Bloomberg On Bloomberg's "Market Makers," Newsweek/Daily Beast Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown tells Stephanie Ruhle that working in the news industry is a constant battle between fulfillment and disappointment. Brown says the business aspect of her work is more challenging than her love for journalism, a problem she says is widespread.

"We’re living in a time when everybody's so obsessed with delivery systems and gaming the system and, you know, business ... it's actually very, very soul destroying. We don't have enough respect for content anymore. In the end, without the great content, there are no numbers. You see again and again in the media this obsession with the numbers, this obsession with the audiences, this obsession with the demo, et cetera, but without the talent, without the people who do it, your company's worth nothing."

She continues to say that the news business has lost integrity because of this focus on the business by major media outlets.

"I think that there's less respect for the editorial process then there ever was amongst business folk. The people who write the checks basically think, you know, there's less the sense that editorial people could have some integrity and stay aloof sometimes from it a bit, not that you want to be arrogant, but that you really can say, 'this is business, this is news.' I think that a lot of people in media profession now feel too much of that has been eroded and there must be some respect for the integrity of news, otherwise we're going to be a very ill-informed nation."

Brown also talks about work-life balance, a timely discussion in the wake of the popularity of former Charleston (S.C.) Post & Courier reporter Allyson Bird's blog post about why she quit the business. Newsweek produced its final print edition in December, resulting in layoffs as the property prepared a plan for digital distribution, which began in January. Previously: Tina Brown: ‘I don’t actually go to newsstands anymore’ | Newsweek covers, we will miss writing about you | How have Newsweek’s covers changed since it went digital-only?

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Tina Brown says The Daily Beast website is on track to be profitable this year, but Lucia Moses points out that getting the combined NewsBeast into the black by early 2013 -- Daily Beast backer Barry Diller insists that's possible -- will be a daunting task. "If that task takes years and Newsweek can’t find a way to regain the relevance weekly newsmagazines have lost since the explosion of news on the Internet, then Diller and Jane Harman, Sidney Harman’s widow, could reach the point where they finally decide to cut bait," she writes. "The idea that NewsBeast could ever become a successful operation has always seemed far-fetched." On the bright side, Newsweek's newsstand sales are up under Tina Brown, "but newsstand sales are only 3 percent of the magazine’s circulation, and they don’t make it much money," notes Moses. Reed Phillips, managing partner at media investment bank DeSilva+Phillips, tells her:

I don’t think it’s a quick turnaround. Advertisers are going to take time to get comfortable that Newsweek is on a solid foundation. And the ad market’s jittery already. I think the biggest challenge is, it has to be redefined in a way that has to be engaging with readers. New York magazine did it. With the talent The Daily Beast has, there’s anticipation that that can be done. And it needs more of an edge compared to what it was in the past, before they bought it.

Brown said last November that it will take "a while" for her to make on Newsweek, and that the print/website combo is "a good model." She told WWD.com: “You’re seeing this with Bloomberg and BusinessWeek, and Politico and its newspaper, and now you’re going to see the Daily Beast and Newsweek.”

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The venture is described as an online talk show with a raw and spontaneous feel. Lucia Moses reports Daily Beast TV will have a mix of original videos like the “Ask Andrew Anything” feature that Andrew Sullivan launched in September. Former "Topic A with Tina Brown" executive producer Kathy O’Hearn is directing the operation with assistance from two former ABC News staffers. Adweek's Moses notes that the soon-to-launch multimedia play could help the Newsweek Daily Beast Co. as it strives to erase an estimated $30 million that the newsweekly and website combined lost last year.

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The Aug. 15 issue featuring a glassy-eyed Michele Bachmann ("The Queen of Rage") sold just 47,225 copies after being discussed just about everywhere, reports Lucia Moses. (Newsweek's single copy sales averaged 46,561 per issue in the first half of 2011.) Tina Brown's so-called “Diana’s Ghost” cover fared just above average on newsstands for a double issue: Newsweek said 70,000 copies were sold, while industry sources put sales at 47,500 to 57,000.

A third controversial cover, depicting Mitt Romney as a dancing Mormon from the Broadway hit musical "Book of Mormon," did well: Another double issue, it sold more than 80,000 copies, according to figures that Newsweek provided to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

For its part, Newsweek points out that since Brown’s March redesign, the magazine has sold 30 percent better on newsstands compared to the three months prior.

The Cutline || Washington Post | Telegraph.co.uk
Newsweek photoshopped Princess Diana onto its July 4 cover for Tina Brown's story about what the people's princess could have been like at age 50 had she lived. "Inside, there's another photo illustration of a resurrected Diana clutching an iPhone," writes Dylan Stableford. "In other words, pure fan fiction." Brown went on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" this morning to discuss "The Princess of Whales" (that's how it was spelled on MSNBC's screen banner).

Some people think it’s kind of spooky and ‘Should we have done it?’ and others think it’s very effective. I think it’s a very intriguing package to show what she’d be like today. ... I wanted to make her a time traveler.

The Week covers the controversy, too, and dutifully runs this disclosure: "Sir Harold Evans, editor-at-large of The Week, is married to Tina Brown, editor-in-chief of Newsweek and The Daily Beast."

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Tina Brown "literally will order up double what she needs, so the cutting-room floor is getting very cluttered,” one recently departed Web staffer tells Lucia Moses. “She has no idea of the ripple effect of the process.” Howard Kurtz defends Brown, calling her a “high-energy editor” whose nonstop pace can be “dizzying” but who brings a “dynamism” to the newsroom. “I think Tina has a realistic sense of how to turn this ship around with the resources she has,” he says. || Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports Brown has recruited U.K.-born historian, New Yorker magazine critic and Columbia University professor Simon Schama to write for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. "I look forward to writing about everything from politics to Picasso, barbecue to baseball–all in the same article should occasion call for it," he says in a statement. Schama will continue to write for the New Yorker.

New York Times Magazine
‘Don’t come here unless you’re balls to the wall!’ one of Tina Brown's employees once warned. "So now we call it ‘B to the W!' We say, ‘Is he B to the W?’" says the Newsweek and Daily Beast editor. "Because otherwise someone comes in and says, ‘Well, two days a week I have to teach at N.Y.U. ...' And we say, ‘Not B to the W!'” She adds: "I’m not very good with people who aren’t committed."

On the failure of Talk magazine:

“Talk was a very good magazine, it really was. And I only realized how really good it was when I was preparing for Newsweek. It was just the wrong setup. Miramax wasn’t a publishing company, and Hearst was the wrong publisher. Actually I think it would have worked better as a weekly. And now I have a weekly."

On her Conde Nast "spending spree":

“I always had a budget at Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. People tend to think I had some kind of free checkbook. There was a reason I was given The New Yorker after Vanity Fair, and it wasn’t because I’d gone and put Vanity Fair into the red.”

On Newsweek:

“What I love about Newsweek, it’s truly a global magazine. People keep showing up — we discovered we have a Japanese correspondent! That’s kind of thrilling — there is a Japanese Newsweek, and there’s a very good Polish Newsweek, all these global editions, we have a great Moscow bureau chief. It’s thrilling to feel the global reach of Newsweek, because there are very few brands left that have that kind of traction.

* Brown in 2008: I'd hate to have to be in the magazine world now
* Brown in 2007: I miss being a journalist and always think of articles I'd assign
* September 2003: Brown in talks to write Washington Post Style section column
* March 2003: "Topic A with Tina Brown" debuts on CNBC (the show didn't last long)

Politico
National political correspondent Lois Romano has been at the Washington Post for nearly 29 years. She tells Romenesko:

I've had a wonderful ride at the Post, and I feel that I’m not leaving anything but going to a new and different opportunity. The decision was driven by a desire to stretch on another platform, and the chance work with an editor with an extraordinary record - Tina Brown. I will be writing on a wide variety of topics- politics, trends, women’s issues.

The Post memo is after the jump. (more...)

Guardian.co.uk
"I did not want my name to be the name on the website and you know why? I think that websites called after the person running it somehow minimizes the staff working for them," says Tina Brown. "I wanted to attract the very best writers and it wasn't about me. It wasn't an extension of myself."