That Was the Week That Was

If this pans out the way I suspect it will, Megan McArdle will soon be back to the highest and best use of her talents -- as a filing clerk for a construction company:

Newsweek, the weekly magazine that for decades summarized the news for households across the United States but struggled to maintain relevance in the Internet era, announced on Thursday that it would cease print publication at the end of the year.

Tina Brown, founder of the Daily Beast Web site and the driving force behind its merger with Newsweek, announced the move on Thursday in a message on the Daily Beast.

“We are announcing this morning an important development at Newsweek and The Daily Beast. Newsweek will transition to an all-digital format in early 2013. As part of this transition, the last print edition in the United States will be our Dec. 31 issue,” Ms. Brown said in a message co-written with Baba Shetty, the recently hired chief executive.

...

“Regrettably we anticipate staff reductions and the streamlining of our editorial and business operations both here in the U.S. and internationally,” Ms. Brown wrote.

If Newsweak operates on the principle of least qualified, first fired -- and that's far from clear -- Ms. McArdle is being escorted from the building right about now.