Newsweek vs. subscribers

December 11, 2008 By

newsweekGayMarriage.jpgEarlier this week, rumors began circulating about a major drop in circulation for Newsweek. Some were suggesting a drop from a rate base of 2.6 million to 1 million. A rate base, by the way, is the circulation you guarantee to advertisers.

Well, it’s not a rumor anymore. The Wall Street Journal has the details — and it doesn’t look so good for the Washington Post Co. news weekly:

Newsweek magazine is planning staff cuts as part of a major makeover that is likely to result in a slimmer publication with fewer subscribers and more photos and opinion inside its pages, according to people close to the magazine.

The Washington Post Co. business is expected to outline the cuts Thursday in two companywide meetings. They will come from an extension of voluntary buyouts offered in the spring, when Newsweek shed 111 jobs.

No certainty on how many jobs will be lost, according to the Journal. The problem is that Newsweek faces anemic ad sales. So what’s the plan to save the sinking ship?

As it continues its shift away from news gathering toward a more provocative, idea-driven editorial approach, Newsweek is also considering other dramatic changes, including significantly reducing its rate base — the number of weekly copies it promises advertisers it will deliver.

Because what mainstream publications need is more opinion pages and less reportage. I wonder what they’ll change the name to or if they won’t. The Journal story says that Newsweek higher ups are trying to ape publications such as the Economist:

Recently, Newsweek has emphasized commentary on hot-button issues, such as gay marriage, by big-name journalists like editor Jon Meacham and international editor Fareed Zakaria, as well as contributions from political operatives and academics like Michael Beschloss and Sean Wilentz.

If I were the Economist, I’d be offended at the suggestion that error-ridden opinion pieces in any way mirror its pages. The Economist has always taken a more continental approach to journalism but its staff doesn’t make quite so many obvious errors, logical fallacies, and juvenile name-calling incidents as Lisa Miller and Jon Meacham managed to pile up with their little Culture War attack this week.

And how are these provocative pieces on hot-button issues working out for Newsweek? Well, they’re more or less the laughingstock of the journalism world right now and they’ve had to disable commenting functions. The Journal reports that Newsweek Chief Executive Tom Ascheim’s email account was unable to handle the volume this week.

It is true that printing and postage costs are crippling magazines. It’s been difficult for every single last one of them. And trimming readers and charging more for subscriptions may be a good way to respond to that. But I can’t help but think that Newsweek‘s approach is just bound to fail. Meacham says he wants Newsweek to become a thought leader. But he’s not trading journalism for opinion journalism. He’s trading journalism for hackery and propaganda. There was precisely no one provoked to think in any meaningful sense by that last cover story. People were simply provoked to drop subscriptions or otherwise think less of Newsweek. It didn’t engage the Scriptural arguments in favor of traditional marriage fairly or honestly. The only people who would even remotely enjoy that story or find it thoughtful are people who were already inclined to believe it. Downsizing a publication to a readership that doesn’t want to be challenged seems like the worst of all worlds. And the loss of actual American-style journalism — which, admittedly, has been shaky at Newsweek for a while now — is a loss.

Anyway, there are more interesting details in the Journal story, such as the fact that Time has retained its profitability and is not considering a rate-base cut.

I’m wondering why the Washington Post Co. didn’t come up with the idea of just not running ridiculous, laughably error-ridden cover stories that do nothing more than extend the middle finger to current or potential subscribers. Was that too simple?

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Filed Under: Godbeat, Journalism, Politics, Religion, Social Issues
  • Brian

    “Downsizing a publication to a readership that doesn’t want to be challenged seems like the worst of all worlds.”

    Isn’t this what the LA Time, NY Times (most notoriously with Times Select), etc., have been doing for decades now? Most of the MSM, as with Newsweek, have destroyed the credibility they once had AND have failed to keep viewers, to say nothing of attracting any new interest (sounds just like the mainline protestant churches, doesn’t it?).

    Newsweek is just making explicit their commitment to the massive mistake the MSM has made in the past 20 years when they misread the rise of talk radio and the internet as meaning the people want more opinion and less fact. The problem for any of these outlets is that they have no competitive advantage when it comes to analysis. I can get news analysis and opinion from hundreds of sources, and the opinion writers that Newsweek has just don’t stack up well with what else is out there. But when it comes to facts and research and primary sources, the MSM DOES have a competitive advantage. Why are they continuing to destroy themselves in this way? I don’t personally mind too much that Newsweek is committing suicide this way since they’re just making official what they’ve been for some time, but the problem is that there’s really no one left to do what legitimate MSM outlets did a few decades ago.

  • Ben

    But when it comes to facts and research and primary sources, the MSM DOES have a competitive advantage. Why are they continuing to destroy themselves in this way?

    The woes in the journalism industry aren’t primarly about conservative anger.

    It’s about two facts.

    No. 1: Craigslist destroyed the classified ad market for newspapers.

    No. 2: Readers are moving to the Internet — oftentimes still reading the same papers, just online. The problem is Internet advertising has laser-like precision, whereas print ads benefited from the noble lie that everyone buying a newspaper was going to see the ad. People go online and read the one or two stories that they would have read in their daily newspaper, and the advertisers now know that for certain, and they are only going to pay for those eyeballs. In other words: Internet advertising by definition is not nearly as lucrative as print advertising. End of story. It’s never going to change. News organizations are never going to “figure out” an online revenue model.

    Bottom line, there will be a lot fewer reporters out there because reporting costs A LOT OF MONEY. Some guy writing a whole bunch of opinion pieces — that’s cheaper. That’s why news organizations are moving in that direction. They have to trim staff, and that means there isn’t the same man-hours available to do labor-intensive reporting nor the money to pay for travel. Spewing out opinion is quick and can be done with fewer people.

    If you’d like to see the staggering layoffs in the industry charted on a handy map, go here.

    If you are a wealthy individual, begin thinking about ways that you can fund reporting through philanthropy.

  • Chris Bolinger

    The Washington Post Company is a business. The primary goal of a business is to increase the wealth of its shareholders. To do that, a business must turn a profit. The key to making money is to understand your prospective customers and their requirements and then deliver products or services that provide value by addressing those requirements better than competitors’ offerings do.

    As a product, Newsweek is a failure. The root of that failure is the fact that the people running the WaPost do not understand the wants, needs, and preferences of prospective customers (readers, and the advertisers who seek to reach them) and fail to deliver a product that provides value to those customers. Instead, the WaPost increasingly seeks to poke many of its prospective customers in the eye with a sharp stick and then argue that:
    * An eye poke is what many people really need
    * Those people really aren’t prospective customers anyway

    The WaPost folks have succeeded in one thing: turning a mainstream offering into a niche offering. I humbly suggest that Newsweek will never be mainstream again. And with the current management team at the WaPost, all WaPost publications will inevitably become niche publications.

  • Ben

    I disagree, Chris. Most news organizations have more “readers” than they’ve ever had in the history of their operations. More people are choosing to see their content. The problem is that the supporting advertising and classifieds no longer bring in the same money for the same readership. Not by a loooooong shot.

  • Chris Bolinger

    Ben, businesses that do not adapt to changing market dynamics usually perish. If the WaPost cannot adapt to the changing dynamics of the Internet age, then it will be supplanted by companies that can and will.

    The fact remains that, by alienating many prospective readers, Newsweek targets an increasingly smaller audience, which not only shrinks the subscriber base for the dead-tree edition but also shrinks potential online revenue from advertising and other sources.

  • Martha

    “Newsweek is also considering other dramatic changes, including significantly reducing its rate base — the number of weekly copies it promises advertisers it will deliver.”

    Mmmm – so, if I understand this, that means that “Newsweek” is telling potential advertisers that it is going to *decrease* the number of people they might sell to.

    Somehow, I get the impression that this is less a voluntary act on their part and more a case of “The ungrateful masses aren’t buying our fine publication in sufficient numbers!”

  • Stephen A.

    I find it almost impossible to believe that the only problem the MSM outfits have is the lower cost of advertising.

    While it’s true that they, like all other businesses, need to adapt to new models of doing business to survive, to ignore the serious decline in reporting standards seems … well, oddly typical.

    There’s no reason why these newspapers and magazines NEED to be resigning themselves to becoming “niche” publications and perpetual shrinkage. They simply haven’t adapted to new models of news delivery and haven’t kept up their previously high standards of journalism.

    Why is it obvious to the readers and outside observers, but oblivious to the owners and editors?

  • Daniel F.

    It’s funny to read that Newsweek is downsizing…hopefully any backlash generated from their horrible attempt at journalism in this week’s cover story will teach them a lesson. I’ve been a Newsweek subscriber for the past year but canceled my subscription yesterday. I generally like to give people the benefit of the doubt but I felt compelled to cancel…like you said, getting the “middle finger” was just a bit too much.

  • Jonathan

    I was a Newsweek subscriber since 1990, when I was in college. For a long time, I actually liked Newsweek and especially when Kenneth Woodward was their religion editor, I found that even the yearly “gotcha” stories at Christmas and Easter were fairly balanced because Woodward knew how to balance viewpoints. Since Woodward left, the only reason I continued was because of George Will’s analysis and Fareed Zakaria’s work. But, with the latest egregious journalistic crap that Meacham has produced, I will not be renewing my subscription, nor will I be giving it as a gift, which I had done for years. Oh well, Meacham decided to give me and other readers the middle finger. I guess I’ll return the favor.

  • FW Ken

    Arrogance kills business; Miller and Meacham have displayed a level of arrogance this past week which indicates a business problem compounded by their journalistic problems. Elist attitudes and bad journalism would seem a deadly combination for a news publication.

  • Julian

    Does anyone what, if any, the actual fallout was beyond disabling comments and a flooded e-mail box? That doesn’t prove anything other than it’s hot button issue. Sending an email or leaving a comment is only a little more effort intensive than blurting out loud your immediate reaction.

    From an outside point of view (I just dropped by this site for the first time), this article and most of the follow up comments sound like passive aggressive, vengeful, dog piling. It sounds like because you were challenged in a way you were comfortable with (all the “middle finger” comments), you’ve decided that they don’t know how to run a business. Hmm.

  • http://inshaw.com/blog Mari

    I stopped reading Newsweek in grad school when I realized that it was a waste of money and time. The stories lacked depth, it was like People magazine but with world leaders. Later I realized Time was almost as bad. Now I may glance at it at the dentist’s office or at the beauty salon. I get more out of the daily paper, Washington Post, where it can be hit or miss (bad editing, bad copy, spellcheck errors…. but that’s okay for the Style section) at times.
    Regarding classifieds, do you realize how much it costs to put a roommate wanted ad in the Post? Like $50 for 3 measly lines. Craigslist is free and I can go into detail so I’m not trying to politely weed out smokers, people who want cable, people with pets, etc. And you’d think the quality of people answering the Post ad would be higher, quite the opposite. And when I had to put up a legal notice, the Post was not my first choice because I’m not made of money. Bad journalism may be hurting media outlets, so are way too expensive classifieds.

  • Ben

    Mollie,

    I’m not sure there’s any price for a print classified that wouldn’t be a rip-off now that Craigslist exists. So, it’s not like “expensive” classifieds are part of the problem. It’s more like that particular revenue source is now defunct — to the benefit of consumers and to the loss of funding reporting. Both print ads and classifieds were overpriced for their customers, but it was a captive market of sorts that redounded to the benefit of reporting.