Everything about Newsweek totally explained
Newsweek is an
American weekly
newsmagazine published in
New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. 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.
History
Newsweek magazine was launched in 1933 but really went into effect in 1935 by a group of U.S. 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
Thomas J.C. Martyn 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 former New York Governor and diplomat Averell Harriman, and
Vincent Astor of the prominent Astor family. 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.
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 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. 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 2.7 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), even though both Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen.
Richard B. Myers and Afghan President
Hamid Karzai stated they didn't think the article was related to the rioting. The magazine later revealed that the anonymous source behind the allegation couldn't 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, 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 2008, there were 17 Public Elites.
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.
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 didn't recall being told that a report for the President would be produced.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 wasn't 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,
David Gates,
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.
Cultural references
Notes and references
Further Information
Get more info on 'Newsweek'.
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