Newsweek

Why are some people so eager to write The New York Times's obituary?

Michael Wolff is positively kvelling today over Michael Hirschorn's declaration in The Atlantic Monthly that the Times could -- almost certainly won't, but just barely possibly could -- go out of business in four months' time.

-Michael Wolff's biography of Rupert Murdoch has sold about 6,000 copies so far, according to BookScan (which is really more like 8,500), a number that's supposedly disappointing to his publisher. [Huffpo]

-Tina Brown is changing the web, apparently. How? By doing a website that's like Huffpo but better written. [Newsweek]

The digital side of the business is supposed to be the salvation for magazine companies, which, like their newspaper counterparts, are shedding print jobs.
But as a recent NY Observer piece suggests, digital staffers are hardly protected. And in a few cases, they're bearing the brunt of the layoffs.

Proudly abrasive media critic Michael Wolff has a surprisingly specific forecast about Newsweek, which is shedding circulation and cutting staff: He thinks it will go out of business "[s]ometime around the fourth quarter of next year."

Newsweek is preparing for another round of job cuts.read more

See, kids, this is why you resist the urge to talk smack about your competitors.

Newsweek, owned by the Washington Post (NYSE: WPO) group, is taking the hard but necessary steps of trying to reinvent itself and keep its relevance: it is planning some layoffs, and will be moving towards a slimmer publication with fewer subscribers and more photos and opinion inside its pages, reports WSJ, citing source

Last night was the book party for The Man Who Owns the News, Michael Wolff's generally admiring biography of News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch. Shortly after the party got under way, I asked the author -- whose willingness to make himself persona non grata is a big part of his appeal -- how he felt about being described in Newsweek as "the world's most abrasive media journalist."

-Newsweek is reportedly considering cutting its circulation by more than 50 percent to save money. [Folio]

-A lot of media outlets that usually throw inauguration parties might not this time. Yup: to save money. [BizBash]

Ad bubble bursts, and the industry’s circulation weaknesses are exposed.