The Observer’s tick-tock of the Newsweek–Daily Beast merger reveals that Tina Brown, empress of print, was not in favor of taking over the 77-year-old weekly:
“We don’t want to do this!” Ms. Brown and Beast president Stephen Colvin told Mr. [Barry] Diller. The IAC chairman, who wanted a deal, asked them to reconsider. Go off and sit in a room together, he said. Think about it. No pressure. Then come back in an hour.
She ate drank a Sprite Zero and ate a tuna sandwich, and ultimately decided she could handle the extra work.
It’s surprising that Diller, the billionaire and cold-eyed businessman, was the one pushing for the deal. The Observer lays out the business logic:
The “Newsweek side of things” — could that include the restless natives at the old magazine’s website?
