The Travel Detective

Travel Detective Blog: Remembering the Legacy of Newsweek

Locations in this article:  Houston, TX Los Angeles, CA San Francisco, CA

Screen shot 2013-01-15 at 9.43.32 AMLast night, Peter joined former Newsweek colleagues to look back at the history and legacy of the print publication.

It was a sentimental, bittersweet moment last night as about 350 of us gathered at the Graduate School of Journalism at City College in New York to celebrate a reunion of those who used to work at Newsweek.

We embraced long-time friends and colleagues, toasted our heroes and saluted those who couldn’t be there as well as those who were gone forever…the writers, and foreign correspondents, the photographers, the folks who ran the newsdesk, the former interns; the copy editors, the art department, the ad sales guys. We reminded ourselves about the good work we did in the trenches, and the war stories flowed endlessly. For a brief moment, it was like we were all still there having a fast celebratory moment before racing to meet another deadline.

Sadly, Newsweek‘s deadline has passed. The print magazine has died. But the rich memories live on. I owe Newsweek so much. It’s where I started my professional career as a journalist, first as a college stringer at the University of Wisconsin, then a summer intern, then a correspondent in the Houston bureau, Los Angeles bureau and San Francisco bureau. Seven glorious years….covering everything from Watergate to Patty Hearst, from Gary Gilmore to Howard Hughes, from Vietnam to Bette Midler, from the oil crisis to the NFL.

It was the incredibly rich Newsweek experience—the nonstop, no sleep, hit the ground running approach to news (and life itself) that propelled all of us to our success, our sense of history, and maybe even our sanity, and finally  to that reunion last night.

I will forever be thankful to Newsweek, and to all the people in that room….

For a further look back at Peter’s past at Newsweek check out his blogs, The Loss of Two Giants and Remembering Hal Bruno.

By Peter Greenberg for PeterGreenberg.com