Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. 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. Newsweek is published in four English language editions and 12 global editions written in the language of the circulation region.

Since 2008, Newsweek has undergone a series of internal and external contractions designed to shift the magazine's focus and audience while shoring up the title's finances. Instead, losses at the newsweekly accelerated: revenue dropped 38 percent from 2007 to 2009. The revenue freefall prompted an August 2010 sale by owner The Washington Post Company to 92-year-old audio pioneer Sidney Harman—reportedly for a purchase price of $1.00 and an assumption of the magazine's liabilities.^[2][3] Editor Jon Meacham departed from the magazine upon completion of the sale.^[3]

In November 2010 Newsweek merged with the news and opinion website The Daily Beast after extensive negotiations between the proprietors of the respective publications. Tina Brown, The Daily Beast's editor-in-chief was expected to serve as the editor of both publications. Newsweek is jointly owned by the estate of the late Harman and IAC.^[4][5]

Circulation and branches[link]

In 2003, worldwide circulation was more than 4 million, including 2.7 million in the U.S; by 2010 it was down to 1.5 million (with newsstand sales declining to just over 40 thousand copies per week). Newsweek publishes editions in Japanese, Korean, Polish, Spanish, Rioplatense Spanish, Arabic, and Turkish, as well as an English language Newsweek International. Russian Newsweek, published since 2004, was shut in October 2010.^[6] The Bulletin (an Australian weekly until 2008) incorporated an international news section from Newsweek.

Based in New York City, the magazine has 22 bureaus: nine in the U.S.: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago/Detroit, Dallas, Miami, Washington, D.C., Boston and San Francisco, as well as overseas in London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Jerusalem, Baghdad, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Beijing, South Asia, Cape Town, Mexico City and Buenos Aires.^{[citation needed]}

History[link]

Cover of the first issue of News-Week magazine

Founding and early years[link]

January 16, 1939 cover featuring Felix Frankfurter

News-Week was launched in 1933 by Thomas J.C. Martyn, a former foreign-news editor for Time. He obtained financial backing from a group of U.S. stockholders "which included Ward Cheney, of the Cheney silk family, John Hay Whitney, and Paul Mellon, son of Andrew W. Mellon". Paul Mellon's ownership in Newsweek apparently represented "the first attempt of the Mellon family to function journalistically on a national scale."^[7] The group of original owners invested around $2.5 million. Other large stockholders prior to 1946 were public utilities investment banker Stanley Childs, and Wall Street corporate lawyer Wilton Lloyd-Smith.

The first issue of the magazine was dated 17 February 1933. Seven photographs from the week's news were printed on the first issue's cover.^[8]

In 1937 News-Week merged with the weekly journal Today, which had been founded in 1932 by future New York Governor and diplomat W. Averell Harriman, and Vincent Astor of the prominent Astor family. As a result of the deal, Harriman and Astor provided $600,000 in venture capital funds and Vincent Astor became both the chairman of the board and its principal stockholder between 1937 and his death in 1959.^{[citation needed]}

In 1937 Malcolm Muir took over as president and editor-in-chief. He changed the name to Newsweek, emphasized interpretive stories, introduced signed columns, and launched international editions. Over time the magazine developed a broad spectrum of material, from breaking stories and analysis to reviews and commentary.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Under Post ownership

This section requires expansion.

The magazine was purchased by The Washington Post Company in 1961.^[9]

Richard M. Smith became Chairman in 1998, the year that the magazine inaugurated its "Best High Schools in America" list,^[10] 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 2008, there were 17 Public Elites.^[11]

Smith resigned as board chairman in December 2007.^[12]

Restructuring and new owner[link]

During 2008–2009, Newsweek undertook a dramatic business restructuring.^[13][14] Citing difficulties in competing with online news sources to provide unique news in a weekly publication, the magazine refocused its content on opinion and commentary beginning with its May 24, 2009 issue. It shrank its subscriber rate base, from 3.1 million to 2.6 million in early 2008, to 1.9 million in July 2009 and then to 1.5 million in January 2010—a decline of 50% in one year. Meacham described his strategy as "counterintuitive" as it involved discouraging renewals and nearly doubling subscription prices as it sought a more affluent subscriber base for its advertisers.^[15] During this period, the magazine also laid off staff. While advertising revenues were down almost 50% compared to the prior year, expenses were also diminished in a planned strategy that the publishers hoped would return Newsweek to profitability.^[16]

The financial results for 2009 as reported by The Washington Post Company showed that advertising revenue for Newsweek was down 37% in 2009 and the magazine division reported an operating loss for 2009 of $29.3 million compared to a loss of $16 million in 2008.^[17] During the first quarter of 2010, the magazine lost nearly $11 million.^[18]

By May 2010, Newsweek had been losing money for the past two years and was put up for sale.^[19] The sale attracted international bidders. One bidder was Syrian entrepreneur Abdulsalam Haykal, CEO of Syria-based publishing company Haykal Media, who brought together a coalition of Middle Eastern investors with his company. Haykal later claimed his bid was ignored by Newsweek's bankers, Allen & Co.^[20]

The magazine was sold to audio pioneer Sidney Harman on August 2, 2010, for $1 in exchange for assuming the magazine's financial liabilities.^[3][21] Harman's bid was accepted over three competitors.^[22] Meacham left the magazine upon completion of the sale. Sidney Harman was the husband of Jane Harman, at that time a member of Congress from California.

[edit] Merger with The Daily Beast

At the end of 2010, Newsweek merged with the online publication The Daily Beast, following extensive negotiations between the respective proprietors. Tina Brown, The Daily Beast's editor-in-chief, became editor of both publications. The new entity, The Newsweek Daily Beast Company, was 50% owned by IAC and 50% by Harman.^[4][5][23]

The goal of The Newsweek Daily Beast Company is to have The Daily Beast be a source of instant analysis of the news, while Newsweek would serve to take a look at the bigger picture, provide deeper analysis, and "connect the dots," in the words of Harman, and for both publications to ultimately be profitable.^{[citation needed]}

During her tenure as editor-in-chief of Newsweek, Brown has taken the news weekly in a different direction than her predecessor. Whereas Jon Meacham looked to make the focus solely on politics and world affairs, Brown has brought the focus back on to all of current events, not just politics, business, and world affairs (although these issues are still the focus of the magazine). This is seen in increased attention fashion and pop culture and many of her covers since taking the job.^{[citation needed]}

2011 redesign[link]

Newsweek was redesigned in March 2011.^[24] The new Newsweek moves the "Perspectives" section to the front of the magazine, where it serves essentially as a highlight reel of the past week on The Daily Beast. More room is made available in the front of the magazine for columnists, editors, and special guests. A new "News Gallery" section features two-page spreads of photographs from the week with a brief article accompanying each one. The "NewsBeast" section features short articles, a brief interview with a newsmaker, and several graphs and charts for quick reading in the style of The Daily Beast. This is where the Newsweek staple "Conventional Wisdom" is now located. Brown retains Newsweek's focus on in-depth, analytical features and original reporting on politics and world affairs, as well as a new focus on longer fashion and pop culture features. A larger culture section named "Omnivore" features art, music, books, film, theater, food, travel, and television, including a weekly "Books" and "Want" section. The back page is reserved for a "My Favorite Mistake" column written by celebrity guest columnists about a mistake they made that defines who they are.^[25]

Highlights and controversies[link]

Lewinsky scandal[link]

Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff was the first reporter to investigate allegations of a sexual relationship between U.S. President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, but the editors spiked the story.^[26] The story soon surfaced online in the Drudge Report.

Claims of bias[link]

A 2004 study by Tim Groseclose and Jeff Milyo asserted that Newsweek, along with all other mainstream news outlets except for Fox News and the Washington Times, exhibited a "liberal bias".^[27][28] While liberal media watchdogs described the study as "riddled with flaws,"^[29][30] their opposite numbers had similarly commented on Newsweek's alleged liberal bias.^[31][32]

Newsweek's Washington Bureau Chief and later Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas variously acknowledged the charge saying, "I think Newsweek is a little liberal," and, in 1996, "there is a liberal bias at Newsweek, the magazine I work for."^[33][34][35]

The magazine has been publishing articles by conservative columnist George F. Will since 1976, when he became a contributing editor, writing a biweekly backpage column. As of 2011, Will still writes for Newsweek.

Guantánamo Bay allegations[link]

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^[36]). 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.^{[citation needed]}

Iraq war planning[link]

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 that produced 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: Bush at War, Part III. 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.^[37] On October 21, 2006, after verification, the Times published a correction that stated:

An article in Business Day on Oct. 9 about journalists who attended a secret meeting in November 2001 called by Paul D. Wolfowitz, then the deputy secretary of defense, referred incorrectly to the participation of Fareed Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek International and a Newsweek columnist. Mr. Zakaria was not told that the meeting would produce a report for the Bush administration, nor did his name appear on the report.^[37]

2008 elections[link]

In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, the John McCain campaign wrote a lengthy letter to the editor criticizing a cover story in May 2008.^[38]

Column of Ramin Setoodth[link]

This section is empty. You can help by adding to it.

Palin & Bachmann covers[link]

Former Alaska Governor and 2008 Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin was featured on the cover of the November 23, 2009 issue of Newsweek, with the caption "How do you Solve a Problem Like Sarah?" featuring an image of Palin in athletic attire and posing. Palin herself, the Los Angeles Times and other commentators accused Newsweek of sexism for their choice of cover in the November 23, 2009 issue discussing Palin's book, Going Rogue: An American Life. "It's sexist as hell," wrote Lisa Richardson for the Los Angeles Times.^[39] Taylor Marsh of The Huffington Post called it "the worst case of pictorial sexism aimed at political character assassination ever done by a traditional media outlet."^[40] David Brody of CBN News stated: "This cover should be insulting to women politicians."^[41]

The cover includes a photo of Palin used in the August 2009 issue of Runner's World.^[42][43][44] The photographer may have breached his contract with Runner's World when he permitted its use in Newsweek, as Runner's World maintained certain rights to the photo until August 2010. It is uncertain, however, whether this particular use of the photo was prohibited.^[45]

Minnesota Republican Congresswoman and Presidential Candidate Michele Bachmann was featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine in August 2011, dubbed "the Queen of Rage".^[46] The photo of her was perceived as unflattering, as it portrayed her with a wide eyed expression some said made her look "crazy".^[47] Sources called the depiction "sexist",^[48] and Sarah Palin denounced the publication. Newsweek defended the cover's depiction of her, saying its other photos of Bachmann showed similar intensity.^[49]

Contributors and reporters[link]

Notable regular contributors to Newsweek include:

Cultural references[link]

• The 2000 film Harrison's Flowers is the story of a Newsweek photojournalist lost in the war-torn former Yugoslavia.
• Singer Paul Simon referenced Newsweek in his 1972 song "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard."^[50]

See also[link]

	United States portal
	Journalism portal

• List of magazines by circulation
• Newsweek Argentina
• Newsweek Pakistan
• The Washington Post Company

Notes and references[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• NewsweekVideo's Channel
• The Washington Post Company
• History and Demographics of Newsweek

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Newsweek

Tina Brown
Tina Brown in 2012
Born	Christina Hambley Brown (1953-11-21) November 21, 1953 (age 58) Maidenhead, United Kingdom
Occupation	Journalist, magazine editor, columnist, talk-show host, author

Tina Brown, Lady Evans, CBE (born Christina Hambley Brown; November 21, 1953), is a journalist, magazine editor, columnist, talk-show host and author of The Diana Chronicles, a biography of Diana, Princess of Wales. Born a British citizen, she took United States citizenship in 2005 after emigrating in 1984 to edit Vanity Fair. Having been editor-in-chief of Tatler magazine at only 25 years of age, she rose to prominence in the American media industry as the editor of Vanity Fair from 1984 to 1992 and of The New Yorker from 1992 to 1998. In 2000 she was appointed a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for her services to overseas journalism,^[1] and in 2007 was inducted into the Magazine Editors' Hall of Fame.^[2] As an editor, she has also been honored with four George Polk Awards, five Overseas Press Club awards, and ten National Magazine Awards.^[3] In October 2008 she partnered with Barry Diller, chairman of IAC/InterActiveCorp to found and edit The Daily Beast. Two years later, in November 2010, The Daily Beast announced that it will merge with the American weekly news magazine Newsweek in a joint venture to form The Newsweek Daily Beast Company. Brown will serve as Editor-in-Chief of both publications.^[4]

Personal life[link]

Early life[link]

Tina Brown was born in Maidenhead, and she and her elder brother, Christopher Hambley Brown (who became a movie producer) grew up in Little Marlow, in Buckinghamshire,^[5] a Thames village in the countryside west of London. Her father, George Hambley Brown, was a prominent figure in the British film industry. He produced the first Agatha Christie films, starring Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple. His other films included The Chiltern Hundreds (1949); Hotel Sahara (1951), starring Yvonne De Carlo; Guns at Batasi (1964), starring Richard Attenborough and Mia Farrow. In 1939, he had an early marriage to the actress Maureen O'Hara; according to O'Hara, it was never consummated owing to her parents' intervention, and it was annulled. George later met and married Brown's mother, (1948), Bettina Iris Mary Kohr, who was an assistant to Laurence Olivier. In her later years, Bettina wrote for an English-language magazine for expatriates in Spain where she and her husband lived in retirement until moving to New York in the early eighties to be with their daughter and grandchildren.

School[link]

In Brown's own words she was considered "an extremely subversive influence"^[6] as a child, resulting in her expulsion from three boarding schools. Offences included organising a demonstration to protest against the school's policy of allowing a change of underwear only three times a week, referring to her headmistress' bosoms as "unidentified flying objects" in a journal entry, and writing a play about her school being blown up and a public bathroom being erected in its place.^[6]

University[link]

Brown entered Oxford university at the age of 17.^[7] She studied at St. Anne's College, and graduated with a BA in English Literature. As an undergraduate, she wrote for Isis, the university's literary magazine, to which she contributed interviews with the columnist Auberon Waugh and the actor Dudley Moore.^[8] Brown's sharp, witty prose garnered her publication in The New Statesman while she was still an undergraduate at Oxford. Her friendship with Waugh served as a boost to her writing career, as he used his influence to get attention drawn to her ability. Later, she went on to date the writer Martin Amis.^[9] While still at Oxford, she won the Sunday Times National Student Drama Award for her one-act play Under the Bamboo Tree. A subsequent play, Happy Yellow, in 1977 was mounted at the London fringe Bush Theatre and later performed at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Relationship[link]

In 1973, the literary agent Pat Kavanagh introduced Brown's writings to Harold Evans, editor of The Sunday Times, and in 1974 she was given freelance assignments in the UK by Ian Jack, the paper's features editor, and in the US by its color magazine edited by Godfrey Smith.^[10] When a relationship developed between Brown and Evans, she resigned to write for the rival The Sunday Telegraph.^[11] Evans divorced his wife in 1978 and on August 20, 1981 Evans and Brown were married at Grey Gardens, the East Hampton, New York, home of then The Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn.^[10] Brown lives in New York City with Sir Harold Evans and their two children, a son, George born in 1986 and a daughter, Isabel, born in 1990.^[12]

Career[link]

Early work[link]

After graduating, while doing freelance reporting, Brown was invited to write a weekly column by the literary humour magazine, Punch. These articles and her freelance contributions to The Sunday Times and The Sunday Telegraph earned her the Catherine Pakenham Award for the best journalist under 25.^[5] Some of the writings from this era formed part of her first collection Loose Talk, published by Michael Joseph.

In 1979 at the age of 25 Brown was invited to edit the tiny, almost extinct society magazine Tatler by its new owner, the Australian real estate millionaire Gary Bogard and transformed it into a modern glossy magazine with covers by celebrated photographers like Norman Parkinson, Helmut Newton, and David Bailey, and fashion by Michael Roberts. Tatler featured writers from Brown's eclectic circle including Julian Barnes, Dennis Potter, Auberon Waugh, Georgina Howell, and Nicholas Coleridge (who today is the managing director of Conde Nast UK). Brown herself wrote in every issue, contributing irreverent surveys of the upper classes. She travelled through Scotland to portray the owners' stately homes. She also wrote short satirical profiles of eligible London bachelors under the pen-name Rosie Boot. Tatler led the coverage of the rise of Lady Di and became the go-to magazine for information about Diana's world. She joined NBC's Tom Brokaw in running commentary for The Today Show on the royal wedding. Tatler increased its sale from 10,000 to 40,000^[8] and was named magazine of the year in the industry awards of 1978. In 1982 when S. I. ("Si") Newhouse Jr., owner of Condé Nast Publications, bought Tatler Brown resigned to become a full-time writer again.^[13] The break didn't last long and Tina was lured back to Conde Nast.

Vanity Fair[link]

In 1983 Brown was brought to New York by Newhouse to advise on Vanity Fair, a title that he had resurrected earlier that year. (Vanity Fair had previously ceased publication in 1936.) Edited first by Richard Locke and then by Leo Lerman, it was dying^[14] with an unviable circulation of 200,000 and 12 pages of advertising. She stayed on as a contributing editor for a brief time, and then was named editor-in-chief on January 1, 1984. She recalls that upon taking over the magazine she found it to be "pretentious, humourless. It wasn't too clever, it was just dull."^[15]

The first contract writer she hired was not a writer but a movie producer whom she met at a dinner party hosted by the writer Marie Brenner. The producer told her he was going to California for the trial of the strangler of his daughter. As solace, Brown suggested for him to keep a diary and his report (headlined Justice) proved the launch of the long magazine career of Dominick Dunne^[16]

Early stories such as Justice and livelier covers brightened the prospects of the magazine. In addition, Brown signed up among others Marie Brenner, Gail Sheehy, Jesse Kornbluth, T.D. Allman, Lynn Herschberg, James Kaplan, Peter J. Boyer, John Richardson, James Atlas, Alex Shoumatoff and Ben Brantley. The magazine became a mix of celebrity and serious foreign and domestic reporting. Brown persuaded the novelist William Styron to write about his depression under the title Darkness Visible, which subsequently became a best-selling nonfiction book. At the same time Brown formed fruitful relationships with photographers Annie Leibovitz, Harry Benson, Herb Ritts, and Helmut Newton.^[17] Annie Liebovitz's portrayal of Jerry Hall, Diane Keaton, Whoopi Goldberg and others came to define Vanity Fair. Its most famous cover was August 1991's of a naked and pregnant Demi Moore.

Three stories put Vanity Fair on the map: Harry Benson's cover shoot of Ronald and Nancy Reagan dancing in the White House; Helmut Newton's notorious portrait of accused murderer Claus von Bulow in his leathers with his mistress Andrea Reynolds with reporting by Dominick Dunne, and Brown's own cover story on Princess Diana in October 1985 titled The Mouse that Roared. It broke the news of the fracture in the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales. These three stories from June to October 1985 saved the magazine after a year when rumors were rife that it was to be folded into The New Yorker^[18] just acquired by S.I. Newhouse.

Thereafter Vanity Fair became a tremendous editorial and commercial success. Sales rose from 200,000 to 1.2 million. In 1988 she was named Magazine Editor of the Year by Advertising Age magazine.^[19] Advertising topped 1,440 pages in 1991 and with circulation revenues, especially from profitable single copy sales at $20 million, selling some 55 percent of copies on the newsstand, well above the industry average sell through of 42 percent.^[20] Despite this success, occasional references later appeared to Vanity Fair losing money. Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer who suggested as much in his book Power: Why Some People Have It - And Others Don’t was quickly rebutted by Bernard Leser, president of Conde Nast USA during Brown’s tenure. In a letter to the editor of the Evening Standard, Leser stated Pfeffer’s claim was “absolutely false” and affirmed that they had indeed earned “a very healthy profit.” ^[21] Leo Scullin, an independent magazine consultant, called it a "successful launch of a franchise."^[20] Under Brown's editorship Vanity Fair won four National Magazine Awards, including a 1989 award for General Excellence.

One of her editorial decisions was in October 1990, two months after the first Gulf War had started, when she removed a picture of Marla Maples (a blonde) from the cover and replaced it with a photograph of Cher. The reason for her last minute decision, she told the Washington Post, was that "In light of the gulf crisis, we thought a brunette was more appropriate."

The New Yorker[link]

In 1992, Brown accepted the company's invitation to become editor of The New Yorker, the fourth in its 73 year history and the first female to hold the position having been preceded by Harold Ross, William Shawn and Robert Gottlieb. She has related in speeches that before taking over, she immersed herself in vintage New Yorkers, reading the issues produced by founding editor Harold Ross. "There was an irreverence, a lightness of touch as well as a literary voice that had been obscured in later years when the magazine became more celebrated and stuffy." She added: "Rekindling that DNA became my passion."

Anxieties that Brown might change the identity of The New Yorker as a cultural institution prompted a number of resignations. Of them George Trow, who had been with the magazine for almost three decades, accused Brown of "kissing the ass of celebrity"^[22] in his resignation letter. (To which Brown reportedly replied "I am distraught at your defection but since you never actually write anything I should say I am notionally distraught.") The departing Jamaica Kincaid described Brown as "a bully" and "Stalin in high heels."^[22]

But Brown had the support of some New Yorker stalwarts including John Updike, Roger Angell, Brendan Gill, Lillian Ross, Calvin Tomkins, Janet Malcolm, Harold Brodkey and Philip Hamburger and newer staffers like Adam Gopnik and Nancy Franklin. During her editorship she let 79 go and engaged 50 new writers and editors including most of whom remain to this day: David Remnick (whom she nominated as her successor), Malcolm Gladwell, Anthony Lane, Jane Mayer, Jeffrey Toobin,^[23] Hendrik Hertzberg, Simon Schama, Lawrence Wright, Connie Bruck, John Lahr and editors Pamela McCarthy and Dorothy Wickenden. Brown introduced the concept of special double issues such as New Yorker's first annual fiction issue and the Holiday Season cartoon issue. She also cooperated with Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates to devote a whole issue to Black in America.^[24]

Brown broke the magazine's long standing taboo against treating photography seriously when in 1992 she invited Richard Avedon to be its first staff photographer.^[25] She also approved of controversial covers from a new crop of artists, including Edward Sorel's October 1992 cover that had people buzzing about the meaning of a punk rock passenger sprawled in the backseat of an elegant horse-drawn carriage: was it Brown's self mocking riposte to fears she would downgrade the magazine?^[26] A year later a national controversy was provoked by her publication of Art Spiegelman's Valentine's Day cover of a Jewish man and a black woman in an embracing kiss, a comment on the mounting racial tensions between blacks and the ultra-Orthodox Jews in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York.

During Brown's tenure, the magazine was honored with 4 George Polk Awards, 5 Overseas Press Club Awards, and 10 National Magazine Awards, including a 1995 award for General Excellence, the first in the magazine's history. Newsstand sales rose 145 percent^[27] The New Yorker's circulation increased to 807,935 for the second half of 1997 up from 658,916 during the corresponding period in 1992.^[28] Critics maintained it was hemorrhaging money. Newhouse remained supportive. At the start he said, viewing the magazine under Brown as a start-up (which routinely lose money), "It was practically a new magazine. She added topicality, photography, color. She did what we would have done if we invented the New Yorker from scratch. To do all that was costly. We knew it would be."^[28] Under Brown its economic fortunes improved every year. In 1995 losses were about $17 million, in 1996 $14 million, by 1997 they'd been cut back to $11 million.^[28]

In 1998, Brown resigned from the New Yorker following an invitation from Harvey and Bob Weinstein of Miramax Films (then owned by the Disney Company) to be the chairman in a new multi-media company they intended to start with a new magazine, a book company and a television show. The Hearst company came in as partners with Miramax.

The departing verdicts after Brown's New Yorker tenure included:

Talk Magazine[link]

Tina Brown next created Talk magazine, a monthly glossy, and appointed Jonathan Burnham and Susan Mercandetti to manage Talk Books. The magazine was due to be launched during a party at the Brooklyn Navy yard in New York City but was banned by the mayor Rudy Giuliani, who did not feel it was an appropriate use of the site.^[31] The star-studded event mixing political leaders, writers and Hollywood, was then moved to Liberty Island, where on August 2, 1999 more than 800 guests - including Madonna, Salman Rushdie, Demi Moore and George Plimpton- arrived by barge for a picnic dinner at the feet of the Statue of Liberty under thousands of Japanese lanterns and a Grucci fireworks display.^[32] An interview with Hillary Clinton in its very first issue caused an immediate political sensation when she claimed that the abuse her husband suffered as a child led to his adult philandering.^[33] Despite having achieved a circulation of 670,000^[34] Talk magazine's publication was abruptly halted in January 2002 in the wake of the advertising recession following the September 11, 2001 attacks and the terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center.^[34] It was Brown's first very public failure but she had no regrets about embarking on the project. "My reputation rests on four magazines - three great successes, one that was a great experiment. I don't feel in any way let down. No big career doesn't have one flame out in it and there's nobody more boring than the undefeated."^[35]

Talk Miramax Books flourished as a boutique publishing house until it was detached from Miramax in 2005 and made part of Hyperion at Disney. Out of 42 books published during Brown's time, 11 have appeared on the New York Times Best Seller List including Leadership by Rudy Giuliani, Leap of Faith by Queen Noor of Jordan and Madam Secretary by Madeleine Albright.

Topic A[link]

Brown went on to host a series of specials for CNBC. The network followed up by signing her to host a weekly talk show of politics and culture titled Topic [A] With Tina Brown, which debuted on May 4, 2003. The program welcomed guests ranging from political figures, such as the then Prime Minister of the UK, Tony Blair, and Senator John McCain, to celebrities, such as George Clooney and Annette Bening. Topic A struggled to find an audience on Sunday nights airing after a day of infomercials.^[36] It averaged 75,000 viewers in 2005, about the same as The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch (79,000) and John McEnroe's McEnroe (75,000.)^[36] On being offered a lucrative deal with tight deadlines to write a book about Princess Diana, Brown resigned, airing her last Topic A interviews on May 29, 2005.^[36]

[edit] The Diana Chronicles

Tina Brown speaking at Barnes and Noble about The Diana Chronicles

Brown's biography of Diana, Princess of Wales was published just before the 10th anniversary of her death in June 2007. The Diana Chronicles went straight to the top of the New York Times bestseller list for hardback nonfiction, with two weeks in the number one position.^[37] It was received well: John Lanchester in The New Yorker wrote

The New York Times:

The Wall Street Journal:

[edit] The Daily Beast

On October 6, 2008 Brown had teamed up with Barry Diller to launch The Daily Beast, an online news magazine that mixes original journalism with news aggregation. The website's name comes from the fictional newspaper in Evelyn Waugh's 1938 novel Scoop.

The Daily Beast had an immediate impact with an early sensation when Christopher Buckley, son of William F. Buckley, Jr., chose The Daily Beast rather than the magazine his father founded (National Review), to announce he could not support the Republican candidate in the 2008 presidential election: "Sorry, Dad, I'm voting for Obama."^[39] Early recognition of The Daily Beast came in a series of awards: Online Journalism Award 2009 for Online Commentary/Blogging, Christopher Buckley;^[40] OMMA Awards 2009 Winner - Politics; Winner - News;^[41] MinOnline Top 21 Social Media Superstars 2009 for Tina Brown;^[42] MinOnline 2010 Best of the Web Awards: New Site (co-winner);^[43] Webby Award nominations for Best Practices and Best News 2009^[44]

In August 2010, Time Magazine's review of the 50 Best Websites of 2010 named The Daily Beast among the top five news and information sites.^[45] (The Onion at 16, The Guardian at 17, The Daily Beast at 18, National Geographic at 19, and WikiLeaks at 20)

The Daily Beast's writers include Christopher Buckley, Peter Beinart, Les Gelb, Mark McKinnon, Meghan McCain, John Avlon, Lucinda Franks, Bruce Riedel, Lloyd Grove, Tunku Varadarajan and Reza Aslan.

In a joint venture with Perseus Book Group, The Daily Beast formed a new imprint, Beast Books, that focuses on publishing timely titles of no more than 50,000 words by Daily Beast writers - first as e-books, and then as paperbacks in as little as four months.^[47] The first Beast Book was entitled Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America by John P. Avlon.

Partnering with Diane von Furstenberg, Vital Voices and the UN Foundation in 2010, The Daily Beast brought some of the world's most inspiring female leaders together at the Hudson Theatre in New York City for the first annual Women in the World Summit. The mission of the three-day summit was to focus on the global challenges facing women, from equal rights and education, to human slavery, literacy and the power of the media and technology to effect change in women's lives. Attendees included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Meryl Streep, Leymah Gbowee, Sunitha Krishnan, Madeleine Albright, Edna Adan Ismail, Queen Rania of Jordan, Cherie Blair and Valerie Jarrett.^[48]

On November 12, 2010 The Daily Beast and Newsweek announced that they would merge their operations in a joint venture to be owned equally by Sidney Harman and IAC/InterActiveCorp. The new entity is to be called The Newsweek Daily Beast Company with Tina Brown as Editor-in-Chief and Stephen Colvin as CEO.^[4]

Publications[link]

• Brown, Tina (1979). Loose Talk: Adventures on the Street of Shame. London: Joseph. ISBN 0-7181-1833-2. 
• Brown, Tina (1983). Life As a Party. London: A. Deutsch. ISBN 0-233-97600-0. 
• Brown, Tina (2007). The Diana Chronicles. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-51708-4. 

Bibliography[link]

• Bachrach, Judy (2001). Tina and Harry Come to America: Tina Brown, Harry Evans, and the Uses of Power. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-684-83763-3. 

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Random House biography
• Tina Brown's archived columns from The Washington Post
• Tina Brown's archived columns from The Huffington Post
• The Daily Beast
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Tina Brown on Charlie Rose
• Tina Brown at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Tina Brown in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Tina Brown collected news and commentary at The New York Times

A Darcy Before I Die - satirical poem by Ronnie Taheny (c) 2008

Colin Firth CBE
Firth in 2009
Born	Colin Andrew Firth (1960-09-10) 10 September 1960 (age 51) Grayshott, Hampshire, England, UK
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1983–present
Spouse	Livia Giuggioli (1997–present; 2 children)
Partner	Meg Tilly (1989–1994; 1 child)
Children	3
Relatives	Kate Firth (sister) Jonathan Firth (brother)