Newhouse Dynasty Power And Wealth In The 1990s

(The following article first appeared in the 11/18/92 issue of the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative newspaper Downtown)

In the 1990s, the sons of Samuel Newhouse I continued to hold a lot of U.S. Big Media power. As the Magazine In America: 1741-1990 book by John Tebbel and Mary Zuckerman then observed:

“…S.I. Newhouse, Jr., could be considered the most powerful man in the publishing business, controlling what Fortune called the greatest concentration of wealth in private hands. He shared responsibility only with his brother Donald, a year younger, who directed the company’s newspapers and cable-television interests, while he concentrated on the magazines…Since Advance Publications, the umbrella covering all the family interests, is owned exclusively by the Newhouse brothers, there are no shareholders (and therefore not even the S.E.C.) to interfere in the administration of a communications empire worth between $8 to $10 billion.”

(Downtown 11/18/92)