“Newsweek Alumni Wax Nostalgic About Magazine’s Sex-and-Booze-addled Halcyon Days,” Ken Shepard writes at Newsbusters:
While many of us can probably wax nostalgic about a job in our past that was thoroughly challenging and enjoyable, I’d venture to say not many of us would fondly recall unlimited expense accounts, much less free-flowing booze and a sexually promiscuous culture that treated female employees as ready-to-order mistresses. But then, you might if you worked for Newsweek in the 1960s and ’70s.
In his “oral history” interview feature that was compiled for the magazine’s final print edition, Newsweek.com staffer Andrew Romano chatted with some of the writers and editors from the Mad Men era of the weekly magazine. What particularly struck me was the almost wistful way in which many interview subjects fondly recalled sexual liaisons in the magazine’s Madison Avenue office. Also seemingly excused by Newsweek alumni was the blatant sexual harassment female staffers were shown. At one point, one justified the harassment by attributing it to the journalistic profession writ large, practically absolving offenders of any personal responsibility…
Read the whole thing for the excerpts, but then check out a new piece at the Daily Beast, Newsweek’s successor publication, which includes this eyebrow-raising moment:
The NFL is troubled. It’s not because of concussions or violence off the field or the league’s own politically correct, pussy-whipped ad campaign for improved safety.
Wow, who knew a magazine that gushes weekly about Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama and still waxes nostalgic for Princess Di could feign being so macho? (Not to mention being against political correctness.) Perhaps if Newsweek had demonstrated some of those qualities in the recent past, it might still be a going entity today.
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