USN&WR, RIP

I'm a bit late when it comes to noting the demise of U.S. News & World Report as a weekly print(heck it's been a semi-monthly for months) news magazine, but I have some thoughts.

Back in the day when newspaper advertising meant something, USN&WR highlighted the fact that it had loyal readers. If memory serves, it was akin to the American Express credit cards ads which highlighted that such and such newsmaker was a subscriber from way back when.

I started subscribing to in the late 1970s, when it was a more conservative, and less fluffy, alternative to Time and Newsweek. I recall Marvin Stone's right-leaning editorials on the back page and the and the usual article about how the US was in better shape than the USSR. The magazines, MO, if you will, was not to focus a current event (say Tim Geithner's nomination for Treasury Secretary) but would take a step back and take a look at the big picture (say, tax cheating). In short, it was solid and informative. (They even had a section on the latest tax court rulings!)

The magazine had its critics. One friend thought it was so conservative that the pages tweaked. Another labeled it as "Useless News and World Distort." But, hey, I liked it.

Over time, the magazine was sold and it landed in the hands of Mortimer Zuckerman. The change wasn't pretty. A dizzying array of features such as book reviews came and went in an effort to make the magazine look and feel like the popular newsweeklies.

Sometimes I would let my subscription lapse for months and then I would renew it. However, it came to an complete end about a dozen years ago. Living the nomadic life, I would actually take boxloads of the magazines from place to place. Then in 1997, I asked myself -- why am I schlepping these boxes for? I then took a final look at old those dog-eared copies. I was struck by the covers of 1992 -- it seemed that week after week President George W.H. Bush just couldn't do anything right. It was amazing. So I asked myself, why am I subsidizing this?

Over time, USN & WR found a niche by its ranking system -- whether it was schools or hospitals. The following story was told to me by a business school professor, so it sounds a bit too good to be true:

There were a number of students at a a top-flight school who were unhappy with the course of instruction, so they were going to vent their wrath by informing the editors of USN &WR. Upon hearing this, the dean assembled the students and informed them that if the school's rating slipped, the students weren't as likely to be recruited by blue-chip firms and consequently their honesty would hit them were it hurts -- in the wallet. The students folded like a lawn chair and the school's ratings remained high.

In 2009, the magazine became a monthly with updated news to be found on its website.

I was in a barber shop a couple of weeks ago and noted that they had an undated copy of USN & WR. It was the recent January edition with 50 suggested New Year resolutions.

Here's mine: just end it.