#Newsweek publishes final print issue professional#

That nightmarish picture contrasts starkly with the lofty hopes Newsweek staff had harbored for the magazine’s latest incarnation as recently as a year ago. It was a message hammered home more publicly earlier this month with the dismissals of editor-in-chief Bob Roe, executive editor Kenneth Li, and reporter Celeste Katz. These firings, many agreed-including several of their former colleagues who were not fired-sent a message within the company that dissent would not be tolerated. No one could prove definitively that they had been fired in retribution, but each said they found the timing disturbing. Allegations of sexism, favoritism, and bullying were rampant.Īt least five former staffers, including the editor who received the laundry list of alleged offenses, said they were fired shortly after either lodging HR complaints, raising questions about editorial strategy, or reporting suspicious irregularities in the company’s traffic data.

They told of top editors angling for one another’s jobs by trying to persuade higher-ups that they could bring in more traffic. They told of reporters covering beats such as science, culture, and foreign affairs being judged not on their work’s merit but on their ability to meet targets of 500,000 or 1 million page views per month. With near unanimity, the staffers I spoke to described a newsroom ruled by fear, internecine rivalry, and a slavish obsession with clicks at all costs. publications have seen their internal strife strewn across national headlines still fewer have to worry about their owners funneling money to a religious institution, as Newsweek’s parent company is alleged to have done.Īll media outlets are on a constant hunt for traffic, but not all newsrooms are managed the same way. (Disclosure: I interned at Newsweek in the summer of 2010.) Few other major U.S. Though Newsweek has had more than its share of instability over the past decade, the rapidity and sensationalism of the magazine’s latest implosion is, in ways, exceptional. And they help to explain how a yearslong attempt to revive a marquee American newsmagazine turned from inspiring to, in the words of one Newsweek journalist, “holy-shit bad” in the span of 12 months. Taken together, their accounts make clear that the magazine’s core had rotted months before the Manhattan DA raid or the well-publicized firings.

#Newsweek publishes final print issue professional#

Most spoke on condition of anonymity, whether due to nondisclosure agreements or credible fear of professional repercussions for speaking out. Her inflammatory allegation, according to the termination letter: that “the company had real problem(s) of morale and credibility.”īut Slate spoke with more than a dozen current and former Newsweek staffers across its New York and London offices, representing all levels of the newsroom’s organizational chart. Her alleged sins included undermining the company’s attempt to enforce aggressive page-view quotas for reporters, insufficient commitment to search engine optimization, and rejecting story proposals for being “not Newsweek.” (At most publications, shooting down story ideas that don’t fit the editorial ethos is an essential part of editors’ jobs.) The letter also faulted her for making an “inflammatory allegation” in a conference call with other top editors. Sources familiar with her dismissal differ on its legitimacy, but some of the language from her termination letter is striking in light of what has transpired at the magazine since. Instead, it laid out a laundry list of performance and conduct concerns. Her termination letter, which Slate viewed, did not mention the HR complaints. In fall 2017, a high-ranking editor at Newsweek was fired four days after filing a grievance to the magazine’s human resources department, complaining of gender discrimination and bullying, and proposing an agreement to leave the company.