Newsweek – A Mass Extinction Begins

A rare fossil find. Proof it once walked the earth.

There have been five mass extinctions in the history of the earth:  The Permian, about 298 milion years ago, when 90% of all life on the planet was wiped out was probably the worst.  The most recent was the Cretaceous, when the dinosaurs (and many others) simply vanished – 65 million years ago.

Now we are priviledge to witness yet another Mass Extinction – this one of the world of print.  As with the dinosaurs falling over dead in their tracks in a moment, one print publication after another does the same.  (Soon TV networks will follow in their footsteps).

The most recent victim of this Mass Extinction was Newsweek.

Like the Tyrranosaurus that once roamed the earth and then disappeared, Newsweek once caused politicians and public figures to tremble. It was the second biggest news weekly in the United States (right after Time Magazine); though if you read the last issue (which is devoted to the history of Newsweek, it was neck and neck – I don’t think so).

I never did any business with Newsweek (though I got very nice hand written rejections letters from Donald Graham, who owned the magazine – a very class act!).  I did, however, do a lot of business with Time Magazine, Newsweek’s direct competitor (and headed for the Labrea Tar Pits of the Web as surely as Newsweek was).

In 1990, at the very dawn of the digital age, I convinced Time Magazine that it would be a great idea to equip and train their reporters around the world (they used to have a lot of them) with video cameras and to teach them to shoot and cut their own stories.  I was fortunate in finding an ally inside the magazine named Joe Quinaln who saw the potential.  This was VERY early.

I got a contract with Time to do just that, and as a pilot, went off to train a few of their correspondents – Boston, Jerusalem and Nairobi.

In those days, being a correspondent for Time Magazine was a very big job and a very big deal.  You not only got a house, car, office, research staff, massive salary you also got what was pretty much an unlimited travel expense budget to pursue your stories.  (See Teddy White’s book – In Search of History for a full explanation).. White was the Beijing (or rather Peking) corresponent for Time.

The reporters were great – even if we were shooting in Hi8 in those days.  The results were stellar – of course, they were the pinnacle of the journalism profession. They knew how to find and write and report a good story. Making video was simple if they already had those skills.

The problem, of course, was that there was no Internet – not place for the videos to go.  A few found their way to CBS News or The MacNeil/Lehrer Report (where Joe Quinlan ultimately found a home).  But beyond that, no place to show the work.  (I wrote to Donald Graham, as Newsweek owned both the magazine and a TV station – but no interest).

Today, all those bureaus are gone.  All those correspondents (or most of them) are out looking for work.  And now Newsweek, as a print publication, is over.

What happened?

Of course, it is easy to say ‘the web – you moron”, but what exactly was the virus that caused the death of Newsweek and is so busy infecting every other magazine and newspaper in the world?

First, it IS the web.  You can get pretty much anything you want online, immediately and for free.

Second, with 2 billion smart phones in circulation around the world (and to call them ‘phones’ is a misnomer). They are digital content creation machines – you don’t have to put an Andrew Purvis in Nairobi – good though he is, at vast expense – and wait for him to crank out content.

Third, the notion of a weekly magazine that sums up the ‘news of the week’ has little appeal in a world in which a) everyone already knows what has happened and b) people have the attention span of a mosquito.

As readers go, advertising goes, as advertising revenue falls, content falls and you get even fewer readers. It’s a death spiral.

So now Newsweek has gone online – totally.

Will it survive?

Hard to say – but, as Andy Grove says “Listen to the technology, the technology will tell you what to do”.

The technology of online is different from magazines – magazine are paper and linear.  Online is screens.

And screens can do more than simply carry text and print. They also carry video.

Which is where you come in.

Newsweek is going to need a lot of video. A LOT.

(Hey, Donald Graham – too late!)

And where are they going to get that video from (not to end in a preposition?)

From you.

And you.

And you.

The Mass Extinctions may have wiped out 90% of the species on earth each time, but the earth came back with new species.

And as Darwin explained – survival is not the strongest, it is to the species that best adapts to change.

Copyright Michael Rosenblum 2012