Monday, February 09, 2009

The demise of the weekly news magazine in the US

A sign of the Times as the American market for weekly news magazines melts away

The New York Times (ht-Jay Rosen) reports how the popular newsweekly once the home to three seperate titles now has but one and the reason that may leave Time magazine as the only one is simple.

The internet has filled the gap for news so

The business of telling people what happened in the last week is just about gone, in favor of telling them how to think about the news


Which is why the economist is closing in on the American market

Unable to compete with the immediacy of television, cable and then the Internet, newsmagazines have been moving for decades in the direction of analysis, commentary and news-related feature articles. That trend has accelerated in recent years, driven by financial pressures. The magazines’ editorial staffs are about half as big as they were in the 1990s, and they have shuttered many of the bureaus they once had around the world.

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