The Newsweek- Daily Beast Merger Is Off
After much flirting, the rumored merger of Newsweek and The Daily Beast has reportedly been called off due to disagreements over who would control what. The truth is, nobody could figure out how the fuck it would have worked.
Yes, it was an intriguing idea. It would have maybe given Barry Diller some sort of light at the end of his bleak financial tunnel funding The Daily Beast; it would have maybe given Sidney Harman a genuine fresh new direction for his beleaguered new property; and it would have given Tina Brown a new paper toy to play with. But figuring out exactly how a combination of those two properties would have worked—who gets laid off? Who gets hired? Who goes where? Who writes what? Where's the benefit? Who calls all the shots?—was a parlor game that stumped most media types who think about these things. And, according to Russell Adams, proved too hard for the parties involved to figure out as well.
Now Howie Kurtz is actually stuck writing for the internet. Sorry dude.
