WASHINGTON – In an early morning memo Thursday to all staff of Newsweek and its web companion The Daily Beast, editor-in-chief Tina Brown announced that the last print edition of the 79-year-old magazine will be its Dec. 31 issue. In a move she called “a turn of the page,” Brown said Newsweek will transition to an all-digital format early in 2013. The new publication will be renamed Newsweek Global and “will be a single, worldwide edition targeted for a highly mobile, opinion-leading audience who want to learn about world events in a sophisticated context,” she wrote. “We are transitioning Newsweek, not saying goodbye to it.” Brown added that “regrettably,” a reduction in staff is likely, as the company streamlines editorial and business operations in the US and abroad. “This decision is not about the quality of the brand or the journalism – that is as powerful as ever. It is about the challenging economics of print publishing and distribution,” she said. The New York Daily News' Meena Hart Duerson commented on Twitter: “Newsweek nails why its announcement about ending the physical magazine hurts: It's “the romance of print.” Jillian C. York of the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote: “Newsweek goes all-digital, making it much easier to ignore.” Newsweek, which had a fierce decades-long rivalry with Time magazine, has been losing money steadily. Brown said the all-digital publication will be available on the web and on tablets via a paid subscription, with “select content” available on The Daily Beast website. The company operating the magazine had indicated in July the move to all-digital was likely. Barry Diller, chairman and chief executive at the conglomerate IAC, said his firm was looking at options now that its partner in the Newsweek/Daily Beast operation has pulled out. The Washington Post sold Newsweek to California billionaire Sidney Harman for one dollar in 2010, ahead of a deal with IAC to merge the magazine with the online operation to become known familiarly as “Newsbeast.” After Harman's death in 2011, his family ended its financial contributions. Like other US magazines and newspapers, Newsweek has been grappling with a steep drop in print advertising revenue, steadily declining circulation and the migration of readers to free news online. – Agencies
