A Beastly Newsweek?

Well, it seems Newsweek and Tina Brown’s The Daily Beast are set to merge. Will it work? Slate media columnist Jack Shafer seems to think Brown just might be able to pull it off.

Shafer offers this advice:

”Speaking of Time, which competes in Newsweek's space, Brown should never aspire to be like it, or the other newsweeklies, the Economist and the Week. We don't need another Time, Economist, or the Week because we already have one of each. Let Newsweek separate itself from the pack by becoming more combative, more outrageous, more judgmental, and more wicked than the others. Violate the orthodoxy! Totally de-Meachamize it! On Week 1, piss off the White House. Week 2, the Pentagon. Week 3, Wall Street. Then the unions, Harvard, religion, life-insurance agents, the green movement, and so on until the bottom is reached with an exposé of Little League baseball. Then repeat. According to H.L. Mencken, "The liberation of the human mind has been best furthered by gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries. …" I want, very much, for Tina Brown to be that sort of cat-slinger.”

On Brown he says:

”Say what you will about Brown, she is a showy, stunt-crazy talent who knows everything about the seeding, nurturing, and harvesting of great stories. The industry that Brown re-enters this week may be dying, but I'm betting on her zombie powers to eat the still-living parts of the business and succeed.”

We shall see. Newsweek is one of the last remaining islands of good long-form journalism (though quality has suffered somewhat in recent years). A spirited, fully digital-ready magazine modeled, say, on the New Yorker might be the ticket out of purgatory. Hopefully, Brown realizes "it’s the journalism, stupid." But for now, all I can say is: Mazel Tov!