Sole Survivor

Brandweek, Oct 25, 1999 by Alicia Mundy

How does Newsweek thrive in a world of cross-media buys? Editor and chairman Rick Smith says the magazine is looking for Partnerships, but in the end, it's content that matters

It was billed as an event to welcome Anna Quindlen as the newest columnist at Newsweek. But the celebrity-heavy reception at the Four Seasons in New York might just as easily have been a fete for Newsweek's editor in chief and chairman, Rick Smith.

All 6 feet 5 inches of him towered over most of the guests. Grinning like the Cheshire Cat, Smith had a few items to celebrate himself. Survival, for one. He's outlasted the combined tenures of the last five editors of Newsweek and proven wrong more damn stories about the coming extinction of news magazines than any of his competition. It's possible that Rick Smith is the single best ad for Creationism, since his continued success seems like a daily affront to Darwin.

In the last two years, in addition to skating by another dinosaur analogy he survived the death of a brilliant and popular editor and close friend, Maynard Parker. And he overcame what could have been a disastrous decision to hold for a week the Monica Lewinsky story, which his writers had kept all to themselves and which The Washington Post went on to break. A year later, the Lewinsky story was branded a Newsweek investigation, and his weekly was picking up the first-of-its-kind National Magazine Award.

And, most important, he is now reveling in a warm, dry feeling that tells him that he and Newsweek did not drown in The Walter Wave, which consisted of a series of splashy events and special issues from Time and its editor, Walter Isaacson.

Isaacson--unstoppable, urbane and ubiquitous--is not at this party though he's been invited. Smith will have to make do with the rest of the glitterati: Mario Cuomo, Leslie Stahl, Stephen Sondheim, Calvin Trilling, Ken Auletta, Dr. Ruth and that camearman's dream, Tom Brokaw.

Chugging soda water and lapping up congratulations for nabbing Quindlen, Smith passes on a lobster hors d'oeuvre but falls for the foie gras. What the hell! Quindlen is one final reason this October eve for Smith to loosen up, even perhaps to gloat. The Pulitzer Prize winner from the New York Times had given up journalism for novels. But Smith persisted and triumphed. Moreover, he's aware that she turned down an earlier relationship with That Other Newsweekly. Smith's heard that the guys at the top of Time are now gnashing their teeth over his little coup. It's one of the amusing ironies about the friendly competition between Smith and Isaacson. Time's editor has been able to use his Hamptons connections to snatch up writers and give his mag new buzz. But it was Smith's Hoboken hobnobbing that reeled in Quindlen, his former New Jersey neighbor.

Is there anything at all wrong with this picture? Well, in the distance there's the faint sound of thunder, not unlike the rumbling made by the Luftwaffe as it crossed the Channel to invade England. "Newsweek's like Britain was in 1940," says a New York magazine editor who's been around. "It's all by itself--no alliances. It's gotta be scary."

To be single in a polygamous world, that's the challenge now. "Hey, I believe in multiple partners and one-night stands," Smith, 53, says emphatically. Standing in his upper-Broadway office, his very pink cheeks forming the scaffolding for an enormous smile, he grabs a framed copy of a "newsweeklies are like dinosaurs" story off his wall. "But, I'm not too worried if the only thing we have going for us is our product and the backing of the Graham family."

Still, when Ford Motors pulled its ads several months ago, media buyers noted that the company stayed with Time because of the array of outlets offered as part of the Time Warner multimedia empire. "They stuck with Time because they had a two-year contract," deadpans Don Graham, publisher of the Washington Post Co., which owns and oversees Newsweek. But Newsweek doesn't have a deal with CNN or News Corp., and it can't offer a package to advertisers that includes Saturday kid-die TV shows or a spread in People. Time's got that and, thanks to Isaacson, The Buzz. "Oh, yeah," nods Smith. "Buzz and a buck-fifty will get you a subway token."

What Newsweek has--thanks in large part to Smith's willingness to reinvent and revamp it in favor of more relevant and readable prose--is the best newsweekly on the stands, according to most of the New York media buyers and media analysts interviewed for this story. But it presents a conundrum for them. They say, "It's a great read," and then pause. "But is that enough?" That's what Smith will have to answer if he wants to keep that smile on his face.

"Content, schmontent!," is how John Grace, the executive director of Interbrand, a media-placement division of Omnicom, analyzes Newsweek's strength. Grace admits, "It's a terrific read...But what's its unique content? Newsweek is potentially in big trouble. All brands need a reason for being. What's Newsweek's?"

Don't tell Grace that he sounds like one more analyst reviving the dinosaur warning. This time, he says, Jurassic Park is for real. "Look at what Time has done," says Grace, getting excited. "Branding. They branded themselves." Time, he notes, has a lock on millennium chronicling. "The magazine that gave us the 'Man of the Year,' 'Person of the Year,' is now giving the 'People of the Century.' Americans love polls. They love to vote on who's the most important, the best." Time went for that "in a big way, and it's paying off in a big way for them in the long term."