For 77 years, Newsweek was renowned for the way it covered and commented on the news. Now, it is making news after merging with a website as it struggles to survive
Ever since Sidney Harman, a 92-year-old audio equipment mogul, bought Newsweek from the Washington Post Company back in August for the grand sum of US$1 (Dh3.67), the publication has been in an even greater state of flux.
Mr Harman could not find a new editor to take the helm, probably because no editor wanted to be lumbered with the task of transforming a magazine with $70 million in liabilities into a viable enterprise.
And there were further causes for concern. At the time of the purchase, Mr Harman said he intended to keep most of Newsweek's staff and keep the magazine on the same editorial track.
Compare this to when Bloomberg bought BusinessWeek last October, another magazine that was struggling under a huge debt load. The company immediately started slashing BusinessWeek's costs and staff, and began integrating the loss-making magazine into its own platform to turn its fortunes around.
Even with a new owner, how long could Newsweek, a publication that was already being trounced by weekly competitors such as Time and The Economist, continue to lose nearly $30m a year and survive?
Now that Newsweek has agreed to a 50-50 merger with The Daily Beast, a news and commentary site edited by Tina Brown and owned by Barry Diller's IAC Corp, it looks like it has embraced the sort of radical structural change necessary to give it a chance.
The new company, which will be called Newsweek Daily Beast Company, with Brown as editor-in-chief, could benefit from newly revitalised web and print offerings, and with any luck, a new clutch of web and print advertising.
However, Brown's approach to making this hybrid beast into a viable enterprise is more questionable. She has already said The Daily Beast will operate much as it is already, and that her attentions will be focused on reviving the magazine part of the business. No one has ever tried to bolt a two-year-old web platform on to a loss-making 77-year-old magazine before, so who knows whether that strategy will work.
What she says she brings from her experience running The Daily Beast is a new perspective on the value of web media and the value of print media and how they can be best combined.
"Today, we look at print from the refreshed point of view of an expatriate who sees the old country with new eyes," Brown said as she announced the deal in a post on The Daily Beast last week. "That will create a great new creative energy."
She thinks the merger will offer "a superb dual marketing platform". She believes Newsweek will offer The Daily Beast a new medium to develop investigations that require "a different narrative pace", while The Daily Beast will raise the profile of Newsweek's bylines. But she could just as easily dilute the magazine's ability to produce decent long-form articles and lose web readers in the transition.
There is also the question of whether the 57-year-old is the right sort of person to pull the magazine out of a hole on a shoestring, given that her glory days as a magazine editor were spent at the New Yorker and Vanity Fair in the 1980s and 1990s with access to huge editorial budgets to produce lavish publications.
Nor have her more recent ventures provided much indication that she is a strong entrepreneurial spirit. Her efforts to set up her own Talk Magazine failed in 2002 when advertising dried up, and although The Daily Beast has grown in influence and stature since she founded it two years ago, it is hardly a huge money maker.
Either way, Brown has to turn Newsweek around quickly enough to confound doubters, who think the flailing print magazine will just take the rest of the company down with it.
Or in the words of one sceptic on The Beast's website, morph The Daily Beast into The Weekly Bust.
business@thenational.ae
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
What is the FNC?
The Federal National Council is one of five federal authorities established by the UAE constitution. It held its first session on December 2, 1972, a year to the day after Federation.
It has 40 members, eight of whom are women. The members represent the UAE population through each of the emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai have eight members each, Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah six, and Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain have four.
They bring Emirati issues to the council for debate and put those concerns to ministers summoned for questioning.
The FNC’s main functions include passing, amending or rejecting federal draft laws, discussing international treaties and agreements, and offering recommendations on general subjects raised during sessions.
Federal draft laws must first pass through the FNC for recommendations when members can amend the laws to suit the needs of citizens. The draft laws are then forwarded to the Cabinet for consideration and approval.
Since 2006, half of the members have been elected by UAE citizens to serve four-year terms and the other half are appointed by the Ruler’s Courts of the seven emirates.
In the 2015 elections, 78 of the 252 candidates were women. Women also represented 48 per cent of all voters and 67 per cent of the voters were under the age of 40.
Company%C2%A0profile
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The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
WTL%20SCHEDULE
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The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
The specs: 2018 Maxus T60
Price, base / as tested: Dh48,000
Engine: 2.4-litre four-cylinder
Power: 136hp @ 1,600rpm
Torque: 360Nm @ 1,600 rpm
Transmission: Five-speed manual
Fuel consumption, combined: 9.1L / 100km
Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh158,000 (Cooper), Dh168,000 (Aceman), Dh190,000 (Countryman)
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
How to help
Call the hotline on 0502955999 or send "thenational" to the following numbers:
2289 - Dh10
2252 - Dh50
6025 - Dh20
6027 - Dh100
6026 - Dh200
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.
England v South Africa Test series:
First Test: at Lord's, England won by 211 runs
Second Test: at Trent Bridge, South Africa won by 340 runs
Third Test: at The Oval, July 27-31
Fourth Test: at Old Trafford, August 4-8
Naga
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Emergency
Director: Kangana Ranaut
Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry
Rating: 2/5
AUSTRALIA%20SQUAD
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if you go
The flights
Etihad, Emirates and Singapore Airlines fly direct from the UAE to Singapore from Dh2,265 return including taxes. The flight takes about 7 hours.
The hotel
Rooms at the M Social Singapore cost from SG $179 (Dh488) per night including taxes.
The tour
Makan Makan Walking group tours costs from SG $90 (Dh245) per person for about three hours. Tailor-made tours can be arranged. For details go to www.woknstroll.com.sg
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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The specs: 2018 Jeep Compass
Price, base: Dh100,000 (estimate)
Engine: 2.4L four-cylinder
Transmission: Nine-speed automatic
Power: 184bhp at 6,400rpm
Torque: 237Nm at 3,900rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 9.4L / 100km
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
