Tina Brown Defends Newsweek Editorship As It Comes To A Bitter End

With Tina Brown's grand Newsweek experiment having come to a close, the New York Times took its inevitable look at what went so wrong in its Monday edition.

The magazine was sold off after a year in which Brown said it was an "insane," romantic idea to have taken it on in the first place, and owner Barry Diller flatly called the decision a "mistake."

Despite high-profile hires and a stream of highly divisive covers, nobody seemed to be able to make Newsweek work again. It will now move into the hands of the relatively little-known IBT Media, which will make as-yet-unspecified changes—and, possibly, further cuts. Brown now returns her focus completely to The Daily Beast.

All in all, it's a sad ending, though one that seemed foretold, especially when Newsweek's print edition shut down at the end of 2012.

The Times article will not make for happy reading for anyone involved in the magazine. It paints Brown as over-optimistic and in over her head, and describes her management style as an unending "state of panic" more suited to the days when print titles were drowning in cash.

For her part, Brown looked on the bright side, telling the paper, "It was really exhilarating. We did great journalism."

Read the full article here.