• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, November 11, 2010

First it was on, then it was off, now it appears to be back on again: Newsweek and the Daily Beast will merge, as previously proposed, thanks to a deal struck by former stereo magnate Sidney Harman and IAC chairman Barry Diller.

News of the deal, reported by The New York Observer, comes a month after both sides walked away from merger negotiations, blaming each other for failing to compromise. The deal means that Tina Brown, former editor of The New Yorker and Vanity Fair and founding editor of The Daily Beast, will now become top editor at Newsweek.

The terms of the 50-50 merger included a daily role for Harman and editorial independence for Brown, per the Observer.

When rumors of the deal first circulated, Brown noted that The Daily Beast has moved rapidly from its original mission of news aggregation to original reporting. It currently attracts about 5 million unique visitors per month. That makes it smaller than the HuffingtonPost.com, which attracted 24.3 million unique visitors back in June.

Newsweek was purchased by Harman from the Washington Post Co. for $1, along with the assumption of financial liabilities to the tune of $47 million. The magazine's ad pages declined 12.7% in the first nine months of 2010, to 643 ad pages, including a 19% drop in the third quarter, to 202 ad pages. Recent months have also seen a number of high-profile departures, including editor Jon Meacham and Fareed Zakaria, the magazine's prized international editor, who moved to rival Time.

Hearst's Black To NYC School Chancellor

Hearst Magazines chairman and former president Cathleen Black announced that she is leaving her post at the publisher to serve as chancellor of New York City's Department of Education, replacing Joe Klein. Black is the biggest player to jump from the media business to public service in New York since her new boss, Michael Bloomberg, left the top spot at Bloomberg LP to become mayor in 2001.

Bloomberg stated: "Cathie Black is a superstar manager who has succeeded spectacularly in the private sector. She is brilliant, she is innovative, she is driven -- and there is virtually nobody who knows more about the needs of the 21st century workforce for which we need to prepare our kids."

Black served as president of Hearst Magazines from 1995-2010, but then moved to the chairman spot in June, when former Conde Nast group president David Carey was named president.

In some respects, her publishing career has prepared Black well for her new career in public service, but there's no question that NYC schools present challenges on a much greater scale.

Her responsibilities as president of Hearst Magazines included financial oversight as ad revenues grew from roughly $850 million in 1996 to roughly $2.5 billion in 2006, according to some sources. (Hearst doesn't officially report financial results.) The Department of Education's budget for 2009-2010 came to $22 billion, almost 10 times that amount. At Hearst Magazines, Black had about 2,000 employees; at the DOE, she'll have about 136,000, including 80,000 teachers, working at 1,600 schools which serve 1.1 million students per year.

U.S. News Folds Print Edition

U.S. News & World Report is finally phasing out its print magazine, leaving only the special single-topic print issues, including its famed higher-education rankings and newer rankings for things like hospitals and personal finance. December will be the last issue of the print monthly sent to subscribers, according to an internal memo from editor Brian Kelly.

The remaining print subs will be filled by other publishers. Kelly said the company will "continue to expand our audience and products on the various usnews.com channels and grow the digital U.S. News Weekly," which altogether attract an average unique digital audience of 9 million.

Vaccariello To Every Day with Rachael Ray EIC

Liz Vaccariello has been named editor in chief of Every Day with Rachael Ray, effective Nov. 15, according to the Reader's Digest Association. Vaccariello replaces Silvana Nardone, who left earlier this year. Vaccariello comes to RDA from Rodale, where she served as editor in chief of Prevention. In that capacity, she has regularly appeared on Ray's daytime talk show to talk about nutrition and healthy living. She has also appeared on "Today," "Dr. Phil," "Regis and Kelly" and CBS' "The Doctors."

Barnett Gets Lucky

Dirk Barnett has been named design director at popular shopping mag Lucky. Before joining the Conde Nast title, Barnett served as creative director at Maxim and the now-defunct music mag Blender. He also served as creative director for The New York Times' verticals Key and Play, as well as for Popular Science. Holley said she expects Barnett to "help bring Lucky into the next stage of its evolution."