The Death of Newsweek

My father read Newsweek.  He liked the Stewart Alsop column that ran in the back of the magazine each week. It would be a topic of discussion at the dinner table.  As a consequence, I started reading Newsweek regularly. When I left home to go to college, I had my own subscription which has ran to this day.  I just got a renewal letter and this time, for the first time, I am not going to renew.  The Newsweek that I read and enjoyed for over 40 years is dead. It had been published by The Washington Post until recently.

Newsweek always had great columnists, for example George Will or Stewart Alsop. Until recently, excellent political writers such as Howard Fineman and Fareed Zakaria.  They are all gone.  Writing for someone else except for Stewart Alsop who passed away years ago.  Each week I would read Newsweek from cover to cover and I felt like I got a fair idea what was going on in the nation and world, in politics and culture. This weeks edition (November 28, 2011) has a piece called NEWS BITES What will you do for the holidays? They have replies by Jessica Alba, Adam Lambert and Camilla Belle.  I don't care what these folks are going to do for the holidays.  If I did, I would read People Magazine which already covers this subject of celebrities very well.

I don't know what I am going to do about replacing Newsweek.  I can either get TIME or the weekly Christian Science Monitor. For now, I am leaning toward the Monitor. But for Newsweek? It's over.