End of Newsweek

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.