Left Leaning Businessman Steps in to Save "Newsweek"
Cross posted from KeyWiki Blog
The Washington Post has sold Newsweek to 91 year old Sidney Harman for $1.00 plus about $70 million in liabilities he will take on.
Declines in circulation and advertising led to almost US$30 million ($40.5 million) in losses last year.
Mr Harman "does not envision any radical overhaul of the magazine, which was redesigned last year with a greater focus on long-form reporting and analysis."
Many are mystified as to why Sidney Harman, would take over a near terminally ill "liberal" publication, at a time in life he should be enjoying his remaining years, with his wife California Democratic congresswoman Jane Harman.
Sid Harman, made a fortune in the hi-fi business - through his company, Harman International Industries, but he is not your typical "conservative" businessman.
Harman, leans to the left politically, having served on the board of organizations such as the Martin Luther King Center for Social Change, the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, The Public Agenda Foundation, Freedom House and as president of the Quaker run, Friends World College. he is also a member of two prominent internationalist organizations, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.
In the 1970s, Mr. Harman accepted an appointment in the Carter administration, as undersecretary of the Department of Commerce.
Most biographies fail to mention, that Mr Harman has served as a Trustee of the far left Washington DC "think tank", the Institute for Policy Studies.
Sidney Harman was also a founding sponsor of The American Prospect, a magazine which includes several members and affiliates of Democratic Socialists of America on its masthead.
In 1998 Democratic Socialists of America placed The American Prospect on its list of "DSA-ish" publications.
Sidney Harman's plans for Newsweek remain unclear, but it seems unlikely that the publication will veer from its current "liberal" direction.
The Washington Post has sold Newsweek to 91 year old Sidney Harman for $1.00 plus about $70 million in liabilities he will take on.
Declines in circulation and advertising led to almost US$30 million ($40.5 million) in losses last year.
Mr Harman "does not envision any radical overhaul of the magazine, which was redesigned last year with a greater focus on long-form reporting and analysis."
Many are mystified as to why Sidney Harman, would take over a near terminally ill "liberal" publication, at a time in life he should be enjoying his remaining years, with his wife California Democratic congresswoman Jane Harman.
Sid Harman, made a fortune in the hi-fi business - through his company, Harman International Industries, but he is not your typical "conservative" businessman.
Harman, leans to the left politically, having served on the board of organizations such as the Martin Luther King Center for Social Change, the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, The Public Agenda Foundation, Freedom House and as president of the Quaker run, Friends World College. he is also a member of two prominent internationalist organizations, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.
In the 1970s, Mr. Harman accepted an appointment in the Carter administration, as undersecretary of the Department of Commerce.
Most biographies fail to mention, that Mr Harman has served as a Trustee of the far left Washington DC "think tank", the Institute for Policy Studies.
Sidney Harman was also a founding sponsor of The American Prospect, a magazine which includes several members and affiliates of Democratic Socialists of America on its masthead.
In 1998 Democratic Socialists of America placed The American Prospect on its list of "DSA-ish" publications.
DSA-ish PublicationsIt is worth noting that the "socialist" Robert Kuttner, named above, was a member of JournoList, the now defunct email group of 400 leftish and marxist journalists accused of attempting to shape the news in Barack Obama's favor during the 2008 elections and afterwards. At least nine other The American Prospect writers were also on JournoList.
That is, mags which express the range of our politics, from the revolutionary to the left liberal, and including some sympatico Candian and British mags.
American Prospect The journal of "liberal" intellectual politics, though half of the writers, and one of the co-founders, Robert Kuttner, are socialists. This journal sees its mission as the reinvigoration of "liberalism," betraying a clear disregard for liberalism's expressed desire to accept death.
Sidney Harman's plans for Newsweek remain unclear, but it seems unlikely that the publication will veer from its current "liberal" direction.
posted by Trevor Loudon at
8/05/2010 12:03:00 PM
1 Comments:
Something to put on his tombstone. After he dies, that rag will die with him.
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