Newsweek began its life on the 17th of February 1933, emerging from a unique alliance of Wall Street wealth and journalistic ambition. Thomas J. C. Martyn, a former foreign news editor for Time, secured funding from a group of stockholders that included Ward Cheney of the Cheney silk family, John Hay Whitney, and Paul Mellon, the son of Andrew W. Mellon. This was the first time the Mellon family attempted to function journalistically on a national scale, investing approximately one million dollars to launch the magazine. The first issue featured seven photographs from that week's news, setting a visual standard that would evolve over decades. Samuel T. Williamson served as the first editor-in-chief, but the magazine's trajectory changed dramatically in 1937 when Malcolm Muir took over as president and editor-in-chief. Muir shortened the name to Newsweek, emphasized interpretive stories, introduced signed columns, and launched international editions, transforming the publication from a simple weekly digest into a serious competitor in the American news landscape. The magazine merged with Today, a journal founded by future New York Governor W. Averell Harriman and Vincent Astor of the prominent Astor family, bringing in $600,000 in venture capital and establishing Astor as the principal stockholder until his death in 1959.
The Glass Ceiling Breaks
The year 1970 marked a turning point for Newsweek when Eleanor Holmes Norton represented sixty female employees who filed a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. They alleged that the magazine had a policy of allowing only men to be reporters, a claim that the women won with the support of the American Civil Liberties Union. The irony was palpable: the day the claim was filed, the magazine's cover story was titled Women in Revolt, covering the feminist movement, yet it was written by a freelancer named Helen Dudar because there were no female reporters at the magazine capable of handling the assignment. Those passed over included Elizabeth Peer, who had spent five years in Paris as a foreign correspondent. This legal victory forced Newsweek to open its doors to women reporters, fundamentally altering its internal culture. The magazine continued to grapple with gender issues, publishing a controversial cover story on the 2nd of June 1986, titled The Marriage Crunch, which claimed that women who were not married by 40 had a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than of finding a husband. The story caused a wave of anxiety among professional and highly educated women in the United States and was later cited in the 1993 film Sleepless in Seattle. Newsweek eventually apologized for the story and launched a study in 2010 that discovered two in three women who were 40 and single in 1986 had married since.
By 2008, Newsweek faced an existential crisis as online news sources made it increasingly difficult to provide unique news in a weekly publication. The magazine undertook a dramatic business restructuring, refocusing its content on opinion and commentary beginning with its issue from the 24th of May 2009. Jon Meacham, editor-in-chief from 2006 to 2010, described his strategy as counterintuitive, involving discouraging subscription renewals and nearly doubling subscription prices to target a more affluent subscriber base for advertisers. The subscriber base shrank from 3.1 million to 2.6 million in early 2008, to 1.9 million in July 2009, and then to 1.5 million in January 2010, a decline of 50% in one year. The financial results for 2009 showed advertising revenue down 37% and an operating loss of $10 million. By May 2010, Newsweek had been losing money for the past two years and was put up for sale. The magazine was sold to audio pioneer Sidney Harman on the 2nd of August 2010, for one dollar in exchange for assuming the magazine's financial liabilities. Harman's bid was accepted over three competitors, and Jon Meacham left the magazine upon completion of the sale. Harman, the husband of Jane Harman, a member of Congress from California, owned the magazine until it merged with The Daily Beast at the end of 2010, forming The Newsweek Daily Beast Company.
The Print Death
The end of 2012 marked the cessation of the American print edition of Newsweek after 80 years of publication, citing the increasing difficulty of maintaining a paper weekly magazine in the face of declining advertising and subscription revenues. Barry Diller, chairman of the conglomerate IAC/InterActiveCorp, said his firm was looking at options since its partner in the Newsweek/Daily Beast operation had pulled out. Diller later admitted at the Milken Global Conference in April 2013 that he wished he had not bought Newsweek, calling the purchase a mistake and a fool's errand. The magazine was acquired by IBT Media, the owner of the International Business Times, on the 3rd of August 2013, for undisclosed terms. The acquisition included the Newsweek brand and its online publication but did not include The Daily Beast. IBT Media rebranded itself as Newsweek Media Group and relaunched Newsweek in both print and digital form on the 7th of March 2014, with a cover story on the alleged creator of Bitcoin that was criticized for lacking substantive evidence. The magazine stood by its story, and IBT Media announced that the publication returned to profitability on the 8th of October 2014. In 2018, the company split into Newsweek Publishing and IBT Media, one day before the Manhattan District Attorney indicted IBT Media co-owner Etienne Uzac on fraud charges.
The Fraud and Recovery
The year 2018 brought a reckoning for Newsweek when the Manhattan District Attorney's office raided its headquarters in Lower Manhattan on January 18, seizing 18 computer servers as part of an investigation related to the company's finances. IBT Media had been under scrutiny for its ties to David Jang, a South Korean pastor and the leader of a Christian sect called the Community. In February 2018, several Newsweek staff were fired, and some resigned stating that management had tried to interfere in articles about the investigations. Etienne Uzac pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering in 2020. Despite these scandals, Newsweek Publishing LLC was spun off in September 2018 with co-ownership to Dev Pragad and Johnathan Davis. The company experienced a significant commercial turnaround, reporting $90 million in revenue and a 20% profit margin in 2024, marking a significant increase from the $20 million revenue and 10% loss in 2019. Revenue more than quadrupled, and profitability has been consistent since 2019 on an EBITDA basis, with margins exceeding 20% since 2022. The company credits its success to a robust digital advertising business, which accounted for 63% of revenue in 2024, and a data-driven editorial strategy focused on what its readership were interested in. In 2025, Newsweek reported that its U.S. readership increased by 45 percent compared to the previous year, and the publication was ranked No. 2 in overall growth in the U.S. by Similarweb's annual Digital 100 Report for 2024.
The Controversial Covers
Newsweek has frequently found itself at the center of controversy over its cover choices, particularly regarding gender and politics. On the 23rd of November 2009, former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin was featured on the cover with the caption How do you solve a problem Like Sarah?, and an image of Palin posing in athletic attire. Palin herself and other commentators accused Newsweek of sexism, with Lisa Richardson of the Los Angeles Times writing It's sexist as hell. Taylor Marsh of The Huffington Post called it the worst case of pictorial sexism aimed at political character assassination ever done by a traditional media outlet. The cover included a photo of Palin used in the August 2009 issue of Runner's World, and it is uncertain whether the photographer breached his contract with Runner's World when he permitted its use in Newsweek. In August 2011, Minnesota Republican Congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann was featured on the cover with the caption the Queen of Rage, with the photo perceived as unflattering and making her look crazy. Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin called the depiction sexist, and Sarah Palin denounced the publication. In June 2024, Newsweek published an opinion piece titled Taylor Swift Is Not a Good Role Model, which claimed that the singer was a bad role model for young girls due to being unmarried, childless, and having been in multiple relationships. The article was condemned as sexist, including by tennis player Martina Navratilova.
The Fact-Checking Void
Unlike most large American magazines, Newsweek has not used fact-checkers since 1996, a decision that has led to numerous high-profile errors. In 1997, Newsweek was forced to recall several hundred thousand copies of a special issue called Your Child, which advised that infants as young as five months old could safely feed themselves zwieback toasts and chunks of raw carrot, both of which represent a choking hazard in children this young. The error was later attributed to a copy editor who was working on two stories at the same time. In 2017, Newsweek published a story claiming that the First Lady of Poland refused to shake U.S. President Donald Trump's hand, which fact-checking website Snopes described as false. In November 2022, during the Mahsa Amini protests in Iran, Newsweek incorrectly reported that Iran had ordered the execution of over 15,000 protesters, a claim widely shared on social media by actresses Trudie Styler, Sophie Turner, and Viola Davis, and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau. The number was actually derived from estimates from a United Nations human rights rapporteur and other human rights organizations of how many people were detained in Iran in connection with the protests, and Newsweek later retracted the underlying claim. In October 2023, Newsweek incorrectly reported that a viral video of U.S. senator Tommy Tuberville falling down a flight of stairs while exiting an airplane had been recorded that month, when the video was actually filmed in 2014, nine years prior.