Covering the World of Business, Digital Only

After selling his shares in his companies for a reported after-tax gain of $300 million in 1997 and realizing he didn’t have the people’s touch when it came to politics — his first love — David G. Bradley had hoped to buy Newsweek. But that did not work out. So in 1998 he bought The Atlantic Monthly instead, along with National Journal and Government Executive, in part because he wanted to be a Beltway player and in part because he loved the physical aspects of print.

He hoped to turn The Atlantic into a weekly, a glossy artifact that he could proudly display in his office at the Watergate complex, overlooking the Potomac River. But even as a monthly, the economics were baffling. After spending 10 years and $100 million on the Atlantic brand, he realized that making baubles for the coffee table would soon leave him bereft. He hired Justin Smith, the publisher of The Week who had also worked at The Economist, in 2007. Mr. Smith has Mr. Bradley’s polish, but is more ruthless in business matters and less sentimental about print. The pair set about building a ladder out of the hole that the company — and most of print publishing, for that matter — found itself in.