As Tina Brown, the new Editor in Chief of the legendary news magazine writes in her editorial: “it’s just not another week for this magazine. It’s a new day – and we hope, a new era.”
Founded in 1933, Newsweek has experienced rough times in the past years, its weekly circulation and ad revenue dropping under the bouts of the ever expanding digital information.
The recent merger with one of the moss successful news and opinion venture on the web, The Daily Beast of which Ms. Brown is also the Editor in Chief, could be bring the magazine in the new era she hopes for.
Still a work in progress, the latest issue comes with a new layout by Creative Director Dick Barnett and a bevy of talents such as Pulitzer Prize winners Kathleen Parker and Robin Given. World Press winner photographer Stephanie Sinclair shot Secretary of State Hillary Clinton specially for the cover (a welcomed change from the perpetually recycled “stock shots” in magazines).
When it comes to photography, Ms. Brown writes: “… the video we watch online is enthralling… But the still photograph imprints itself on the memory more than any moving image, especially when presented with confidence and drama across a spread that allows the image to breath and the reader to pause and ponder. Photojournalism will play a large part in Newsweek’s future.”
There is indeed much to hope in this future, coming from the woman who brought Vanity Fair in the modern age and persuaded Richard Avedon to become the first staff photographer of The New Yorker.
Gilles Decamps
