Newsweek to Team Up With Kaplan to Offer Online M.B.A.

[Cadet]

Speaking of the Washington Post Company...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/technology/25newsweek.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Newsweek to Team Up With Kaplan to Offer Online M.B.A.

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: September 25, 2006

Read Newsweek and get your M.B.A.

Well, maybe it's not quite that simple. But Newsweek is joining up with Kaplan Inc., the education service provider, to offer an online business degree called Kaplan University/Newsweek M.B.A. Executives at both Newsweek and Kaplan said they believed this was the first time a national media outlet had joined with an online degree program.

But why pick Newsweek, a general-interest magazine, to teach students about business when there are plenty of other publications better known for their business coverage?

The answer, as anyone with an M.B.A. knows, is synergy: both Newsweek and Kaplan are owned by the Washington Post Company.

“It's true that business is not the first thing people think of when they think of Newsweek,” said Richard M. Smith, the magazine's chairman and editor in chief. “But we don't get the credit we deserve.”

The company hopes the partnership can lift the fortunes of Newsweek, where circulation has been down or flat over the last few years, and help Kaplan differentiate itself from other online degree programs.

Kaplan accounts for a growing portion of revenue for the Post company, keeping it healthier than many other media enterprises. In 2005, Kaplan provided 40 percent of the company's operating revenue, up from 34 percent in 2004.

The newsweekly will help Kaplan provide students with case studies of current business topics as well as video and online presentations, chats and interviews. Some material will be published in Newsweek and on its Web site, but some will be reserved exclusively for Kaplan.

Andrew S. Rosen, president of Kaplan University, said the Newsweek material would be reworked for students. “We'll have someone rewrite it for students, take out the color, and put it into a format so the lessons we want students to draw from it are clear,'' he said. KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Even though these are two well-established brands under a well-established company, this just seems a little sketchy to me. And if you're a Newsweek business writer, do you get a royalty if your reporting is turned into a classroom lesson?

Thoughts?

 

[PeteyPirate]

Newspaper and magazine articles already are routinely used in the educational process. I doubt Newsweek content will make up more than a minute fraction of a percentage of the curriculum. It's just for the name.

 

[Cadet]

Newspaper and magazine articles already are routinely used in the educational process. I doubt Newsweek content will make up more than a minute fraction of a percentage of the curriculum. It's just for the name.

As it should be in any curriculum of any discipline. But if I wonder if this will bring a different perspective to the Newsweek business desk or if it changes the way reporters will (or are told to) go about their stories...