We’ve posted quite a few final covers and front pages over the last five years but this is one our favorite.
With Newsweek set to shut down its print operations today after a 79-year run, the magazine is going out with another of its famously provocative covers. This one shows a 1940s-era photo of the magazine’s logo towering over the Manhattan skyline juxtaposed with a hash tag that represents the 21st century forces that undermined it. It brilliantly contrasts the old- and new-media worlds, and it does it without passing judgement on either (Not everyone agrees with our opinion).
Newsweek isn’t going away. It will continue online and on tablets, with a new global edition planned for February. But the passing of the print edition marks the end of an era when millions of people got their perspective on the week’s news from the the troika of Newsweek, Time and U.S. News & World Report. Only Time is still in print today, and who knows how long that will last?
Tina Brown writes about the final issue, heaping gratitude on the staff.

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• An Oral History of Newsweek Magazine (Andrew Romano/The Daily Beast)
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• Newsweek unveils last print cover
• PHOTO: Newsweek’s Final Print Issue

We’ve posted quite a few final covers and front pages over the last five years but this is one our favorite.

With Newsweek set to shut down its print operations today after a 79-year run, the magazine is going out with another of its famously provocative covers. This one shows a 1940s-era photo of the magazine’s logo towering over the Manhattan skyline juxtaposed with a hash tag that represents the 21st century forces that undermined it. It brilliantly contrasts the old- and new-media worlds, and it does it without passing judgement on either (Not everyone agrees with our opinion).

Newsweek isn’t going away. It will continue online and on tablets, with a new global edition planned for February. But the passing of the print edition marks the end of an era when millions of people got their perspective on the week’s news from the the troika of Newsweek, Time and U.S. News & World Report. Only Time is still in print today, and who knows how long that will last?

Tina Brown writes about the final issue, heaping gratitude on the staff.

Related articles

• Final Newsweek Cover a Poetic Farewell to Print
• How Newsweek Predicted Its Own Demise (Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke/The New York …)
• Newsweek’s farewell (print) issue: Jon Meacham, Mark Whitaker, Eleanor Clift, Evan Thomas, Michael Isikoff (Joe Pompeo/Capital New York)
• An Oral History of Newsweek Magazine (Andrew Romano/The Daily Beast)
• The Last Newsweek Cover Has a Hashtag on It
• Newsweek unveils last print cover
• Newsweek Bids Itself Farewell
• So long, Newsweek
• Newsweek unveils last print cover
• PHOTO: Newsweek’s Final Print Issue

Physician and award-winning documentary filmmaker Ben Daitz (now there’s a combination you don’t see too often) Has been keeping us up-to-date on his latest project, a documentary that celebrates small-town newspapers. We haven’t had a chance to watch the whole film yet, but we like the trailer. Ben writes that the film has had “very successful screenings at festivals and J-schools and will be shown at the Newseum” in Washington.

Here’s a description. You can order a copy for $29.95 at New Deal Films.

Smithsonian Magazine once asked the rhetorical question, “Can a weekly paper in rural New Mexico raise enough hell to keep its readers hungry for more, week after week?”

The Rio Grande Sun, published in Española, NM, is considered one of the best weekly newspapers in the country. Bob Trapp, the Sun‘s founder, editor, and publisher, is the quintessential newspaperman—the last of a vanishing breed—a scrupulously honest, fearless, independent journalist, and a mentor to generations of young reporters.

The Sun is known for investigative reporting. The paper broke the story that its own rural community had the highest per capita heroin overdose rate in the country. It has led the fight for open records and open meetings in a county where political shenanigans are the rule.

The film follows the Sun’s
 reporters and editors as they write about the 
news, sports, arts and cultures of a 
large rural county.  John Burnett, a
 National Public Radio correspondent,
 reports on the Sun‘s Police Blotter—“the
 best in the country.” The Sun‘s 
journalists investigate the largest
 embezzlement in the state’s history, and the 
widespread use of tranquilizers in the county jail.

“The Sun Never Sets” is narrated by Bob Edwards, National Radio Hall of Fame and Peabody award-winning news anchor and radio host. It is an official selection of the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival and the Ojai Film Festival, and will be screened at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

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Statistics portal Statista (which we rate officially awesome) has this graphic showing that Google’s advertising revenues now exceed those of the entire print media industry put together. “Google, a company founded 14 years ago, makes more money from advertising than an industry that has been around for more than a hundred years,” writes Felix Richter. It’s actually more like 300.

The comparison isn’t entirely fair. The chart shows Google’s global gross global sales against the U.S.-only print business, and Google did pay some $4 billion in commissions to media partners. But still…

More on Slate.

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• Reorganizing the media industry will be messy, but solutions remain unclear
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ClickInks, which sells ink, has created an infographic that documents the rise and fall of the newspaper industry. Its SEO specialist writes, “We wanted to provide a fun and useful resource that summarizes the large decline in the circulation of newspapers over time.” We’re not sure if “fun” is the word we’d choose for this topic, but there is some useful historical information in the image. The data appears to refer to the U.S. industry, although that isn’t explicitly stated.

Click on the snip of the image below for the whole thing, including embed codes.

Two filmmakers who identify themselves as Lenny Feinberg and Chris Foster have released a trailer for what they say will be an upcoming documentary called Black and White and Dead All Over. We haven’t seen anything more than the four-minute clip embedded here, but it appears that the authors have interviewed an impressive cast of journalists and publishers. The trailer presents a sympathetic view of the plight facing the U.S. newspaper industry, pointing out that the information people expect to find for free online has to come from somewhere, and that the institutions that provide it are in peril. As one speaker puts it, “Where is the Internet going to get its information if the newspaper in your town goes out of business?”

The documentarians provided few details about when or where the full film will be available. The URL for BlackAndWhiteAndDeadAllOver.net goes to a parked GoDaddy page. We don’t even know who these guys are. Maybe they’ll leave a comment and tell us more.