Dollar & a dream

Sidney Harman, the 91-year-old stereo equipment mogul who yesterday bought the 77-year-old Newsweek magazine, is now facing two crucial questions: Who will he hire as editor and how will he turn around the struggling weekly?

Leadership was the first order of business after Editor-in-chief Jon Meacham confirmed a story first reported by nypost.com that he plans to leave after the sale.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed but one report said the Washington Post may have sold it for as little as a $1 — plus the assumption of up to $70 million in liabilities.

Meacham won a Pulitzer Prize in April for his Andrew Jackson biography and has a two-book, seven-figure deal from Random House for two more bios — one on President George H.W. Bush and another on Thomas Jefferson. He is also doing a public affairs show on PBS and has been planning to leave regardless of who won the auction, insiders said.

Tom Ascheim, the CEO of Newsweek, will stay on board as president under Harman, sources said.

With Meacham gone, the most logical inside candidate to be the public editorial face is Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria. Sources say it is not clear that Zakaria would want to tackle the task of trying to right the listing ship and stem the exodus of top-level talent from the magazine.

If Zakaria passes and Harman stays inside for a replacement, sources say that Mark Miller, the editorial director of Newsweek and editor of newsweek.com, who is said to be close to Meacham, is believed to be the odds-on favorite.

Outside candidates include celebrity editors such as:

* Walter Isaacson, a best-selling author, ex-head of CNN and former top editor of Time magazine, who is now running the Aspen Institute.

* Tina Brown, a best-selling Princess Diana author; former editor of Talk, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker; now atop the Barry Diller-financed Daily Beast e-zine.

Neither has indicated any interest so far in leaving their current posts.

Also, Jacob Weisberg, the editor-in-chief of the Washington Post-owned Slate, has also been mentioned.

Even before Meacham officially told the staff he was leaving, top editorial talent had been fleeing the magazine for other jobs in fear of major change — even though Harman pledged to try to keep as many of Newsweek’s 350 employees as he can.

Harman did not respond to calls yesterday.

Newsweek, which underwent a major redesign last year and cut its circulation to 1.5 million, lost more than $40 million over the past two years and is projected to face red ink for years to come.

When the magazine went on the block in early May, Washington Post CEO Donald Graham said Newsweek was expected to have losses in the tens of millions of dollars range.

Harman beat out other finalists, including Fred Drasner, a former co-owner of the Daily News and Washington Redskins, and Mark Lasry, the hedge fund mogul who heads Avenue Capital. Both Drasner and Avenue were expected to make deeper staffing cuts to try to bring the magazine to profitability. kkelly@nypost.com