(Redirected from Newsweek International)
'''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.
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
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 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
Main articles: Qur'an desecration controversy of 2005
This was the
September 27,
2006 cover of 3 foreign versions of Newsweek, excluding US editions.
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 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.
The May 22, 2005 cover of the Japanese edition with the American flag in a trash can.
In
2005, Newsweek had featured a picture of an American flag in a trash can on the Japanese edition, absent from all other editions.
[International Herald Tribune: Newsweek spotlights Afghanistan for overseas readers, Annie Leibovitz in U.S.[1]]
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. Mr. Kaplan said much of the meeting was spent drafting and reworking the document, which in the end carried the names of all 12 participants and was "a forceful summary of some of the best pro-war arguments at the time." Kaplan told the Times that it would not have been possible for any of the participants to have been unaware there was a document in the making.
[5]
Contributors and reporters
Notable regular contributors to ''Newsweek'' include
Jonathan Alter, film critic
David Ansen,
Eleanor Clift,
Howard Fineman,
Steven Levy,
Anna Quindlen,
Robert J. Samuelson,
George Will,
Fareed Zakaria and
Rafal A. Ziemkiewicz, Polish edition.
Michael Isikoff is perhaps the magazine's most famous investigative reporter.
Notes and references
1. Average Circulation
2. A Measure of Media Bias
3. The Complete List of the 1,200 Top U.S. High Schools
4. Newsweek (2006): List of Public Elites
5. "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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