Late News from Newsweek

A sudden swap at the Top of the Week

When Newsweek staffers arrived at their desks one morning last week, they found a cryptic memo from Editor Edward Kosner summoning them to a 10:30 meeting at Top of the Week, the conference room on the 40th floor of the magazine's Manhattan headquarters. When they arrived, they were surprised to find Katharine Graham, chairman of the parent Washington Post Co. Recounted one writer: "People began to murmur, 'God, we're closing down ... We've been bought.' "

Nothing so dramatic, but something quite unexpected. Kosner, 42, stepped onto the podium, announced tersely that he was leaving the magazine that day, thanked the staff and left the room to applause. The whole performance lasted perhaps two minutes. Then Graham took the podium and delivered another shock: Kosner's replacement would be Lester Bernstein, 58, a vice president for corporate communications at RCA who had left Newsweek in 1972 after being passed over for the editor's job. It was the fourth change in top editors at the magazine in the past ten years.

Kosner, a graduate of New York's City College, became editor in 1975, after twelve years at the magazine. He learned of his dismissal only the afternoon before, during a stormy, 2 1/2-hour meeting with Graham and Newsweek President Peter Derow. He was described as shocked, but associates said that he may have missed subtle signals of Graham's displeasure. Under Kosner's predecessor, Osborn Elliott, now dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, Newsweek was briefly known on Madison Avenue as a "hot book" because of improved editorial vitality and attendant advertising and circulation gains. (Newsweek's current U.S. circulation is 2.9 million, vs. TIME's 4.25 million.) Yet newsstand sales have slumped lately, and Graham is said to have been concerned that Kosner was making Newsweek too frivolous with his fondness for cover stories on pop culture and entertainment subjects. The week after Pope John Paul II made his historic return to Poland, for example, the magazine's cover featured Hollywood horror movies. Says Ron Travisano, president of Delia Femina, Travisano and Partners, a leading New York advertising agency: "Newsweek is not so 'hot' any more."

Kosner's position was further eroded by a costly, aesthetically wrenching design change instituted earlier this year, and by a new computer system that has caused production problems. Though even those who disliked Kosner admired his drive and intelligence, his biting humor and autocratic style were said to have irked many subordinates. Said one: "He ran a one-man show."

Bernstein was known as an able and popular journalist in his ten years at Newsweek, first as national affairs editor and later as managing editor. Before that he had spent five years as an NBC public affairs executive and ten years as a writer, correspondent and editor at TIME. At Newsweek he is expected to steady both the editorial product and declining office morale. In a chatty, upbeat memo to the staff, he promised "some changes in tone, emphasis and operating style." Given his age and Graham's habit of replacing executives unexpectedly, Bernstein may turn out to be a caretaker appointee--"like bringing Bob Lemon in to replace Billy Martin," in the words of one Newsweek hand. Says Bernstein: "I expect to stay a long time."

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