Con fecha de 31 de diciembre  Newsweek se despedía de sus lectores en edición impresa. Es, probablemente, el primero de los grandes medios tradicionales que sucumbre en el formato tradicional a la crisis que ha golpeado con tanta fuerza a los medios de comunicación en los últimos años en los EE.UU. y en Europa, especialmente en España.

Tras leer con enorme interés el contenido, envié un twitter a Tunku V, último jefe de internacional de la revista impresa, nuevo jefe de internacional de la edición digital global y buen amigo: @tunkuv Magnífico manual de hª del periodismo el último Newsweek: #lastprintissue. Para archivar, releer y citar en clases.

Tina Brown, directora en el momento del cierre y responsable del nuevo proyecto, se despedía de los lectores de la edición impresa con el artículo «A New Chapter«, que iniciaba así: «It’s been a turbulent two-year journey, culminating in our decision to leave print and take the leap into a digital future. In 2010 the 92-year-old audio tycoon Sidney Harman bought a moribund Newsweek from the Washington Post Co. for a dollar in a quixotic bid to save a legendary magazine. Shortly after, the incurable old romantic asked The Daily Beast, the news site I founded with Barry Diller’s IAC in 2008, for its hand in marriage. And it’s been a blast».

«The first days were distinctly unpromising. Most of the boldface bylines and star writers who defined the brand had flown the Newsweek coop by the time the deal was done. There was no executive editor at Newsweek, no news editor, no managing editor, no features editor, no Washington bureau chief, no “back of the book” department still standing. Advertisers had peeled off, too, in droves. Where once Newsweek had been housed in its own building, its proud logo in the eye-line of its swaggering competitor in the Time-Life Building, it was now lurking in an office labyrinth near Wall Street reminiscent of the Stasi headquarters in East Berlin. The watchful eyes of the remaining Newsweek personnel who had or had not decided to “take the buy-out” peered from behind pale gray cubicle walls at the jaunty Daily Beast crew, crowded together down the other end. They were separate tribes, segregated as if at a soccer match».