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. Editor Jon Meacham departed from the magazine upon completion of the sale.

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.

Kurt Alexander Eichenwald (born June 28, 1961), an American writer and investigative reporter formerly with The New York Times and later with Condé Nast's business magazine, Portfolio. Eichenwald had been employed by the Times since 1986 and primarily covered Wall Street and corporate topics such as insider trading, accounting scandals, and takeovers, but also wrote about a range of issues including terrorism, the Bill Clinton pardons controversy, Federal health care policy and sexual predators on the Internet. He is the author of three bestselling books.

Eichenwald joined the Times in 1986 and, after two years working as a news clerk, was hired as the Wall Street reporter. He primarily wrote about corporate scandals such as the criminal cases at Enron, Worldcom and Columbia/HCA, but also wrote the Market Place column for the Times beginning in 1992. Later in his career at the Times, he branched out to issues related to politics, terrorism and child pornography. In 1998, he was named a senior writer at the Times. He left the paper in 2006.

Cody Lundin is the founder, director, and lead instructor of the Aboriginal Living Skills School, LLC in Prescott, Arizona. ALSS was created by Lundin in 1991. Lundin teaches primitive living skills, modern outdoor survival skills, urban preparedness, and homesteading. He is the author of two best-selling books on modern outdoor survival skills and urban preparedness. He is currently a co-star of the Discovery Channel series Dual Survival. His field approach is based on more than two decades of back country experience with and without students in desert and mountain terrain.

Lundin is an internationally known professional survival instructor with more than 20 years of hands-on teaching experience. He has trained private, corporate, and governmental agencies, thousands of students, and dozens of national and international media sources in outdoor and urban preparedness skills. He has consulted for and been featured by dozens of media outlets including The Today Show, National Geographic Television, Esquire magazine, the New York Times, USA Today, Dateline NBC, Fox News, the Donny and Marie Show, the Public Broadcasting Station (PBS), Playboy magazine, Maxim magazine, FHM magazine, Lifetime television, The Atlantic magazine, The History Channel, Popular Mechanics magazine, TV Guide, The Travel Channel, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Field and Stream magazine, the Christian Science Monitor and many others. In 1999, Lundin was the third person in history to appear on the cover of Backpacker magazine that featured a story about his survival school and philosophies.

Kristin Chenoweth (born July 24, 1968) is an American singer and actress, with credits in musical theatre, film and television. She is best known on Broadway for her performance as Sally Brown in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown (1999), for which she won a Tony Award, and for originating the role of Glinda in the musical Wicked (2003). Her best-known television role is Annabeth Schott in NBC's The West Wing. As Olive Snook on the ABC comedy-drama Pushing Daisies, she won a 2009 Emmy Award. Chenoweth stars in the ABC TV series GCB, which premiered in March 2012.

An Oklahoma native, Chenoweth sang gospel music as a child and studied opera before deciding to pursue a career in musical theatre. In 1997, she made her Broadway debut in Steel Pier. Besides You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Wicked, Chenoweth's stage work includes five City Center Encores! productions, Broadway's The Apple Tree in 2006 and Promises, Promises in 2010, as well as Off-Broadway and regional theatre productions.

Chenoweth had her own TV series Kristin in 2001, and has guest starred on many shows, including Sesame Street and Glee, for which she was nominated for Emmy awards in 2010 and 2011. In films, she has played mostly character roles, such as in Bewitched (2005), The Pink Panther (2006) and RV (2006). She has also played roles in made-for-TV movies, done voice work in animated films and the animated TV series Sit Down, Shut Up, hosted several award shows and released several albums of songs, including A Lovely Way to Spend Christmas (2008) and Some Lessons Learned (2011). Chenoweth also penned a 2009 memoir, A Little Bit Wicked: Life, Love, and Faith in Stages.