Pros
Some people in the industry might not know the full extent of Newsweek's corruption and decline yet so the name might help you get another job.
Cons
- Management would rather fire people than handle unhappy staff, or answer questions about issues with management. My entire team were suffering from burnout and mental health issues and the company completely ignored this despite being well aware. There is not a single effort made to ensure staff wellbeing. - I've been a journalist for 9 years and worked at some fairly badly managed publications, but what I saw here was truly shocking. - Please do your research on senior gatekeepers at Newsweek, specifically Dev Pragad and Dayan Candappa - you'll find sexual harassment, fraud, and cults. - If you became a journalist to help people or try and make a difference, please, please don’t work here, it is an utter disappointment. - Newsweek is not what it once was, please don’t be fooled by its previous reputation. The content is trash, and is similar to the Daily Mail or The Sun. - You'll be asked to pitch, but they won't be accepted. They only care about shock articles or stories about viral pet videos, so you’ll be mainly be writing about cats and dogs, people with incurable diseases, people who are overweight, eating disorders, or age gap relationships – and the focus is on clicks and quantity over quality, and you will be expected to exploit vulnerable people for interviews. - Holiday is very rarely approved, and you have to jump through hoops to even request it. The editorial operations manager seems incapable of doing even basic admin and will simply make things up, and the one-man HR department is also useless. - There is zero career progression, and you will be treated with aggression or simply ignored if you try and bring it up. The only opportunity to progress is to become a ‘senior’ but this brings no further responsibility or pay, and the opportunity simply doesn’t exist. - The weekly targets are not achievable - 18 articles per week - and you will be expected to work unpaid overtime otherwise your targets will suffer, and you will be penalised. - Managers are completely disorganised and make a lot of mistakes, and if you say anything they will fire you. Micromanaging is also the daily norm. I urge you not to work for here.