Newsweek
Newsweek | |
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Editor | Jon Meacham for US edition, Fareed Zakaria for International edition |
Categories | Newsmagazine |
Frequency | Weekly |
Circulation | 3,160,000 weekly[1] |
First issue | February 17, 1933 |
Company | Washington Post Company |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Website | www.newsweek.com |
ISSN | 0028-9604 |
Newsweek is an American weekly newsmagazine published in New York City and distributed throughout the United States and internationally in 12 local language editions. It is the second largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence, although both are much larger than the third of America's prominent weeklies, U.S. News & World Report. Newsweek is published in four English language editions and 12 global editions written in the language of the circulation region. Newsweek tends to approach issues from a liberal/progressive standpoint.
Contents |
History
Newsweek magazine was launched in 1933 by a group of U.S. Establishment stockholders "which included Ward Cheney, of the Cheney silk family, John Hay Whitney, and Paul Mellon, son of Andrew W. Mellon," according to America's 60 Families by Ferdinand Lundberg. The same book also noted in 1946 that "Paul Mellon's ownership in "Newsweek" apparently "represented "the first attempt of the Mellon family to function journalistically on a national scale."
To launch Newsweek the group of original owners invested around $2.5 million. Other large Newsweek stockholders prior to 1946 were a public utilities investment banker named Stanley Childs and a Wall Street corporate lawyer and director of various corporations named Wilton Lloyd-Smith.
Originally News-Week', the magazine was founded by on February 17, 1933. That issue featured seven photographs from the week's news on the cover.
In 1937, Newsweek merged with the weekly journal Today, which had been founded in 1932 by a representative of the Harriman Dynasty, former New York Governor and diplomat Averell Harriman, and a representative of the Astor Dynasty, Vincent Astor. As a result of the 1937 Newsweek-Today merger deal, Harriman and Astor provided Newsweek with $600,000 in additional venture capital funds and Vincent Astor became both Newsweek's chairman of the board and its principal stockholder between 1937 and his death in 1959. At the time of his death, Astor owned around 120,000 shares of Newsweek's 179,700 shares of stock and Harriman owned about 40,000 shares of Newsweek stock.
Prior to purchasing control of Newsweek, Astor had inherited a fortune at the age of 21 which included $63 million worth of real estate, such as the Waldorf Astoria, the Hotel Astor, the St. Regis, Astor Place, and office and apartment buildings in Manhattan. During the 1920s, former Newsweek Owner Astor "sold about half of the family's real estate holdings in New York City for $40 million." Yet "during his lifetime he succeeded in doubling his inheritance through a program of careful diversification" so that by the time he died the estate which he left the Vincent Astor Foundation had an estimated value of $123 million, according to The National Encyclopedia.
In addition to utilizing his inherited Establishment wealth to subsidize the publication of Newsweek between 1937 and 1959, Astor also "built drilling barges for off-shore oil development, invested in oil ventures in the Southwest," was a director of American Express, Western Union, Chase National Bank, and railroad companies like Great Northern and the Illinois Central, and was the largest shareholder and a director of the United States Line shipping company, according to the same book. Former "Newsweek" Owner Astor also was Commodore of the New York Yacht Club for nine years and contributed his money to both Democratic and Republican Party election chests.
In 1937, Malcolm Muir took over as president and editor-in-chief. Muir changed the name to Newsweek, emphasized more interpretative stories, introduced signed columns, and international editions. Over time it has developed a full spectrum of news-magazine material, from breaking stories and analysis to reviews and commentary.
The 1961 deal that Ben Bradlee set up, which enabled the Meyer-Graham Dynasty's Washington Post Company to purchase Newsweek from the Vincent Astor Foundation and former New York Governor Harriman, was arranged and financed in such a way that David Halberstan describe it as "one of the great steals of contemporary journalism" in his book The Powers That Be. The same book noted that, although the official 1961 selling price for Newsweek was $15 million, "in the end no more than $75,000 really changed hands." For arranging the deal that brought Newsweek into the Washington Post media conglomerate's stable, Bradlee received a finder's fee.
The grandfather of former Central Intelligence Agency Director Richard McGarrah Helms, an international financier named Gates White McGarrah, "was a member of the board of directors of the Astor Foundation which owned Newsweek prior to tis sale to the Washington Post Company in 1961, according to Katharine The Great by Deborah Davis. The same book also revealed that in 1961 Bradlee "is said to have heard from his friend Richard Helms, who heard it from his grandfather that Newsweek would be put up for sale." Bradlee then obtained a check from the Washington Post Company head at the time, Philip Graham, for $1 million, to give to former CIA Director Helms' grandfather as a downpayment for the purchase of Newsweek.
The magazine was purchased by the Washington Post Company in 1961. Newsweek is generally considered the most liberal of the three major newsweeklies, an assertion supported in a recent UCLA study on media point of view.[2] For example in the past decades the magazine's editorial staff was often critical of the Nixon and Reagan Administrations.
Circulation and branches
As of 2003, worldwide circulation is more than 4 million, including 3.1 million in the U.S. It also publishes editions in Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and Arabic, as well as an English language Newsweek International. There is also a radio program, Newsweek on Air, jointly produced by Newsweek and the Jones Radio Network (previously with the Associated Press).
Based in New York City, it has 18 bureaus: 9 in the U.S. in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Washington, D.C., Detroit, Boston and San Francisco, as well as overseas in Beijing, Cape Town, Jerusalem, London, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Moscow, Paris and Tokyo.
Highlights and controversies
Guantánamo Bay allegations
In the May 9, 2005 issue of Newsweek, an article by reporter Michael Isikoff stated that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay "in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur'an down a toilet." Detainees had earlier made similar complaints but this was the first time a government source had appeared to confirm the story. The news was reported to be a cause of widespread rioting and massive anti-American protests throughout some parts of the Islamic world (causing at least 15 deaths in Afghanistan[citation needed]), even though both Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard B. Myers and Afghan President Hamid Karzai stated they did not think the article was related to the rioting. The magazine later revealed that the anonymous source behind the allegation could not confirm that the book-flushing was actually under investigation, and retracted the story under heavy criticism.
Best High Schools in America
Since 1998, Newsweek has periodically published a "Best High Schools in America" list,[3] a ranking of public secondary schools based on the Challenge Index, which measures the ratio of Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate exams taken by students to the number of graduating students that year, regardless of the scores earned by students or the difficulty in graduating.
Schools with average SAT scores above 1300 or average ACT scores above 27 are excluded from the list; these are categorized instead as "Public Elite" High Schools. In 2006, there were 21 Public Elites.[4]
There has been controversy over this method of ranking, since it only takes into account the number of AP tests taken, and not the actual test scores. Other concerns are that it is based on a single measure, and that there has been no follow up to see how well the students at these high schools actually do in college or life following graduation.
Regional cover changes
The October 2, 2006 edition of Newsweek in the United States featured a cover story titled "My Life in Pictures" based around photographer Annie Leibovitz and her new book, with the cover photo featuring her with several children. Foreign editions featured, instead, a cover story called "Losing Afghanistan" with a picture of an Afghan fighter about the U.S. fight and struggles in Afghanistan. The story was still featured in the American edition and was still mentioned on the cover.
In 2005, Newsweek had featured a picture of an American flag in a trash can on the Japanese edition, absent from all other editions.[5]
Iraq war planning
Fareed Zakaria, a Newsweek columnist and editor of Newsweek International, attended a secret meeting on November 29, 2001 with a dozen policy makers, Middle East experts and members of influential policy research organizations to produce a report for President George W. Bush and his cabinet outlining a strategy for dealing with Afghanistan and the Middle East in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. The meeting was held at the request of Paul D. Wolfowitz, then the deputy secretary of defense. The unusual presence of journalists, who also included Robert D. Kaplan of The Atlantic Monthly, at such a strategy meeting was revealed in Bob Woodward's 2006 book State of Denial. Woodward reported in his book that, according to Mr. Kaplan, everyone at the meeting signed confidentiality agreements not to discuss what happened. Mr. Zakaria told The New York Times that he attended the meeting for several hours but did not recall being told that a report for the President would be produced.[6]On October 21, 2006, after verification, the Times published a correction that stated:
An article in Business Day on Oct. 9 about journalists who attended a secret meeting in November 2001 called by Paul D. Wolfowitz, then the deputy secretary of defense, referred incorrectly to the participation of Fareed Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek International and a Newsweek columnist. Mr. Zakaria was not told that the meeting would produce a report for the Bush administration, nor did his name appear on the report.
Contributors and reporters
Notable regular contributors to Newsweek include Fareed Zakaria, Jonathan Alter, film critic David Ansen, Eleanor Clift, Howard Fineman, Steven Levy, Anna Quindlen, Robert J. Samuelson, George Will, and Rafal A. Ziemkiewicz, Polish edition. Michael Isikoff is perhaps the magazine's most famous investigative reporter.
Notes and references
- ^ Average Circulation
- ^ A Measure of Media Bias
- ^ The Complete List of the 1,200 Top U.S. High Schools
- ^ Newsweek (2006): List of Public Elites
- ^ International Herald Tribune: Newsweek spotlights Afghanistan for overseas readers, Annie Leibovitz in U.S.[1]
- ^ "Secret Iraq Meeting Included Journalists." October 9, 2006 The New York Times.[2]
External links
- Newsweek Official website
- Newsweek Distance Learning
- The Washington Post Company
- History and Demographics of Newsweek
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