This email from Tina hit staff inboxes a little before 7:00am this morning. Newsweek’s going all digital. Last edition will be the December 31st issue. Ch-ch-changes. 
 
 To: All Staff 
 
 We are announcing this morning an important development at Newsweek and The Daily Beast. Newsweek will transition to an all-digital format in early 2013. As part of this transition, the last print edition in the U.S. will be our December 31st issue. Meanwhile, Newsweek will expand its rapidly growing tablet and online presence, as well as its successful global partnerships and events business. 
 
 Newsweek Global, as the all-digital publication will be named, will be a single, worldwide edition targeted for a highly mobile, opinion-leading audience who want to learn about world events in a sophisticated context. Newsweek Global will be supported by paid subscriptions and will be available through e-readers for both tablet and the Web, with select content available on The Daily Beast. 
 
 Four years ago we launched The Daily Beast. Two years later, we merged our business with the iconic Newsweek magazine - which The Washington Post Company had sold to Dr. Sidney Harman. Since the merger, both The Daily Beast and Newsweek have continued to post and publish distinctive journalism and have demonstrated explosive online growth in the process. The Daily Beast now attracts more than 15 million unique visitors a month, a 70 percent increase in the past year alone - a healthy portion of this traffic generated each week by Newsweek’s strong original journalism. 
 
 At the same time, our business has been increasingly affected by the challenging print advertising environment, while Newsweek’s online and e-reader content has built a rapidly growing audience through the Apple, Kindle, Zinio and Nook stores as well on The Daily Beast. Tablet-use has grown rapidly among our readers and with it the opportunity to sustain editorial excellence through swift, easy digital distribution - a superb global platform for our award-winning journalism. By year’s end, tablet users in the United States alone are expected to exceed 70 million, up from 13 million just two years ago. 
 
 Currently, 39 percent of Americans say they get their news from an online source, according to a Pew Research Center study released last month. In our judgment, we have reached a tipping point at which we can most efficiently and effectively reach our readers in all-digital format. This was not the case just two years ago. It will increasingly be the case in the years ahead. 
 
 It is important that we underscore what this digital transition means and, as importantly, what it does not. We are transitioning Newsweek, not saying goodbye to it. We remain committed to Newsweek and to the journalism that it represents. This decision is not about the quality of the brand or the journalism, that is as powerful as ever. It is about the challenging economics of print publishing and distribution. 
 
 Newsweek is produced by a gifted and tireless team of professionals who have been offering brilliant work consistently throughout a tough period of ownership transition and media disruption. The inexorable move to an all-digital Newsweek comes with an unfortunate reality. Regrettably we anticipate staff reductions and the streamlining of our editorial and business operations both here in the United States and internationally. More details on the new organizational structure will be shared individually in the coming weeks and months. 
 
 We realize news of a big change like this will be unsettling. We wish to reassure you the transition is well planned, extremely mindful of the unavoidable impact on our staff and respectful of our readers, advertisers and business partners. 
 
 There will be an all-staff town hall meeting at 11am on the editorial side of our floor to answer your questions and address your concerns. 
 
 Tina Brown & Baba Shetty 

 Newsweek plans to end its print publication after 80 years and will shift to an all-digital format starting in early 2013. Job cuts are expected. 
 
 Newsweek's last U.S. print edition will be its Dec. 31 issue. 
 
 With more and more consumers on the go and using their cell phones and tablets to receive the news, media organizations have had to increasingly shift more of their emphasis online. Aside from Newsweek, SmartMoney announced in June that it was shuttering its print publication in favor of a digital format. Dow Jones & Co., a unit of News Corp., said at the time that 25 positions at SmartMoney would be eliminated. 
 
 Newsweek's decision does not come as a complete surprise. Barry Diller, the head of the company that owns Newsweek, announced in July that the publication was examining its future as a weekly print magazine. Diller said then that the brand was good around the world, but that producing a weekly news magazine in print form wasn't easy. 
 
 The announcement of the change was made by Tina Brown, editor-in-chief and founder of The Newsweek Daily Beast Co., on The Daily Beast website Thursday. 
 
 Brown said staff cuts are expected, but didn't give a specific figure. 
 
 Brown said that the online publication will be called Newsweek Global and will be a single, worldwide edition that requires a paid subscription. It will be available for tablets and online reading, with certain content available on The Daily Beast website.
– Newsweek is canning its iconic print edition and going completely digital at the beginning of 2013, according to a not-entirely-shocking memo to staff from Tina Brown, who has served as editor-in-chief of both Newsweek and the Daily Beast since the companies merged. Brown cited a "tipping point at which we can most efficiently and effectively reach our readers in all-digital format," adding that "this was not the case just two years ago." The announcement, foreshadowed in July by Barry Diller, comes amid difficulty in the print media industry and growth in digital readership, the AP notes. The last print edition will be Dec. 31. Staff cuts are expected. After the final print issue, readers can pay for an online subscription tailored for e-readers and tablets, with some content also available on the Daily Beast. The online entity, Newsweek Global, will be "a single, worldwide edition," Brown writes."We are transitioning Newsweek, not saying goodbye to it. We remain committed to Newsweek and to the journalism that it represents." The AP points out that Newsweek, which has been in print for 80 years, is just the latest publication to take the all-digital route—SmartMoney shut down its print publication in June.