In a poignant statement about the fate of print publications worldwide in the last few decades, the once-venerable Newsweek magazine published its final print edition on Dec. 31, 2012, with a hashtag that read “#LastPrintIssue”.
The final cover also features a historic black-and-white photograph of the former Newsweek Building in New York City, with the tower’s old Newsweek logo clearly visible. With the growth of “citizen journalism” represented by free instant news sites like Twitter, the hashtag on the cover could be seen as the ultimate cause of death for the print magazine, which was first published in 1933.
The news magazine and photojournalism pioneer had announced in October 2012 that it would switch to an all-digital format. Following sharp declines in revenue and readership in 2008, the magazine endured a painful series of contractions and staff cuts.
After seeing its worldwide circulation drop from 4 million subscribers in 2003 to just 1.5 million in 2010, the magazine merged with online news site The Daily Beast. Today, the Beast and Newsweek share the same web portal and are both edited by Tina Brown.