The Newsweek Story

Newsweek celebrates its 90th anniversary this year.  And the media property today is stronger, from both an editorial and business standpoint, than it’s been in decades.

Since its founding, the iconic brand has been providing a unique perspective on world affairs, and context to the most important events in global news.  

Newsweek today reaches an audience of as many as 100 million unique users per month across its various platforms, up from seven million in 2017 – an increase of more than 600%.  The media property is a modern global digital news organization, built around the iconic magazine.  Each month, Newsweek provides thought-provoking news, opinion, images, graphics and video, delivered across a dozen print and digital platforms, as well as international editions which are available in 68 countries and territories.

And, importantly, the company is now debt free and profitable, with projected revenue growth of 20% to 30%.

What has happened?  The Newsweek story is nothing less than a textbook case of an extraordinary business turn-around.  So say two case studies published by Harvard Business Press, one in 2021 and another in 2022.   

“By September 2021, (Dev Pragad, Newsweek CEO) and the leadership team had completed a successful turnaround of the business,” notes one Harvard case study.  Newsweek had reclaimed nearly the largest audience in its history.

Says Nancy Cooper, Newsweek’s Global Editor in Chief, “We’re proud to be caretakers of this iconic brand.  Our mission statement – to welcome diverse views and voices to search for common ground – both respects Newsweek’s legacy and addresses this polarized moment in history.”

That legacy - Newsweek’s remarkable turnaround - channels the magazine’s original intent, back when it was founded, in 1933.  Its stated editorial foundation at the time was to “explain, expound, and clarify the divergent opinions around important news.”  And that it did, through various ownerships, right up to the ‘90s, when its US circulation reached 60 million, literally a quarter of the American population.  

Then came the buzz-saw of the Internet, which left the print publication, and most of its competitors, reeling from the technological changes that created totally new paradigms for news dissemination.

Dev - a graduate of King’s College London with a Bachelor of Engineering in computer science/electronics and a Ph.D. in the mobile Internet - rose to the helm of the enterprise in September 2018.  

To build on that story, Dev and his team had to restart the brand.  And that was a tremendous, and tremendously exciting, challenge. 

But, to restart the brand, it was critical to do two things -- leverage the people of Newsweek, and launch a digital transformation -- and do these things in a way that was totally transparent.  

That led to a new, three-part approach, focusing on purpose, opportunity and change.  Purpose is critically important because, without a purpose, without a mission, one doesn’t have a mechanism to galvanize the organization.  

But first came an acceptance of reality.  And that led to an initiative to educate writers on the fact that there’s no such thing as a great story… if nobody reads it.  Journalists needed to buy into the reality that data must drive their editorial decisions.  For example, journalists needed to understand which stories found an audience on the major digital platforms like Google, Facebook and Apple News, and which did not.

The next step was to capture that reality, in something called The Newsweek Way.  This statement was designed to list the organization’s key values – integrity, innovation, ambition and equality.  And those values were then overlaid on how Newsweek operates – how the brand holds itself accountable, to its people, its readers, its partners and its clients.

There’s no lack of opportunity in today’s marketplace.  The challenge is to pick wisely, and then optimize what you pick.  What Newsweek decided to do was seek out partnerships.  And they were delighted that many Tier-1 companies were very willing to work with the media property…” partners like Google, Engine Media and Statista.

For example, with Statista, Newsweek was able to garner instant recognition and credibility, when it launched a series of rankings, starting with the best hospitals in the U.S.  In so doing, the property was also able to demonstrate and reinforce its purpose to society.  

A second pivotal partnership was with Google Cloud, which helped develop an industry-leading AI recommendation engine.  Applying that technology led to a revolution in how stories could be personalized for readers… and that led directly to Newsweek increasing its click-through rates by 50-75% between early 2020 and August 2021.

The breakthrough work with Google came from the introduction of an objective and key results (OKR) framework.  

An OKR framework is a way to get teams to set ambitious, measurable goals, and outline what results these goals would achieve.  In so doing, OKRs also push an organization to collaborate, across the entire enterprise.

The pilot OKR was for Newsweek’s Q4 2020 ad revenue.  The initial goal was 35% of total ad revenue for Q4, compared to Q4 of 2019.  But Dev and his team raised the target to 50%... and Newsweek managed to exceed the stretch goal… and that led to even more ambitious goals for 2021.

Then there’s change.  Since change is inevitable, Dev and his team had to ensure that the organization embraces change, rather than fight it.  Newsweek had to acknowledge the disruption in its business, and work toward a new dynamic, a digital-first company.  

That’s where a commitment to embracing change comes in.  The challenge is to use it, to leverage it, for self-improvement.  When you do that, change becomes a core value.  And the results then speak for themselves.

 Newsweek management point to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella as an example of inspiring, forward-thinking leadership.  At its heart is Nadella’s value system, and his ability to transfer those values to his entire organization.  It’s a remarkable story about how a large and complex organization can be transformed and energized, in today’s world.

The core of the media property’s transformation today is its Mission Statement, which says that Newsweek speaks to, and listens to, readers across the political and cultural spectrum.  “We are committed to journalism that is factual and fair.  We believe a good-faith debate is in the public interest, and we welcome diverse views and voices to the search for common ground,” Dev wrote in a memo to all Newsweek staff to commemorate the brand’s 90th anniversary.

Indeed, the next chapter will be mindful of this purpose.  Harvard University looks to Newsweek’s next chapter this way, “focusing on expanding the impact of Newsweek stories.  How do we measure and monitor our output for continuous improvement?  How do we strategically assign investment to increase our influence?  How do we build and scale the teams that will deliver impact journalism and strengthen brand loyalty?”

To that end, Newsweek is introducing a new website redesign, and plans to launch a series of new content hubs, which will allow readers to deep-dive into critical topics.

Those initiatives grow out of an overarching vision, that Newsweek should play a positive and vital role in America’s public culture, society and discourse.

It sounds a lot like 1933, updated to very different times.  Ninety years of change will do that to you.