Both men have held executive positions at Olivet University founded by controversial evangelical pastor David J. Revenues were reported at $21 million for 2013. Co-owners Etienne Uzac and Johnathan Davis founded their company in 2006, using only their own personal funds. When that failed to work, Diller sold the magazine, then only in digital form, to IBT Media, which now publishes 10 online publications, including such titles as International Business Daily and Medical Daily. After Harman passed away, Diller put Newsweek into a joint venture with The Daily Beast, hoping that Daily Beast owner Tina Brown could help revitalize the Newsweek brand. Diller had gone into partnership with Harman, both of whom had strong ties to the Democratic Party, to save the magazine. When Harman died in 2011 at the age of 92, Newsweek became Barry Diller’s problem. (Harman was married to Jane Harman, former California Congresswoman and currently head of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a Democratic party think-tank.) Harman agreed to pick up the magazine’s liabilities as part of the deal. His $1 bid was taken over four others, including one from Syrian entrepreneur Abulsalam Haykal and a group of Middle Eastern investors. The Washington Post, itself in financial straits, was unable to continue carrying Newsweek’s losses and sold the magazine to Harman-Kardon co-founder Sidney Harman in 2010. Continuing mismanagement lead to an operating loss of $29.3 million in 2009, up from a $16 million loss in 2008. After years of declining subscriptions and advertising revenues, Newsweek moved away from hard news coverage, focusing instead on opinion and commentary. Newsweek was bought out by The Washington Post Company in 1961. Last issue before Diller pulled the plug on the printed edition There were also allegations of plagiarism against several reporters. Its most notorious setbacks were probably the cover photos showing former Republican presidential aspirant Michele Bachmann and Vice President candidate Sarah Palin in unflattering poses. Its greatest journalistic accomplishment was probably its coverage of the Watergate Scandal, logical since Newsweek was very much a bastion of the Democratic Party offsetting Time Magazine’s decidedly more conservative bias.
Harriman had the unique distinction of running for the presidency on the Democratic ticket twice, and losing to the same man, Dwight David Eisenhower, twice.ĭespite its celebrity-studded board of directors, Newsweek (as the magazine became known from 1937 on) was always second-fiddle to the more successful Time Magazine. Astor became the chairman of the board until his death in 1959. The magazine merged with Today, another weekly journal, in 1937, which brought Averell Harriman and Vincent Astor into the paper as investors. Martyn, a former Time Magazine editor, with blue chip backing from the Cheney, Whitney and Mellon families. “ News-Week” was founded in 1933 by Thomas C.J. With a more conservative bias in its editorial content, the publication may find it difficult to attract back its old liberal audience…or attract more conservative readers to an old liberal brand. That scoop notwithstanding, the new Newsweek has a tough job ahead establishing itself as a respected journal in the face of concerns about the editorial direction the new owners might take. The new Newsweek came out swinging with its first issue on March 2, now on newsstands, with a blockbuster scoop about breaking through the wall of secrecy to reveal the identity of super-secretive Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto to be none other than…Satoshi Nakamoto When that did not work, Barry Diller, the media mogul who had inherited control over Newsweek from his late friend Sidney Harman, sold the news magazine to IBT Media, a tiny digital only publisher, with strong conservative Christian ties. That experiment was declared a failure by the end of 2013. The long-time liberal nemesis of conservative arch-rival Time Magazine, went to a digital-only format in December, 2012 in a last-ditch effort to save the brand.
Newsweek, one of the most venerable names in news magazine history, is back in print again after a two-year hiatus.