( CNN ) -- When Annie Leibovitz photographed the heavily pregnant actress Demi Moore for her private album , she never intended for that image to be seen by a wider audience . But the young editor Tina Brown decided to put the picture on the cover of her magazine Vanity Fair . That was 1991 . More than two decades later , that very Vanity Fair cover is one of the most memorable images of our time . `` I did n't expect the storm that it created , '' Brown , now editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast and Newsweek Global , told CNN . `` It was a good risk because we put on an unbelievable amount of sales . It became a kind of iconic picture for women . '' The cover was one of a series of bold and sometimes controversial decisions that have cemented Brown as one of the most influential magazine editors of a generation . The risks Brown has taken -- from adding celebrity culture to highbrow news magazines to ending the print run of Newsweek magazine -- have brought both success and failure throughout her career . `` Unfortunately taking risks comes so easily to me that you can call it reckless at times , '' said Brown . `` I have to hold myself back a little and think 'wait a minute , be careful because you know you can blow it , too . ' '' British-born Brown revived the fortunes of two ailing bastions of the newsstand , Vanity Fair , which she began editing aged just 30 , and The New Yorker . In the 15 years Brown edited Vanity Fair , she took its monthly sales from 200,000 to 1.2 million and is credited with saving the magazine with her signature formula of mixing serious news with celebrity culture . She again worked her magic at The New Yorker , which she edited for six years , increasing circulation by 145 % on the newsstand and 28 % overall . In 1998 , she left The New Yorker to launch Talk Magazine , which folded after only three years . Her latest venture is perhaps the most controversial of all . Brown launched news website The Daily Beast -- named after the fictional newspaper in the Evelyn Waugh novel `` Scoop '' -- in 2008 and merged it with Newsweek in 2010 . While The Daily Beast is gaining a loyal digital readership -- with up to 16 million unique users a month and advertising up 30 % year on year -- Brown 's Midas touch has yet to work on Newsweek . Like many weekly print magazines , circulation for Newsweek has slumped -- from three million in 2007 to 1.5 million in 2012 . And after 80 years on the newsstand , Brown took the stark decision to make Newsweek an all digital publication , printing its farewell edition on December 31 , 2012 . Twitter lit up with # LastPrintIssue , which also featured on the last cover of the magazine 's final edition . Although it continues as an online magazine , its owner IAC has now announced it is seeking a buyer for the Newsweek brand . At the age of 59 , Brown is now running an all digital business for the first time in her career , and divides opinion on whether she can adapt her operation to meet the demands of a fickle online media world . `` Great editors have great successes and great failures , '' says Ken Doctor , digital media analyst and author of Newsonomics , `` [ Brown ] had remarkable success with Vanity Fair and The New Yorker , but Talk was a spectacular failure . `` She is a 'tweener , ' connecting Britain and U.S. sensibilities , connecting celebrity and serious news , connecting print and digital . There are not many people who have done that . `` She has ridden with the times in creating The Daily Beast ; she is someone who adapts and learns . '' Others , however , see Brown as a great magazine editor of her time , and believe she has yet to master the digital media landscape . `` She is a creature of a different age , '' says Jeff Bercovici , media and technology staff writer at Forbes . `` The formula she brought with her is the opposite of what works online . In the digital world , successful sites have started really small and gradually built up with unknown writers . Her line was to hire expensive writers and do something with panache , but that does n't work online . '' Though she has her critics , Brown marks her own success by the fact that people are still talking about her . `` I do n't think any editor wants to put out anything that falls into silence , '' says Brown . `` I do tend to have points of view that are sometimes counter to the wind . ''
Bold moves have made Tina Brown one of the most influential magazine editors of a generation . She ended print-run of Newsweek , making it an all digital magazine alongside news website The Daily Beast . Can she continue her magazine success in a digital media world ?