October 27, 2011

What's gone wrong with The Daily Beast?

Kaus looks at the evidence. There's a theory that "Tina Brown has now decamped for Newsweek magazine with all her favorite hires, leaving the remnants at the Beast web site feeling abandoned like unwanted stepchildren." But even so... it's weird for page views to fall. Are the "unwanted stepchildren" really that bad?

17 comments:

edutcher said...

Anything connected to Tina Brown has a lot wrong from the start.

Darleen said...

Meghan McCain. 'nuf said.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Has Tina Brown ever stayed in one place longer than the time it takes to measure whether or not she is really any good?

Patrick said...

What's gone wrong with the what now?

Bayoneteer said...

I agree with Lem. Brown is always off to the next thing before long. That's her style.

F said...

Speaking of Tina Brown, I paged briefly through a Newsweek last week, making me wonder if their entire circulation is to dentist offices?

Clyde said...

Maybe because it doesn't have cool stories like these:

Teen girl forced into Renaissance sword battle

What began as a man’s attempt to discipline his child turned into a sordid case of abuse when police say a Washington man forced his 16-year-old daughter to don Renaissance armor and engage in a wooden sword battle for two hours.

I wonder if he said, "Don't make me go Medieval on your ass!"

or this one:

Topless Woman in G-String Arrested After 128 MPH Police Chase

With a picture! Enough said!

Clyde said...

And F, the only way you can page through Newsweek these days is briefly, because there are so few pages. It suffers from journalistic anorexia.

ndspinelli said...

Sully is a leftover?? How Beastly!

coketown said...

The Daily Beast was sensational when it first launched. Fresh material, first-rate writers, really interesting features. Then it went to hell. I was just tickled that they named it after the newspaper in Waugh's "Scoop." They seemed to know the news media was peopled with pompous jerks and they were having fun with it. Then they became it. "HOT TIPS: 16 ways to make your readers bristle."

caplight said...

Tina Brown lives for the debut.

Methadras said...

What's wrong with the daily beast? Little Miss Sullivan. It's enough to drive anyone away from that maudlin display of saccharin douchiness.

Skipper said...

I had a free subscription (giving them away accounts for most of Newsweak's circulation, I suspect), and cancelled it for my own mental health (such as it is).

sonicfrog said...

I too was going to say Andrew Sullivan. But since he joined in February, and the drop-off didn't start till August, I'm thinking there isn't much of a connection there.

Jason (the commenter) said...

sonicfrog: I too was going to say Andrew Sullivan. But since he joined in February, and the drop-off didn't start till August, I'm thinking there isn't much of a connection there.

Maybe there became less of a need to pay attention to him as people became more sure Palin wasn't going to run.

Anonymous said...

Like F (above) I found a Newsweek at a medical office last week. It was so thin that at first I thought it was one of those Jehovah Witnesses tracts you see strewn about. I leafed through it. It was really weak. It should be history soon.

Bayoneteer said...

Brown has had great success with dead tree editions but also some flops. Myself I think NW is gonna be a flop. There is only so much you can do with paper any more.