A couple newsworthy items about Newsweek from this week:
1) “The District” is an amazing Newsweek original video spoof that asks what would happen if Obama starred in MTV’s “The City.” Last night when I checked it was the #1 featured video on youtube (currently it’s #4). Episode 1 is embedded above and Episode 2 is here.
Here’s what NYMag has to say:
… Newsweek, a magazine that we heretofore did not know was allowed to be humorous, made a video experimenting with this theory. Except their City knockoff takes place in Washington, D.C., and (instead of you) stars Barack Obama as the ingénue. There are a lot of subtle elements that make this work surprisingly well. Behold, The District.
2) This morning there was a company-wide meeting to unveil the vision for the magazine and site redesigns and our new overall brand and corporate strategy moving forward. I won’t get into specifics, but I’ll just say, despite the challenges almost every company in the publishing or media business is facing, I’m thrilled to be working at Newsweek.
Here’s the coverage from the New York Times on Newsweek’s new strategy. Gawker’s take? “This is really the only viable path to survival for Newsweek, so we have nothing bad to say about it.” The times they are a-changin’..
