Smith will continue to remain actively engaged at the magazine while focusing on corporate and non-profit board work as well.

Portfolio's Mixed Media has the memo.

Why is he leaving now? It might have to do the fact that, as the memo euphemistically puts it:

Going forward, Greg will be Tom's point man in driving the ad pages, the page views, the sales and marketing programs and, ultimately, the advertising revenues that are so critical to our future.

It is no secret that Newsweek is operating in a challenging business environment. The advertising market for all general interest magazines is difficult, and postal, benefit and other costs continue to rise. But we have met similar challenges in the past, and we will again.

Translation of the memoese that we just put in boldface? Expect new media efforts at Newsweek Inc.'s properties to go into overdrive in '08/'09. Our guess would be that they're going to rely even more on collaborative content development with the Washington Post and Slate, but that's just us.