Newsweek Goes to Harman

Sidney Harman

From NEWSWEEK: The Washington Post Company announced that it has signed a contract to sell NEWSWEEK to Sidney Harman, a successful businessman who made his fortune in audio equipment and is a well-known philanthropist. As part of the ownership transition, editor Jon Meacham will step down.

Harman, 91, the founder and chairman emeritus of Harman International, was one of several bidders for the magazine, according to sources familiar with the process, and the deal was not concluded until today, even as some of the interested parties upped their bids this morning. The bidders included businessman Fred Drasner, a former partner of Mort Zuckerman in running U.S. News & World Report and the New York Daily News; Marc Lasry’s Avenue Capital Group, a hedge fund with a stake in America Media Inc., the publisher of The National Enquirer and Star magazine; and several unnamed American and foreign companies. A source close to the deal said the magazine will be purchased by the Harman family and it will not have an association with Harman International.

The deal ends almost a half century of ownership by the Washington Post Company, which bought NEWSWEEK in 1961. The magazine was founded on Feb. 17, 1933.

Al Kaff writes:

Who is Sidney Harman, who bought the money-losing Newsweek from the Washington Post Company for $1 and an agreement to absorb the magazine’s financial liabilities of about $50 million?

• He is the entrepreneur who earned a fortune in h-fi equipment. He is the co-inventor of the stereo receiver.
• He recites Shakespeare from memory.
• He lectures at the University of Southern California on architecture, medicine, law and polymathy (cross-disciplinary knowledge).
• He is the author of his autobiography Mind Your Own Business.
• He supports an education and arts program for the under-served.
• He is the husband of Jane Harman, Congresswoman from California.
• He eats a modest breakfast dominated by fruit, a decent lunch and a light dinner.
• He is 92 and advises, “Retirement is the enemy of longevity.”

Now he must find a replacement for Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek who resigned with the change in ownership.