In today’s New York Times, Tina Brown takes no responsibility for screwing up Newsweek. However, she did not understand the most basic thing about print media. News breaks online. Print is for long, detailed analysis pieces. Like in the New Yorker. Like in the Economist. This is so simple, yet she tarted up Newsweek with a bunch of worthless charticles and photographs.
There is still a place for print. The problem is not the medium. The problem is that the people in charge of it, the gatekeepers, don’t know what they are doing. Remember, print started suffering in the early 1960s. No Internet until the 1990s.
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Tina Brown has never understood anything. I will never forgive her for killing the New Yorker. It has recovered a bit from when she edited it, but it will never be close to what it was, ever.
According to the movie ‘Teacher’s Pet’ the basic business model for a newspaper back in the ’50s was to have circulation charges equal to the cost of newsprint and ink. Advertising rates were then based on total circulation revenues. Great model, until times changed.
The economies of publishing began changing drastically in the ’60s, but management continued to use the old rules of thumb, which no longer worked.
And management of publications remains mired in the past and unable to come up with a new, viable business model.