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." 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. 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.
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.
Almost 80 years after first going to print, the final
Newsweek magazine hit newsstands Monday featuring an ironic hashtag as a symbol
of its Twitter-era transition to an all-digital format. The second-largest news
weekly magazine in the United States has been grappling with a steep drop in
print advertising revenue, steadily declining circulation and the migration of
readers to free news online.
For its final cover, dated December 31, Editor Tina Brown
used an aerial archive shot of the magazine's New York headquarters as the
backdrop for her message, #LASTPRINTISSUE -- the word print emblazoned in red
ink. "Bitter sweet! Wish us luck!" Brown tweeted.
Announcing the demise of Newsweek's print magazine in
October, Brown, also editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast, said the all-digital
version would be targeted at today's "highly mobile, opinion-leading
audience." She cited research showing that 39 percent of Americans get
their news online and said Newsweek had reached "a tipping point at which
we can most efficiently and effectively reach our readers in all-digital
format."
Akhirnya semakin jelas terlihat bahwa hardcopy era telah
berakhir, berakhir perlahan. Era jurnalisme dengan biaya besar telah hilang,
muncul jurnalisme dengan biaya rendah atau bahkan gratis.