Jordan Steves on Tumblr
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On Newsweek’s Covers, Sex vs. Iran
Newsweek’s Tumblr debuted a new feature called “also-rans” today, showcasing cover ideas that didn’t make it to print. All are different visual takes on “The Politics of Sex,” based on Andrew Sullivan’s story on the contraception culture wars. This is what sits on American newsstands right now:
And, for the sake of contrast, this is the current cover of the international editions:
Lisa Wade at The Society Pages has been keeping a semi-comprehensive running comparison of domestic and international Time and Newsweek covers, in an attempt to illustrate the “vicious circle” of Americans’ ignorance of global issues and the news media ceding to that ignorance by providing fluff. “The Politics of Sex” is not as fluffy as, say, “Who Needs Marriage?” or “My Life in Pictures,” but the point is the same. This week’s Newsweek covers may be worth a nomination.
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Almost thought I’d accidentally clicked on The Onion when I came across this front-page headline at The New York Times last night (the inside headline is more specific and less funny).
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Yet another old geezer totally dismisses (and disses) Twitter because he doesn’t understand it Seriously, shut up, John Vogl. I clicked on your Buffalo News blog piece to read about a Sabres faux-controversy and was treated also (instead, really) to your bitter little diatribe against Twitter. What the hell, dude? I had absolutely no reason to dislike you until I read this, but you’ve let the actions of a few douches speak for an entire community, and that grinds my gears.
Really, it’s just obnoxious when people knock something because they don’t understand it, especially when they’re older people who think they know best because they’ve been around the block. You really donned “hip waders, rubber gloves, a gas mask and [took] an anti-vomit pill” before visiting Twitter? Because it’s a “world of feces,” in your opinion? NO ONE CARES. Who is the editor who allowed this crap (pun intended) to be published? The story is about a FEW people on Twitter who spread a rumor, and how that rumor is not true. The story is NOT about all of Twitter, and it’s not about whatever ignorant opinion you may have on the subject of Twitter. Haven’t your years and years of journalistic experience taught you not to A) make sweeping generalizations, and B) add your view to your stories, even if they’re middling little blog posts? (I’d bet money that you hate writing blog posts.)
Free tip: Next time, just report the news and leave your archaic perspective out of it.
/rant
Update: The word “feces” no longer appears in the post. Whoopdeedoodoo.
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Airing dirty laundry stained with sour grapes under burned bridges
It’s an exciting and confusing time for venerable Newsweek, what with its merger with The Daily Beast and all, and that excitement and confusion has been compounded by higher ups like Steven Colvin making major announcements without alerting his newly combined staff first.
OK. Yes, this is a terrible way to handle such a situation. Staffers in any company, much less one whose main purpose is communication and the dissemination of information, deserve better from management. This much is FOR SURE. Undebatable. Nice going, Stephen Colvin.
But I think I have an even bigger problem with this. What we have here, apparently, is an anonymous Newsweek.com staffer using a public forum to bitch about the way his/her superiors SOOOOO underappreciate what he/she and his/her colleagues do. Great. I mean, everyone who feels they’ve done a great job should have the opportunity to defend themselves if they feel their job is threatened. That’s just fair. But to complain about a disagreeable and badly handled public announcement with an anonymous public defense is just … desperate? Pathetic? Cowardly? Especially when you try to punctuate your point by trashing your former employers:
The thing you have to understand about Newsweek is that it would only be fitting that its Website would be the first to go. Like most print publications, Newsweek magazine has been led by people who deep down don’t understand the Web, and because they don’t understand it, they fear it and don’t value it.
While high-level print editors were taking sleek black towncars to and from the office (and everywhere in between, including, on at least one instance, from DC to New York), this was a staff who slept on grimy couches while reporting on the road; forking out their own funds, at times, just to produce good work. The disparity in work hours, in pay, in resources—it was comical. And it was only telling that not so long ago—let’s say five years—one high-level company executive had to be corrected about the Website’s URL: no, Newsweek.com wasn’t the same thing as the internal Newsweek intranet.
Wow, we should feel SO BAD that you’re experiencing THE SAME THING EVERY YOUNG PERSON IN THE PRINT MEDIUM EVERYWHERE is experiencing. And way to show your new employers that when threatened, you’re going to hide in plain sight and throw invisible daggers through the newsroom.
That said, I like Newsweek.com! Better than The Daily Beast! The Newsweek digital brand is as strong as any other other magazine’s, especially with the staff’s willingness and ability to embrace new technology and use it to do some pretty cool things. I’d hate to see it go away (and Tina Brown has said it won’t, though it’s not really clear what she means by “the new site”). But seriously, and maybe you’ve already done this (I hope), just sit down and talk with your new bosses. Quietly. Privately. Whiny blog posts are no way to defend your job.
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Imagined conversation between NORAD skywatchers(?) during Monday’s “missile” “panic”
- Person 1: Have you reached the Pentagon yet?
- Person 2: No, our communications systems are down because of all the 24/7 news channels reporters have been calling, e-mailing, texting, instant-messaging, G-chatting, radioing and telegraphing us, DEMANDING ANSWERS about what that was.
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Bill Maher addressed the Rally to Restore Sanity on “Real Time” last night, but I don’t see it as a “diss” or a “harsh critique,” as some bloggers wrote today. Rather, I think what Maher’s saying here is more along the lines of “Nice job, guys, but if you do this again, let’s try something a little different.” An excerpt:
When Jon [Stewart] announced his rally, he said that the national conversation is dominated by people on the right who believe Obama’s a socialist and people on the left who believe 9/11 was an inside job. But I can’t name any Democratic leaders who think 9/11 was an inside job. But Republican leaders who think Obama’s a socialist? All of them. McCain, Boehner, Cantor, Palin, all of them. It’s now official Republican dogma, like tax cuts pay for themselves and gay men just haven’t met the right woman.
Stewart said from the start that the rally was an apolitical, nonpartisan one, which of course is arguable given the positions he takes on “The Daily Show” every night, so calling out the crazies of each side, regardless of the equivalence of their craziness, is all about keeping up apolitical, nonpartisan appearances. He wanted the rally to appeal to as wide an audience as possible — if showing some clips of Olbermann mixed in with Beck and Hannity would help attract people from the right, so be it. And maybe that’s an understated point Stewart was making, the same thing that Maher picked up on: that the crazies on the right far outnumber the crazies on the left.
(I mostly enjoyed the rally, watching it from the comfort of my La-Z-Boy, but Stewart’s 12-minute speech at the end is what saved it from being a disappointment. Going in, I’d hoped more of the three hours would be like that. Instead, we got Kid Rock(?) and Sheryl Crow(?), which was weird, but at least gave viewers at home a bathroom break during the commercial-free three hours.)
Maher is using the Rally to Restore Sanity here as an example in a larger argument, with which I totally agree, that “two opposing sides don’t necessarily have two compelling arguments.” We do ourselves a disservice oftentimes by pretending the other side has an equally valid point. Sometimes, they’re simply wrong, like when they say that climate change is a hoax, or that gays and gay marriage destroy “family values,” or that all Muslims are secretly plotting to make America an Islamic state.
An example of this thinking on a macro level is the idea that Fox News Channel is on the same plane as, and is a competitor to, MSNBC and CNN. It’s pretty clearly not. Just because something has “News” in its name doesn’t mean it’s a news organization. A more accurate description of Fox News might be “a right-wing entertainment channel that occasionally reports live events.” MSNBC, despite its apparent attempt to mirror Fox from the left, still has journalistic standards, proven this week with the Olbermann debacle. Fox, as Rachel Maddow shows in this clip, has allowed its hosts to endorse and fundraise for Republican candidates (even on the air!) and currently employs nearly every potential 2012 Republican presidential nominee. The “Fair and Balanced” network, Fox apparently doesn’t feel the need to balance out its stable of high-profile conservative contributors.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says Republicans’ No. 1 goal for the next two years is — no, not creating jobs or fixing the deficit or making sure America stays competitive in a global marketplace (silly you for thinking that!) — to ensure Barack Obama’s defeat in the 2012 presidential election. THAT’S THEIR NO. 1 GOAL! How utterly ridiculous is that statement? So, basically, Republicans are going to spend the next two years using any influence they have to gum up the legislative process and make Obama as ineffective a president as they can. Cool. Very cool. Good use of your time and efforts, Republicans.
Remember when we all had Myspaces and you could share your mood with everyone? Mine would read “Exasperated.” I need a beer.
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An old geezer, journalism and ignorance
Do you get tired of older people offering sweeping generalizations regarding our generation? I sure do. I’m sick of hearing that we’re all lazy (really, I can’t think of a single friend I would regard as “lazy”) and that our music is crap (sure, Top 40 radio is mostly awful, but try digging a little deeper).
Today, my disgust is directed at a man named James Sunshine, apparently a former editor at The Providence Journal, who wrote a letter to The New York Times’ public editor, Clark Hoyt. In the letter, written in response to Hoyt’s May 30 column, a crotchety Mr. Sunshine bristles at the idea of a “blog”:
Your column left mostly unanswered several questions that really should be addressed before we go much further into the swamp of online “journalism.” It dealt with the standards of blogs, as though we all agreed on what a blog is and is not. I spent 45 years at The Providence Journal, and I still do not understand them. Nor do I like them.
Is a blog merely the private thoughts of the blogger, who has been given the privilege of saying what he happens to think at the moment without a qualified editor passing judgment on it for accuracy, taste, appropriateness and so on?
Or is a blog a short news story published online? Your column suggests that it is, and that it is edited by an editor like anything else approved for publication in the paper and must meet Times standards. If that is the case, why call it a blog (whatever that is supposed to mean)? Why not call it a news story? Must everything we do be a matter of clever marketing?
I think we would all benefit if we just dropped the word “blog” and went back to simply putting out the newspaper, which we used to know how to do.
So. Mr. Sunshine, you don’t like something that you don’t understand? That’s the very definition of ignorance — way to torpedo your argument from the outset! And that you “spent 45 years at The Providence Journal” is a false qualifier — it doesn’t mean you should understand blogs any more than you should understand what a “meme” is.
