I wish [Newsweek editor Jon] Meacham Godspeed, but there’s almost no hope for him or Newsweek, and here’s why. If there were a market for an opinion journal that could sell in excess of a million copies, it would have revealed itself before this. The advantage journals of opinion possess is that their readers are extremely loyal and they have a personal stake in them that no newsmagazine has ever generated. The disadvantage they have is that the audience for journals of opinion is small.
More important, they are published for people who are passionate about abstract ideas, and find it invigorating, thrilling, and exciting to see them batted about. This is not the profile of the general mass reader.
Finally, Meacham has trapped himself in a false premise. In his editor’s letter and in interviews, he says that Newsweek is not partisan and cannot be perceived as partisan if it is to succeed. Well, first of all, that is an absurdity.
I am a former subscriber to both Time and Newsweek. Both became predictable and liberal in their coverage of the news. For example there would be the annual Holy Week articles asking the questions about the authenticity of Jesus of Nazareth. I wrote several letters to the editor to both magazines that were never published which makes me think they were even selective about what was included in the letters section. Additionally, the news is tardy when compared to electronic and cable journalism. Both magazines did a pretty good job smearing the image of Viet Nam era veterans. There is really a parallel to the gradual disappearance of another organization.
Newsweek is dead, Jon Meachem just hasn’t come to grips with it. It is not just a left leaning rag, it is loony-left. George Will must write for it for money and entertainment sakes. So, it caters to a loony-left audience; the “Obama-Messiah” crowd. In the coming conservative backlash, this rag will disappear and do its best service to mankind by letting a few more trees live a little longer.
If only NPR would follow suit.
BrM, regrettably, NPR has attached itself firmly to the public teat and is, therefore, unlikely to be pried loose until it is long past dead and gone, if ever. Newsweek and its ilk will ‘survive’ only if they can manage to emulate NPR.
I think Meacham’s oleaginous and patronizing manner makes him one of the most unappealing public personae in media today. He poses as a wise and considered voice of reason while publishing transparently left-wing propaganda. One can only hope for an epic fail.
He is, of course, an Episcopalian. Where else could one hone that particular set of mannerisms and opinions to such perfection?
One more dragon on its knees. Hooray for the new Media.
Boy, has JPod pegged [i]Newsweek[/i]. I hadn’t seen it in years when I picked up a dog-eared copy at my son’s orthodontist and was horrified at how shallow and ideological it had become. It was [i]People[/i] with a screeching left-wing slant.
I knew then it was one more thing I could save money on.
I used to read Newsweek regularly about twenty years ago, but I stopped doing that long before Meacham took over the helm. Now I find the magazine not only an embarrassment to American journalism, but a pathetic travesty. Much as TEC is in the religious realm (as I think Dcn Dale was implying at the end of his #1).
And austin (#5) is right that John Meacham has all the swaggering arrogance of the elite in TEC, and the same lack of integrity and common sense. I understand he’s a graduate of Sewanee, i.e., the University of the South, not the seminary. A sad sign of the times.
David Handy+