Newsweek’s bizarre downward spiral has a new twist. Monday, CNN reported top execs at the struggling publication were suddenly canned.
From CNN:
Employees at Newsweek have been told that editor-in-chief Bob Roe and executive editor Ken Li have been fired, sources with knowledge of the situation told CNN.
A reporter, Celeste Katz, who had written articles about financial issues at the magazine as well as an investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office into its parent company, Newsweek Media Group, was also let go, the sources said.Katz declined to comment to CNN but tweeted on Monday afternoon, “My warmest thanks to the brave Newsweek editors and colleagues who supported and shared in my work — especially our recent, difficult stories about the magazine itself — before my dismissal today. I’ll sleep well tonight… and I’m looking for a job!”
Staff in Newsweek’s New York offices were told they could stop working and go home for the day on Monday afternoon, multiple sources said.
“Can confirm I was fired. I know nothing else. Can say nothing else yet,” Roe told CNN in an email.
Li could not be reached for comment, though he tweeted, “What a day to leave my charger at home.”
We’ve chronicled Newsweek’s difficulties over the years. The last few months have been particularly embarrassing for the legacy publication.
Publishing flat-out fake news, misquoting Donald Trump Jr. and a handful of other horrible “news” stories have made Newsweek a joke.
Not to mention their cheap shot at Vice President Pence when his family pets passed away.
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Comments
According to the Newsweek copy in my doctors office, Neil Armstrong just stepped onto the surface of the moon, making him the first human to set foot on another planet.
many years ago I was a Newsweek subscriber (1970s)
at the time it was a straight weekly with no perceptible slant.
how these magz have gone astray
It’s how I got acquainted with George Will, no less. Back when he was a reasonable conservative. My how things change in a mere lifetime.
Last I saw George Will was the day Trump announced and he assured us his campaign wouldn’t last two weeks.
George Will was a reasonable conservative. Unlike others, he learned better.
Sir, that was no lady that was my….
Er…Sir that was no Conservative, Evah!
I am not so sure the the mags and newspapers we read back then were all that unbiased. The competition and build up of talk radio during the ’80s joined with online opposition exposed the well entrenched MSM. The bias was always there but there was no other information to demonstrate this as clearly as it is today. What is the difference in Chevy’s lampooning Ford in SNL season one to SNL today? The NY Times sensationalized news in NYC then and way back further from then, as they still do today. New media has drawn back the curtain on the MSM and they are being crushed.
They were just as bigoted for the Democrats – and against Republicans then too.
They just were better educated and knew better how to parse their language to hide their bigotry while still delivering the injection of fatal propaganda poison.
I haven’t so much as picked up a copy of Newsweek—not even to swat flies—since 1977. When David Berkowitz was arrested, the entire issue that week wallowed in an orgy of … well, it certainly wasn’t reporting. I still recall thinking at the time, ahhh, don’t we still have a presumption of innocence here in the US? Even a New York magazine should at least pretend that it takes such things seriously.
Berkowitz was, of course, later found guilty … though after a trial, and that’s of no small importance, even in a case like his. If Newsweek felt duty-bound to whip up a lynch party, it might be excusable (the crappy reporting, not the lynch party). But as far as reporting the news, it was a disgrace. Simply inexcusable.
I’m taking a little trip down memory lane, here … yes, I think revulsion was exactly how I regarded Newsweek‘s performance that week. And in the four decades since, I never had cause to change my mind.
Unexpectedly.
But it’s a good example of how conservative tactics have been LOSING the culture wars. We think to ourselves “sure Newsweek is biased, but the market will catch up to them, there will be a consequence to their lies, just wait and see….”
And what actually happens? A decade later their husk is shed, some billionaire writes off the loss, and the lying weasels slither over to Rolling Stone or WaPo or The Atlantic and go for another 10 rounds.
Newsweak still has employees?
If you see who is POTUS, you know they failed their mission. No further use.
What took them so long?
They had that looney tunes Kurt Eichenwald on staff until recently. Probably had something to do with that defamation lawsuit against Eichenwald for accusing a young writer of being a spy for the Russian government.
Also: for years Eichenwald has been Tweeting that he was an Anthrax victim. He was not. I wrote to this Ken Li guy, who has just been fired, to complain about the lie. Never got a response
What did Newsweek buyer Sidney Harmon expect when he paid $1 for the rag?
https://www.thestreet.com/story/10882203/1/washington-post-sold-newsweek-for-1.html
Sidney: you get what you pay for.
(For those of you who vote with your pocketbook, Sidney Harman is the founder of Harmon Kardon music electronics (now part of Samsung. Newsweek is now owned by Newsweek Media Group, which also publishes the International Business Times (aka IB Times)).
You left out the most important part of the story – Sidney Harman was the senile millionaire husband of Congresswoman Jane Harman at the time he bought Newsweek, at her request, and she was one of the highest ranking House Dems at the time. (since retired)
There were rumors that Ailes was threatening to buy it (never proved) so the Dems were desperate for someone to keep what they viewed as “theirs” in friendly hands, and Sidney essentially was just a rich sugar daddy for the DNC when he agreed to buy it. ($1 in cash plus the assumption of $86 million in debt, a bad bad deal)
Sidney was very old, never really understood what he’d bought, and he died within months of the purchase. After that the Harman Estate decided it was a stupid money losing thing to own, and the family dumped it on some other chump, having lost millions.
The 2 or 3 groups who have owned it since have each lost millions trying to keep it going. It has turned into one of those business tar-babys that ruins anyone who touches it.
Newsweek is also making up stories about Israel.
I’d offer to buy the company for the 13 cents I have in my pocket, but it just doesn’t seem worth it.
I would like to see the balance sheet at the time of the sale. If liabilities exceeded assets or the potential to return to profitability, then the seller should have paid the buyer to take it off his hands.
I like it. Hope WaPo is next.