Salon.com > Tina Brown

Hack List No. 3: Newsweek

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 18:15:00 +0000

This year, my annual list of the worst of political media highlights not just individuals, but the institutions that enable those individuals. The 2012 Hack List will be counting down the 10 media outlets that are hurting America over the next two days -- stay tuned! (Previous Hack List entries here, here and here.)

One shouldn't speak ill of the dead, I know. But if Newsweek has taught me anything this year, it's that death is not truly the end, because Heaven Is Real, According to Science.

Yes, that was an actual, for-real Newsweek cover this year: "Heaven Is Real." It was the dumbest, probably, but not actually the worst. This year's Newsweek covers also included naked bondage lady, and sexy lady about to fellate asparagus (a stock image that had also quite recently been used in at least two other magazines). There was "what if Princess Di was alive and my friend," too, but that was from 2011.

Newsweek off the presses and into the ether

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 15:36:00 +0000

But … But … What incendiary printed matter are we going to flip through at the dentist's office now? On Thursday, editor Tina Brown and CEO Baba Shetty announced on the Daily Beast that Newsweek is going all digital. The Dec. 31 issue will be the final issue to roll off the presses.

It is, as most things Tina Brown–related are, a breathless, truly fabulous statement of intent. "Newsweek Global, as the all-digital publication will be named," the announcement reads, "will be a single, worldwide edition targeted for a highly mobile, opinion-leading audience who want to learn about world events in a sophisticated context." I feel like there might be a test to get a subscription. Godspeed, readers, who will now have to access your Muslim rage and your racist baby and your gay Obama who needs to hit the road in your highly mobile, sophisticated context way. Whatever that is. Not mentioned: declining ad pages and the fact that as recently as last March, Brown was admitting, "We aren’t making money yet and we won’t make money for another couple of years."

Are dumb questions the future of journalism?

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:30:00 +0000

Was Mussolini Right?

"He made the trains run on time," they said about Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and it was more than just a cliché. It was a statement about a government that works, a government that means what it says and does what it wants. Sure, there were some problems with the treatment of dissidents. But some very smart political analysts are asking a question that would have been surprising just a few years ago: Is it time to give fascism another try?

To be clear, no one is proposing a Fourth Reich. This isn't about Germany in the 1930s, and it isn't about genocide. It's about fascism as an economic program, where the government stops being ashamed about merging with corporate interests. It's the ultimate pro-business position, and that's why the wonks proposing a new look at an old philosophy have a catchphrase sure to draw adherents: "Fascism means jobs." If they're right, it could remake the American political landscape over the next decade.

Quote of the day

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 22:32:00 +0000

Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist and Nobel prize winner, attacked Niall Ferguson's Newsweek cover article on President Obama, entitled "Obama's Gotta Go." Krugman began his NY Times blog post as follows:

"There are multiple errors and misrepresentations in Niall Ferguson’s cover story in Newsweek — I guess they don’t do fact-checking — but this is the one that jumped out at me. Ferguson says:

'The president pledged that health-care reform would not add a cent to the deficit. But the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation now estimate that the insurance-coverage provisions of the ACA will have a net cost of close to $1.2 trillion over the 2012–22 period.'"

The passage, Krugman wrote, was not only misleading; it was plainly false.

Ray Kelly is great, according to profile in friend’s magazine

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 20:20:00 +0000

According to a very thorough and convincing profile in Newsweek, New York police commissioner Ray Kelly is America's best ever terror-fighter, and he personally stops a new 9/11 from happening literally every day. He manages to constantly stop terror plots from destroying the city even though annoying "civil libertarians" and the worthless FBI are constantly getting in his way. It is, clearly, a very fair and unbiased take on the commish, that happens to be written by a guy who has known Kelly for years. And published in a magazine edited by Tina Brown, who has met the commissioner once or twice.