Archive for the &;Newsweek&; Category
The Problem(s)with Newsweek
May 14, 2010
Newsweek has changed. Mostly, they&;ve given up on covering news, and now just have long, occasionally reported, think and profile pieces.
Now they&;re getting unwanted publicity for being the news, not reporting it. One of their writers says being gay and out is a career killer for actors, as no one will buy a gay or lesbian making out with someone of the opposite sex. Entertainment Weekly (which won&;t admit that it&;s slagging a competitor) describes it as a journey &;back to 1952.&; Indeed, when I was at the Enquirer, we played ball with the likes of Rock Hudson to buttress his straight reputation for our {largely female} readers and his {largely female} fans. But as Lily Tomlin once said, you don&;t have to be straight to play straight.
On the other hand, another Newsweek writer says we should stop talking about Elena Kagan&;s sexuality. Back to the 50&;s, indeed.
And sadly, that&;s their audience. I didn&;t buy my Newsweek, get it from the library or read it at a newsstand (another dying breed.) Instead, my 82-year old mother insisted on giving her subscription copy to me.
Their advertising problems track their demographics.
I counted 12.5 pages of advertising in the comic book-sized (not graphic novel sized) 56 page Newsweek (60 pages if you count the covers) of May 3. Of that, the msnbc.com ad was obviously a house ad, my guess is the ABC Good Morning America ad was a trade-out (perhaps they use Newsweek reporters or give Newsweek a shout-out) and the half-page SPDR/WSJ ad was probably one too. So we&;re left with 10 pages of advertising in a 60 page magazine.
That&;s weak. The type of advertising is even weaker; would anyone under 40 &;brew&; up a cup of Folger&;s instant coffee?
It&;s no wonder that this once multi-million seller is for sale. Each magazine&;s death diminishes me, to paraphrase John Donne, but when it goes, people won&;t miss it very much. The 50&;s are long over, and the people who still remember them are going fast.
Tags:death-of-magazines, Newsweek Posted in death-of-magazines, Newsweek | Leave a Comment &;
Newsweek isPathetic
February 24, 2010
Newsweek can&;t bring itself to call Joseph Stack, the murderer who crashed his plane into a government office in Austin, Texas and killed a decorated veteran, a terrorist. Their internal debate is here. Managing Editor Kathy Jones: &;Here is my handy guide:
Lone wolfish American attacker who sees gov&;t as threat to personal freedom: bomber, tax protester, survivalist, separatist
Group of Americans bombing/kidnapping to protest U.S. policies on war/poverty/personal freedom/ &; radical left-wing movement, right-wing separatists
All foreign groups or foreign individuals bombing/shooting to protest American gov&;t: terrorists.&;
As Glenn Greenwald puts it, &;So according to Newsweek&;s Managing Editor, only a foreigner who &;protests the American government&; can be a Terrorist. Americans cannot be. &;
If you indiscriminantly murder (or attempt to murder) innocent people you don&;t know in the service of your ideology, you are a terrorist. This includes Timothy McVeigh and partners in crime, Major Hasan, Theodore Kaczynski, and the scumbag who shot two people to death at LAX in 2002 that the FBI still refuses to call terrorism. And Joseph Stack.
Tags:Newsweek, Newsweek-pathetic, terrorism, terrorism-in-the-U.S. Posted in death-of-journalism, death-of-magazines, Newsweek | Leave a Comment &;
Time to Blog! Newsweek and Time as ElectronicSweatshops
June 21, 2007
When MSG Communications media-trains executives, a key point we make is that just like their own industries, journalism, media and publishing is all about doing more with less. If a newspaper had three reporters covering consumer electronics and gaming, for example, now there might be just one.
On a media tour with a client to Newsweek, we were having an engaged discussion with a key editor. Suddenly, someone burst in. &;Time to blog!&; they sang out brightly. The editor&;s look of incredulity, scorn and resignation was priceless.
The same pressure exists at Time. Time Editor Rick Stengel wrote in a recent memo to staff:
Let me make this explicit: evaluations of every Time writer, correspondent, and reporter will be based on the quality and quantity of the contributions each of you makes to both the magazine and to TIME.com. TIME.com is a daily responsibility; Time magazine is a weekly responsibility.
We are now both a 24/7 news organization online and the indispensable weekly magazine that we have always been, and always will be. We don&;t own our readers or their time &; we have to earn their attention and loyalty every week, every day and every hour in a media landscape that is only getting more competitive. Let&;s go to work.
Like the editor at Newsweek, the Time staff doesn&;t get paid extra for their new 24/7 workload. If they&;re lucky, they get to keep their jobs as long as there&;s a Time in print&;which Chairman Ann Moore claims will be as long as we live.
Posted in Journalism, Media Training, Newsweek, Publishing, Time | Leave a Comment &;