Newsweek and The Daily Beast website are to merge in a 50/50 joint venture, called the Newsweek Daily Beast Company, Daily Beast editor Tina Brown announced on her site late last night and the two organisations announced today. Brown will be editor-in-chief of both The Daily Beast, a website that curates aggregated news and produces original reporting and opion and Newsweek, a print weekly.

Brown described the merger between the 77-year-old magazine and two-year old website as "a wonderful new opportunity for all the brilliant editors and writers at The Daily Beast who have worked so hard to create the site's success." For the Beast writers, "we now add the versatility of being able to develop ideas and investigations that require a different narrative pace suited to the medium of print," and for Newsweek, "The Daily Beast is a thriving frontline of breaking news and commentary that will raise the profile of the magazine's bylines and quicken the pace of a great magazine's revival," she said.

Newsweek owner Sidney Harman, who bought the magazine three months ago from the Washington Post Co for just $1, and Barry Diller, who supports The Daily Beast through his media conglomerate IAC, will serve as directors on the venture's board. Harman was quoted in the release as saying "In an admittedly challenging time, this merger provides the ideal combination of established journalism authority and bright, bristling website savvy."

Brown declared herself impressed with how "Newsweek's outstanding staff has continued to put out a lively, well-informed magazine after the departure of their tireless editor, Jon Meacham." Newsweek has been without a permanent editor for the last three months, and has been suffering from declining readership and advertising revenue for some time. It has made attempts to innovate and revive its fortunes, with redesigned print and web editions launched in May 2009, and then a new website launched in May 2010, guided by the principles of "simplicity and clarity."

It will be interesting to see how the coming together of these two very different Manhattan-based news providers pans out. It is unclear how closely the two will work and how much cross-over of content there might be, though if Brown is to edit both there must be a certain level of cooperation. She has ample experience in print magazines as well as online, as a former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker. Undoubtedly, the two will still have much to learn from one another.

Source: Daily Beast (1), (2)