S.I. Newhouse Jr., Magazine Mogul, Dies At 89
By Aiden Pink October 1, 2017
S.I. Newhouse Jr., the billionaire owner of the publishing company that owns some of America’s most important magazines, died Sunday at the age of 89.
Newhouse inherited the Conde Nast publishing company in 1975 and grew it into a multi-billion dollar business. Among the magazines in that umbrella include The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Wired and GQ. He and his brother Donald also controlled Advance Communications, which owns major American newspapers such as the Newark Star-Ledger and the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.
Newhouse had a reputation for hiring talented editors such as Tina Brown, Graydon Carter and Anna Wintour, giving them free reign-and extravagant budgets. Although the media industry’s struggles affected his personal wealth, he still had a net worth of $9.5 billion in 2014, according to Forbes.
Samuel Irving Newhouse Jr., known as Si, was born November 8, 1927, the son of Sam Newhouse, a businessman and philanthropist who started the Advance Communications company, and his wife Mitzi, a patron of the arts. Newhouse Jr. inherited his parents’ philanthropic streak: He donated $15 million to Syracuse University, whose renowned Newhouse School of Public Communications is named after his father. Newhouse Jr. was also known as one of the world’s biggest collectors of modern art.
Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
