than a week to finish such a lengthy, dense magazine. Furthermore, someti
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According to this page [economist.com], subscribers have online access to all articles since 1997, which I assume is just because they haven't digitized the pre-1997 articles. I think the part about only having access to the current week's issue is specific to the iPhone/iPad app, where it only shows you the current week's issue in-app. But you can still browse the archives online.
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Not all weekly news magazines are doing horribly. The Economist and the New Yorker are both doing fairly well, for somewhat different reasons (New Yorker focuses on long-form journalism, The Economist on concise analytical journalism).
Also note that both the New Yorker and the Economist cater to wealthy people.
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Also note that both the New Yorker and the Economist cater to highly educated people.
Fixed that for you.
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Who waits a week for their news, even their analysis anymore?
People who want to know the "who", "what" & "where', but also the "why" and the "how". E.g. people who are interested in news as something other than a race amongst their "friends" to post "OMG!: [link]" on their whatever-feed.
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Those people are dying.
You know that, don't you?
Of course. We're all dying!
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This. You can read bit articles here and there, but you'll have to make sure to dig for various sources covering all related events, as well as varying points of view to account for bias. That is why you go for analysis from a source you trust to give you an unbiased analysis. I enjoyed reading The Economist, I probably should subscribe. Though their ebook releases are apparently awful.
Re:The problem isn't the medium - it's the title (Score:4, Interesting)
For print (and electronic, for that matter) weeklies, The Week [theweek.com] and The Economist [economist.com] offer more than Newsweek/Time/USNAWR ever did.
Those who are more interested in quality coverage with both breadth and depth than a lightweight, but timely response from pundits.
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I looked at an issue of Newsweek a few weeks back, the page count was much lower than I recall it being back in the 90's.
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Also, Newsweek was an advertising delivery style paper, while the economist makes it money from sales/subscriptions (it has ads, but is quite ad light relative to something like Wired or Newseek).
The thought that a publication is going to transition to subscription revenue rather than ad as it is in it's death sounds unlikely, of course it worked for Mad a handful of decades ago, so it's not impossible, just doesn't sound like they will succeed.
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I dont about others, but I love the FT Weekend edition. It is a complete summary of the week. I do check google news during the week, but I have never found it to be complete.
Re:The problem isn't the medium - it's the title (Score:5, Funny)
Gets worse though, I was in California a while ago, and they had a newspaper called the "Sacramento Bee." That's just stupid! I wanted the news, not a stinging insect!
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No, the problem is the content.
A weekly would be fine if it were a weekly with something unique and/or interesting to offer its readership. For instance, the Village Voice is still around, and still doing fine, because it does something fairly unique and very well.
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That and it's the other stuff like opinion pieces and analysis that c
The problem with Newsweek? (Score:2)
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The entire creation of the magazine is digital. All they are doing is cutting out the printing middle man. For better or worse the content isnt changing, just that it will have more restrictive access.
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I believe OMNI was first to go from paper to Internet Only in 1995. It only survived as an Internet magazine for three years.
Are there any magazines that fully made the switch and survived for any length of time?
WIRED backed out of making a full switch.
Anyhow, I miss OMNI. In paper.
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Are there any magazines that fully made the switch and survived for any length of time?
Nope. Nor do most newspapers unless they give highly unique and tailored content like WSJ for example. It's the only sub I have for digital media. Financial information is highly speculative, so that's probably why WSJ and Moneyweek(UK) are doing well enough on a sub or partial paywall service.
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"Respectable magazine?" Have you actually read Newsweek in the past, oh, ten years?
I'm still waiting (Score:1)
for "Minority Report" style newspapers....
That'd be awesome.
NOOOOOO (Score:2)
It makes perfect sense (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It makes perfect sense (Score:5, Funny)
After all, a dead-tree newspaper can be read by multiple people despite having been paid for only once!
As oppose to a digital newspaper, which can be read by millions despite only having been paid for once.
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Or not at all.
Which tends to be the bigger problem.
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You are forgetting that other than old foggies everyone has their smartphone/tablet with them at the doctors office. The old geezers will die, and the rest will laugh about how they used to have to read old copies of newsweek instead of playing video games while waiting for the doctor who at noon is already an hour behind in appointments.
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What they're forgetting to take into account is who subscribes to Newsweek: Doctors who often have patients waiting for an appointment. Who is going to subscribe to a Newsweek that can't be left out for patients to read while they wait for the doctor to see them?
The doctors of the future will have stacks of battered old iPad 2's on the table in the waiting area....
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What they're forgetting to take into account is who subscribes to Newsweek: Doctors who often have patients waiting for an appointment. Who is going to subscribe to a Newsweek that can't be left out for patients to read while they wait for the doctor to see them?
The doctors of the future will have stacks of battered old iPad 2's on the table in the waiting area....
All of which will have batteries that no longer hold a charge longer than 10 minutes.
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All those issues are from 2009 anyway. All the doctors have to do is save up Newsweek's last issues, and then leave them in waiting rooms forever.
Sad (Score:5, Interesting)
It used to be a good source of info. I remember learning about Alta Vista from Newsweek. Oddly, and if I'm remembering correctly, they were profiling Leslie Nielsen who loved the search engine.
Re:Sad (Score:5, Funny)
Surely, you can't be serious?
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It was a ranking of the service based on a comparative assessment of its quality, standard, and performance, but that's not important right now.
Stop the Presses! (Score:5, Funny)
No, really.
They will be - December 31st. (Score:2)
>> Stop the presses!
They will be - December 31st.
http://www.jsonline.com/business/quadgraphics-loses-longtime-contract-with-newsweek-ending-print-editions-6l7963e-174765501.html [jsonline.com]
WHOOSH! (Score:2)
That sound over your head wasn't someone jumping down at the speed of light.
Damn! (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been a Newsweek subscriber my entire literate life (I started reading it in middle school 20 years ago). While some of the layout and editorial changes over the last few years have been a bit jarring, I've always found Newsweek to be a great balance of depth and breadth in its reporting. I really like the weekly format as it allows the opportunity to read and overview of the news that is actually important rather than being overwhelmed by a stream of minute-to-minute trending headlines.
Any recommendations for a replacement weekly?
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Give FT Weekend edition a try. I have found it to be a pretty comprehensive summary of the week.
The Economist. (Score:4, Informative)
Much more meat rather than sensationalist filler. After just a couple issues you'll be thanking Newsweek for stopping their presses and thus convincing you to move on.
Libraries Lose (Score:2)
That will pretty much cut them out, as im willing to be there will be no way to 'share' this, and it will expire so back issues will have to be paid for again, if you want them.
I still read the print newspaper.... (Score:4, Interesting)
When I fly it is usually realatively short flights, 1-3 hours. Knowing I can't use electronics through half of the flight I just pickup a newspaper or a copy of news week for the trip, I read it on the flight and leave it at the gate for others to read after me. Same with the newspaper at coffee shops, its a media that is comfortable for me, whereas small phone screens or electronic tablet screens really feel foreign still to me.
I had a Kindle Fire for a while but found that wifi coverage really wasn't very good even though I live in a major city. No wifi on the train, or it wasn't working most of the time so I couldn't read the news or it was so slow that I spent half the time loading on congested wifi. Print media is still the way to go in many circumstances, unfortunately the market is shrinking very quickly so it may go the way of betamax, but until then I'm holding on.
Get Pocket (Score:2)
I had a Kindle Fire for a while but found that wifi coverage really wasn't very good even though I live in a major city. No wifi on the train
It won't solve your problem of having to leave devices turned off during takeoff and landing, but one thing you might try is the Pocket app [getpocket.com]. It lets you save articles to read offline.
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I have birds, so I occasionally have to buy a Sunday edition.
Good riddance (Score:4, Insightful)
Newsweek ceased being relevant when they became decidedly politically slanted decades ago. They became the liberal version of Fox news, reliable only for a guaranteed political slant. Nice that they are getting rid of the dead tree edition, but the reality is that their subscription base has been plummeting for years.
Changing the distribution form isn't going to change the reason people stopped reading them. Until they fix their blatant political bias this is nothing more than a stop gap between them and the dust bin of history. I predict they become little more than another blogger site within 3 years or so. This is the same company that was sold for a $1 not to long ago.
Before you go off thinking I'm some kind of right wing Fox news fanatic, I'm not very fond of them for their political bias either.
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This is true, and I'm surprised you weren't modded down to troll here on /. :)
Unfortunately, this seems to be how most "news" sources are turning out these days. Either they are very liberal or very conservative. I'd love a decent unbiased news source, but you won't find one on TV or news stands. So, I basically just get the general gist via the USA Today app on my iPhone. Pathetic, I know.
Off-topic: today's logo (Score:5, Informative)
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Dude. You know Tolkien was a language nerd, right?
Re:Off-topic: today's logo (Score:4, Insightful)
Tolkien was an Oxford professor of linguistics. Calling him a "language nerd" is like calling Stephen Hawking a "physics nerd." He was a language *professional*.
Re:Off-topic: today's logo (Score:4, Interesting)
A fitting tribute to Slashdot that garbage from the submitter was posted without any editorial oversight.
... and then corrected by a +5 informative annoyed nerd in the comments. Good thing you don't need my last modpoint, because I just spent it on someone who pointed out that
Only on the Commodore 64 was Å the last letter of the Swedish alphabet, due to the PETSCII values assigned in the nordic ROMs.
This kind of shit is the reason I keep coming back to Slashdot. The editing's always been hopeless but there's gold in them there comments.
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Oh god. (Score:2)
I really hate the dancing logo business, and now it's making its way into comment meta in unrelated stories.
Note to self: One more reason to pull back on Slashdot even more.
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daily/online news lacks reflection (Score:2)
used to read for learning English (Score:2)
I used to have a subscription while I was learning English back at school so that I could practice my reading skills. It used to be an interesting magazine, but in the last few years its quality has degraded considerably. Goodbye, Newsweek. You will be remembered, but not missed.
If journalism was easy, (Score:1)
I hope they... (Score:4, Insightful)
Use the Scientific American model of a reasonable single price for digital subscription with full access to all past editions for let's say 20 years? That would totally rock. The only problem I see here is how they're going to differentiate themselves from free content and news aggregators.
This is one of the things at the heart of the dying newspaper industry. We need a healthy, and independent new industry, because corruption flourishes in the darkness and one of the only things that can prevent this kind of social cancer is a free and independent Fourth Estate.
By the way, the current state of affairs in America, where virtually all sources of news and information are being concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer owners and that information is being shaped by the political and ideological bent of those fewer and fewer owners. It may in fact be the greatest threats to our way of life facing us today. There have been countless recent incidents where the Constitution and its guaranteed civil rights have been virtually decimated and the press should have been screaming its head off, and I see not a printed word nor do I hear a spoken comment. Add to that the growing attempt to turn the internet into a TV channel, and the silence would then be complete. Freedom loving people everywhere need to determine where the good sources of information, and make certain those sources are protected, invested in, and celebrated as heroic forces in a political system that has clearly lost its way. By the way, the whistle blowers and printers of government secrets are heroes and patriots, and we need to protect them the way we protect national treasures.
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By the way, the whistle blowers and printers of government secrets are heroes and patriots, and we need to protect them the way we protect national treasures
So, you don't consider people who put their lives on the line to protect you to be national treasures? Or is the person who's willing to dump their name into the open along with hundreds of thousands of random sensitive documents more of a hero and patriot?
Wi-Fi (Score:3)
What are doctors and dentists going to place in their waiting rooms?
A Wi-Fi access point so that people can bring their own netbook or tablet. Afdent in Fort Wayne is already doing this.
Give Newsweek some Time... (Score:1)
and they'll do fine.
Who will be next? (Score:2)
That's easy, Subby. Time. Because US News & World Report already ended regular print publication.
end of an era for me (Score:2)
My first-ever job was delivering Newsweek (and Time and a bunch of monthlies), as a kind of glorified paperboy. When I used the money from that job to buy my first-ever computer, I had little idea that this would be happening 30 years later.
It's a shame. (Score:2)
It's just a shame that Weekly World News went under before the Internet became a viable business method.
I miss Bat Boy. :(
There goes 90% of the subscriptions... (Score:3)
Since 90% of Newsweek subscriptions are made by doctors and dentists, in order to have light fluff for their victims to read before another unnecessary procedure, there goes Newsweek.
It's OK, though, Newsweek is one of the most miserable of the so-called news magazines. Light on facts, heavy on the propaganda. I bet Maureen Dowd would fit in great there.
The writing's on the Wall .. (Score:2)
The writing's on the Wall for print media, with such devices such as iPAD and Kindle the future of paper media is very much in the decline
Worst of both worlds (Score:2)
Re:More importantly, who cares? (Score:4, Funny)
I dont
That's ok, I doubt anyone is going to subscribe to your newsletter either.
NewsWEAK (Score:4, Insightful)
No, I won't be buying. I get enough disinformation for free from the Internet, thank you very much.
The problem with NewsWEEK is it's based on a technology where WEEK meant timely.
There's nothing true in Newsweek - the editorials are spins on crass assumptions - all framing, cue and mis-direction.
Who's next? Who cares. I used to rifle through this tripe, while waiting before I got my teeth cleaned. I'm afraid I haven't bothered that for years now - since the browser showed on my phone, 5-6 years ago.
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Re:NewsWEAK (Score:5, Funny)
If you were reading Newsweek at the dentist's office, I think I should tell you that Nixon isn't president anymore.