http://www.slate.com/id/2274733/pagenum/all/
Unsolicited Advice for Tina Brown
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-11-12/daily-beast-merges-with-newsweek-tina-brown-sidney-harman-and-barry-diller-weigh-in-/full/
As The Daily Beast and Newsweek combine forces, Editor in Chief Tina Brown, Barry Diller, and Sidney Harman on how the deal came together and reimagining the newsmagazine.
The slate story is interesting because it assumes Newsweek will continue as a printed publication. Somehow I don’t see that as likely, especially if newsweek.com is being nuked.
Most likely I would think Diller imagines that a new printed publication titled “The Daily Beast” is what’s going to happen in place of print-publising Newsweek. Is this really why Harman bought Newsweek? So he could see it’s name completely discarded and The Daily Beast arise in it’s place? I really don’t think so.
If there really is a 50-50 control between Harman and Diller, it’s going to be interesting to see what kind of tug-of-war results, because I suspect that Diller and Harman have wildly different notions about the future. I also suspect that Diller totally snookered Harman in this whole deal. Diller may have also built in a tie-breaker that favors his 50-50 side of things.
(BTW, it’s also hilarious about how much importance this fool Jack Shafer assigns to this story, like all the regular folks are just waiting with bated breath as to what happens to Tina Brown, Newsweek, and The Daily Beast. Most of the regular folks have never heard of Tina Brown and the Daily Beast, and are barely aware of Newsweek.)