(Getty)

Flying back from JFK airport just before the new year, I picked up the latest – and last – edition of Newsweek. The cover has a photo of the old Newsweek building in Manhattan and proclaims – “Last Print Issue”. For a print journalist, the phrase “last print” anything, has an unpleasant ring to it.

I also have more personal reasons to feel sad about the passing of Newsweek. I was a subscriber for about five years in the 1970s. Growing up in London, it was Newsweek that introduced me to the mysteries and excitements of American politics – and was my guide to everything from Watergate to the rise and fall of Jimmy Carter. Maybe it is nostalgia speaking, but I remember Newsweek as a great magazine: tightly written, brilliantly reported and illustrated. Read more