Atlantic story: "The Newsweekly's Last Stand"

Interesting story in The Atlantic on the puzzling success of "The Economist" in a time when Time and Newsweek are reinventing themselves to survive. The piece predicts that within the next few years, The Economist will surpass Newsweek in circulation, which would have been unthinkable just a couple years ago.

Who would have thought, huh? People want ... news!

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/news-magazines

 

I mentioned this on another thread but I let my Time subscription lapse this year. I started subscribing when I was in grad school in the late 60s but I just did not like the magazine any more. It had morphed into a news-focused version of People Magazine.


I waited to make a decision on a replacement until I saw the "new and improved" Newsweek. Basically, it is Newsweek-Lite.


US News was never really in the running as a replacement even before it went to being a monthly.


I subscribed to The Economist. If you want to read news with minimal analysis tossed into the reporting and later you want to read analytical pieces that are separate and clearly identified as such, try The Economist. It's what Time and Newsweek used to be...

 

I've never understood why the Economist isnt bigger than it is. I used to read my parents' newsweek and time and then when I was on a return trip to college in an airport a couple of years ago, i picked up an economist...I just dont understand why more people dont read it.

 

Back in the 1980s, I felt U.S. News and World Report kicked Time's and Newsweek's butts. It was big, all news and was packed with tidbits. I hated when is started going downhill. By the time it became a monthly, it was just a sad shadow of its former self.

 

When Time canned its Canuckistan edition late last year I began reading The Economist. It's pricey - and I keep meaning to get a sub - and it can be tough to get through it all before the next one is out but there's always some great reading in there.

 

I bought a $40 annual subscription for the Economist off ebay last year.

 

Some people still seem to think reading The Economist is snooty, as if reading well-reported news and sharp analysis is a bad thing.

 

Short answer - because it's British.

 

Time and Newsweek suck. Big time. To the point where I won't read them even though I can get paid for doing so on some occasions due to my day job. Entertainment Weekly conveys far more information about its weird corner of the world than the newsweeklies do about news.

 

Same dynamic that allowed the world's biggest moron to be elected president...twice.

 

ZING!