Adieu, Adieu, Newsweek Magazine, Thy Plaintive Anthem Fades

Pairing stock images and incendiary statements at random and slapping them on the cover did not, in the end, turn out to be a business-saving publishing model. Newsweek magazine—longtime incubator of some of the very best journalists and editors in America, including VF.com’s dear Sarah Ball—will discontinue deadtree publication after December 31.

In a blog post that also, quite unfunnily, mentions staff layoffs, editor Tina Brown introduces the new, Web-only Newsweek: “Newsweek Global, as the all-digital publication will be named, will be a single, worldwide edition targeted for a highly mobile, opinion-leading audience who want to learn about world events in a sophisticated context. Newsweek Global will be supported by paid subscription and will be available through e-readers for both tablet and the Web, with select content available on The Daily Beast.” Are you a highly mobile, opinion-having reader who wants to learn about world events in a sophisticated context? Are you a person who is likely to buy a magazine if you see a photograph of a woman pantomiming oral sex with a root vegetable on its cover? What is the overlap between the two? Is there a Venn diagram available? And, the eternal question: is your baby racist?