I Miss NEWSWEEK

“The first issue of the reinvented NEWSWEEK” finally came. I read through it page by page: four sections, about 30 individual pieces, at least half written by Big Name columnists like Tina Brown, Jacob Weisberg and George Will. The other one to four page articles were written by by-lined editors.
As NEWSWEEK editor, Jon Meacham writes: “What is displaced by the [new] categories? The chief casualty is the straightforward news piece and news written with a few (hard won, to be sure) new details that does not move us significantly past what we already know.”
But that’s what I valued about news magazines. I live in an area where the local newspaper is on the verge of bankruptcy and has eliminated nearly all news pieces other than local weddings and funerals. Like my busy father before me, I used to rely on NEWSWEEK (or TIME) to recap inside a single cover all the facts and news I might have missed.
I know—I’m supposed to read all the real news online. But I’m an atavist. I ENJOY reading real news papers and real news magazines. I don’t mind getting a little ink on my hands as I imbibe my daily quota of news. I shall miss NEWSWEEK.
This was the magazine that started coming into my family home the year I was born. It still comes in the name of my favorite aunt who subscribed to it back in 1939. I never wanted to remove her name from the address label. It’s a memorial.
Every weekend I looked forward to the new issue. As I hurried back from the mailbox, I would flip through the catalogs and bills to look at the cover and see what the featured stories were. If my wife or my kids went out to get the mail first, they would drop the magazine on my chair.
Now, it saddens me to admit it, I really don’t care if next week’s issue comes or doesn’t. Many last week’s page long editorials and essays seemed slightly tedious. I’m not sure if I finished the entire magazine or not. I have no real desire to look through it again.
I can’t believe I wrote that. But I did. And, what’s really sad, I meant it.
It doesn’t sound like working there would be as much fun as it was in 1960-61 when I enjoyed a stint on the editorial make-up desk. It was kind of like being a fireman. When there was nothing to do, you freely read your own book (I read the entire “Rise And Fall of the Third Reich” by William Shirer, among others, on that desk) combed through the morgue, read the tickertapes or watched the Kentucky Derby in the TV room—I scored my only office pool victory on the 1961 Derby.
When it got busy, oh boy. The editors and writers tended to approach us in a somewhat defensive and grouchy mood. Once the copy was written, all the power was ours. We need a bold subhead here; you cannot have a page break between paragraphs—kill a line in this paragraph; add one in that. Sense be hanged.
They’d sweat, snarl and steal my cigarettes. There was one writer in the “International Section” that I really enjoyed—Fillmore Calhoun, as much a southerner as his name sounded. He was a grizzled old veteran who could type better copy drunk and two-fingered than most others could sober.
I liked hearing Fillmore tell his stories. So to make sure he chose my desk, I bought a bottle of excellent Bourbon and kept it in my drawer. Whenever we passed midnight, I would open the bottle-- “Mr. Calhoun, it is time for our evening oblation.” He would ceremoniously agree. I poured our shots and we went back to work.
Is there anybody like Fillmore Calhoun still there today? Or the chief international editor, a chap from London, who passed around the Christmas booze like candy and told alternately ribald and politically incorrect jokes about African revolutionaries (straight out of Evelyn Waugh).
Christmas Eve, 1960, I remember realizing that I was in no condition to lay out a page. So I took the elevator down to Madison Avenue, walked across the street to a drug counter (whose chief claim to fame seemed to be that Jack Kennedy would wait there for Jackie while she shopped) and ordered four cups of coffee—carried them back to my desk and helped put the New Year’s issue to bed.
There was Walt Rundle, editor of the international book, who was full of fascinating stories about covering news during World War II. There was Dick Schaap, sports editor, who ALWAYS took one of my cigarettes when he flashed by.
There were all the wealthy female editorial assistants whose rich daddies subsidized them so that could have a prestigious job working for a major magazine at almost zero pay. They could look really smashing as they finished the night’s work at one a.m. in an evening gown, ready to party.
Speaking of attractive editorial assistants, I’ll never forget one Monday morning when I spent three or four hours squeezing, cutting, fitting and filling a book review into the back of the book. The books editor was an extremely fastidious man, always in a suit, tie and vest, who never, ever raised his voice or became noticeably upset.
I must have tried him to the utmost that morning with my insistence on stylistic rules. He never showed a hint of annoyance, quietly writing and rewriting to fit. When we were done, he got up, very quietly, deliberately gathered his materials, wished me a good day and walked away, rigid in posture and mood.
He passed a well endowed young lady in a summer smock. Without missing a step or even looking down, he placed his pencil between her breasts and waggled it for an instant. As he walked on, never looking back, she looked up at me, bemused, shook her head and went back to work.
I had tried him to the utmost. There were writers I played chess with. One chap always whipped me. He quit while I was there and went off to New England to write novels. There was a senior editor who always asked when he returned from lunch, “Did anything happen? Did the pope get married?”
Of course there was the Monday morning when we threw away hundreds of thousands of copies of the magazine and rewrote one paragraph. A feature article had stated dogmatically that we would not invade Cuba. That was the morning we went in to the Bay of Pigs. It was a memorable morning.
All in all, editorial make-up at NEWSWEEK was a fun job. I doubt if I’ve ever had one I enjoyed more. But I’m not at all sure the present magazine and staff would be nearly as much fun. What came the other day simply isn’t the same magazine.
I have to say it: I miss NEWSWEEK.