Newsweek’s Howard Fineman to Join The Huffington Post

September 19, 2010, 3:51 pm
Newsweek’s Howard Fineman to Join The Huffington Post
By JEREMY W. PETERS AND BRIAN STELTER

Howard Fineman, one of the more recognizable pundits on cable television and a correspondent for Newsweek for 30 years, is leaving the magazine to become a senior editor at The Huffington Post.

Mr. Fineman’s move from print media to the world of online news is a sign that The Huffington Post, which has so far relied heavily on younger bloggers, is maturing. And it signals that the site, which has become one of the largest news destinations on the web since it launched in 2005, is investing significantly in its growth.

“From the day we launched, it was our belief that the mission of The Huffington Post should be to bring together the best of the old and the best of the new,” said Arianna Huffington, the site’s founder. “Bringing in the best of the old involved more money than we had when we launched. But now that our website is growing, we’re able to bring in the best of the old.”

Mr. Fineman said that he relished the opportunity that moving to an online platform afforded him. “It really wasn’t a difficult decision at all once I really began to think about it because this is where the action is,” he said. “The chance to dive head long into the future is one that I don’t think anyone could pass up.”

Mr. Fineman, who will begin his new job this week, will become senior politics editor, overseeing and steering The Huffington Post’s political coverage from its Washington bureau. He will remain a paid analyst for MSNBC, but will have to discontinue his column for MSNBC.com.

His departure is another major loss for Newsweek, which has been losing top talent in droves since the magazine was sold in August for almost nothing to stereo equipment magnate Sidney Harman.

At that time, the editor in chief Jon Meacham resigned, and since then, Fareed Zakaria has moved to Time magazine; Dan Gross has moved to Yahoo Finance; Michael Hirsh has moved to National Journal; and Evan Thomas left to pursue academic work.


http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/newsweeks-howard-fineman-to-join-the-huffington-post/

Media
{b]Who's The Guy Who's Buying Newsweek?
Jeremy Bogaisky, 08.02.10, 7:48 PM ET

That the Washington Post Co. has opted to sell Newsweek to Sidney Harman, an electronics tycoon with a history of philanthropy, may reassure some as to the future of the news magazine. That Harman is 91 years old may not.

But, if you had to look to a nonagenarian for direction, you could do much worse than Harman, a technology pioneer and lover of the arts whose life and pursuits have taken as many twists as a telenovela.

In 1953, Harman and partner Bernard Kardon invented the first integrated audio receiver, ushering in the era of high-fidelity home stereo systems. He built Harman/Kardon Inc. into a market leader, got kicked out in the early 1960s after a merger went sour, then bought the company back.

Harman has taken several detours into education. According to his memoir, Mind Your Own Business, in the 1960s he taught African-American schoolchildren in Prince Edward County in Virginia after the local school system closed its schools rather than desegregate. Harman also served as president of Friends World College, an experimental Quaker college on Long Island, from 1970-73. The experience inspired him to give his factory workers more autonomy, allowing them to set their own schedules, including when they took breaks, and to leave work once their assigned tasks were done. He also solicited their ideas for products and how to better run the business.

The publicity generated by his labor policies led to Harman's appointment as deputy secretary of commerce during the Carter administration. He sold his company to avoid a conflict of interest, then bought it back again in 1980 when the buyer foundered.

He's stayed vigorous into old age, guiding Harman International into a dominant position in the auto navigation and entertainment systems business in the late '90s and early 2000s. Since retiring in 2008, he's taught at the University of Southern California.

If Newsweek employees are wondering how long the new boss will be around, they may find a measure of reassurance in a lecture Harman delivered in 2008 at USC's school of gerontology titled "Life Begins at 90." He said he still played 18 holes of golf, sometimes 23, and traveled every other week between Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. He attributed his vigor to his mother, whom he believes "was taken prematurely at 98."

Newsweek staffers also can safely assume that he won't manage them with an iron fist. In Mind Your Own Business, he criticized top-down management, writing that the role of the leader is ''catalyst, conscience and inspirer.''

In announcing the sale, the Washington Post Co. said Harman pledged to keep most of the magazine's 300-plus staffers. The Post Co. decided to sell Newsweek after failing to find a way to return it to profitability amid a decline in circulation and advertising. The magazine lost $30 million in 2009 and is expected to end this year in the red as well.


http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/02/newsweek-sidney-harman-business-media-harman_print.html

... and was too busy to go Googling earlier.

He sounds like the kind of owner that you'd want.

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