Tag Archives: Newsweek

Five of the best Tumblr news blogs

Blogging site Tumblr is growing at an incredible speed. There are now 32 million people in the US 4.5 million people in the UK visiting the site.

News organisations are engaging with the community by setting up their own Tumblr blogs. The Guardian set up a Tumblr account in January and started posting stories in February.

We have been taking a look at the Tumblr blogs of news organisations from around the world and have compiled a list of our favourite five.

1. Canada’s National Post

Why? For its use of photographs, front pages and graphics.


 

2. Washington Post’s Innovations

Why? For its linking of third party content, integration into its main site and the superb technology content (minus the deluge of royal wedding posts)

Washington Post Innovations

3. The Guardian

Why? For its design. It looks just like the Guardian. It includes a well-thought out layout, quantity and type of stories.

Guardian on Tumblr

3. LA Times

Why? For it tone and fabulous collection of photos.

LA Times on Tumblr

5. Newsweek

Why? For being very social and introducing us to their Tumblr person, linking multimedia content such as SoundCloud and for handy tabs within their layout theme

Newsweek Tumblr

Follow our how to guide to creating a Tumblr blog for a news organisation.

Mediabistro: The best/worst selling magazine covers of 2010

Mediabistro has been taking a look into the best and worst selling magazine covers in the US last year. For Time magazine the best selling cover was of Mark Zuckerburg, for New York magazine it was about the best place to live in New York. Mediabistro blog Fishbowl NY has pictures of the best selling covers.

SPD blog: First look at the Newsweek redesign

The SPD blog previews Newsweek’s redesign as the US weekly merges with the Daily Beast. According to SPD, the new-look magazine is due in newsagents a week today. The post includes and interview with Dirk Barnett, the man behind the redesign, who discusses the new logo, how the team is “bringing strong, dynamic photojournalism back to Newsweek”, plus plans for presenting data.

The Newsweek redesign comes a week after the relaunch of the New York Times Magazine, which took place yesterday.

Infographics, another element killed off over the past few years at Newsweek, will definitely be coming back. While we plan to up the presence, we have no plans to blow them out in a Bloomberg/Wired direction, our content just doesn’t require or sustain it (plus, Bloomberg Businessweek is killing it, who can compete with that?!). Rather, it will be a vital tool to telling elements of stories that photogrpahy or illustration just don’t nail. We have introduced a new page, DataBeast, that will give us the opportunity to do a weekly infogrpahic on various subjects.

 

 

Center for Public Integrity strikes content deal with Newsweek and Daily Beast

The Center for Public Integrity, a US non-profit investigative journalism organisation, will provide exclusive content to Newsweek and the Daily Beast as part of a new agreement announced this week.

The Center’s executive director William Buzenberg said in a statement today that the new deal is a “tremendous opportunity” for the organisation to provide its journalism to a new audience and get paid for its work.

See the full release on the agreement here.

As the axe is readied, a heartfelt defence of Newsweek.com emerges

Someone claiming to be a Newsweek employee (or perhaps more than one individual) has written a heartfelt defence of Newsweek.com, following the news that the site will be closed after its merger with the Daily Beast:

The thing you have to understand about Newsweek is that it would only be fitting that its website would be the first to go. Like most print publications, Newsweek magazine has been led by people who deep down don’t understand the web, and because they don’t understand it, they fear it and don’t value it.

While high-level print editors were taking sleek black towncars to and from the office (and everywhere in between, including, on at least one instance, from DC to New York), this was a staff who slept on grimy couches while reporting on the road; forking out their own funds, at times, just to produce good work. The disparity in work hours, in pay, in resources – it was comical. And it was only telling that not so long ago – let’s say five years – one high-level company executive had to be corrected about the website’s URL: no, Newsweek.com wasn’t the same thing as the internal Newsweek intranet.

… In the face of indifference, condescension and even outright hostility from its print counterpart; with little to no resources; with more high-level hires and fires over the past couple of years than anybody could possibly count – and a revolving door of editors – the small but tireless staff at Newsweek.com consistently created editorial work that made waves: via a website, on video platforms, through multimedia, photo and social media. Whatever happens to Newsweek, we are all proud to have played a part in that.

The post can be read in full on Save Newsweek.com…

New York Observer: Daily Beast and Newsweek to merge

Last night the New York Observer’s Media Mob broke the news that Newsweek and the Daily Beast will merge.

According to the report, the editorial staffs of the two titles will combine in a 50-50 merger of the two companies.

Full story on the New York Observer at this link…

The Daily Beast’s editor-in-chief Tina Brown confirmed the deal in a statement on the site late last night:

It’s a wonderful new opportunity for all the brilliant editors and writers at the Daily Beast who have worked so hard to create the site’s success. Working at the warp-speed of a 24/7 news operation, we now add the versatility of being able to develop ideas and investigations that require a different narrative pace suited to the medium of print. And for Newsweek, the Daily Beast is a thriving frontline of breaking news and commentary that will raise the profile of the magazine’s bylines and quicken the pace of a great magazine’s revival.

ReadWriteWeb: Newsweek loses another journalist to new media as reporter joins HuffPo

Howard Fineman, a reporter at Newsweek for 30 years, is joining the Huffington Post. Fineman will become a senior editor for HuffPo. ReadWriteWeb comments on the number of Newsweek journalists who have left the title since its sale by the Washington Post Company to businessman Sidney Harman and the new homes many have found with new media titles.

Full post on ReadWriteWeb at this link…

Imminent WikiLeaks Iraq cache ‘biggest leak ever’, report suggests

More classified military documents are to be released in the coming weeks by WikiLeaks, this time on the war in Iraq, according to national reports over the weekend, such as this one from the Associated Press.

News began to circulate on Friday that the whistleblowing site was planning another release following comments made by Bureau of Investigative Journalism editor Iain Overton in Newsweek, claiming the cache will be “biggest leak of military intelligence” so far.

In its article, Newsweek reports that the collection of Iraq documents held by WikiLeaks is believed to be about three times as large as the number of reports released in July on Afghanistan.

More than 92,000 documents were released to WikiLeaks’ media partners earlier this year relating to military operations in Afghanistan, around 76,000 of which have so far been published by the WikiLeaks online while the remaining 15,000 were held back to undergo ‘harm minimisation review’.

FT: Washington Post to sell Newsweek to Sidney Harman

The Washington Post has agreed to sell Newsweek to businessman Sidney Harman, the founder of one of the world’s largest audio equipment companies, reports the FT.

Harman said he is interested in “the publication’s mission” and was not investing in Newsweek to make a profit – just as well, given recent declines in the title’s ad pages and reported $30-million losses last year.

Full story on FT.com at this link…

According to the Guardian, Harman bought the title for a nominal amount “reported to be just a single dollar”.

The Wire: Newsweek’s Tumblr editor is off to Tumblr

Mark Coatney, an online editor at Newsweek largely responsible for building up and running the magazine’s Tumblr blog, announced recently on his own Tumblr blog that he would be leaving for Tumblr.

[I]t’s a big loss for Newsweek given that he’s sort of become the public editorial face of the magazine as it continues to navigate a closely-watched sale from the Washington Post Co. (And also given that he was supposed to be one of the 10 staffers that can help save it! Another from that bunch, entertainment reporter Ramin Setoodeh, left for People at the end of June.)

Full story at this link…