Posted on 01/21/2009 5:44:53 AM PST by Menehune56
NEW YORK -- When Rick Stengel joined Time in 1981, every story in progress filled a thick binder -- the reporter's version, the editor's rewritten version, the top editors' version, the fact-checked version -- that would be unimaginable in today's cut-to-the-bone corporate culture. (snip)
When Jon Meacham joined Newsweek in 1995, "there was a phrase in the culture -- 'We need to get something in on X' -- that we never use anymore," he says. The days of a "newsmagazine of record," Meacham says, are long gone. (snip)
Morale in both shops has been devastated as staffers complain about a blurred identity, lack of direction, management snafus and outsourcing to big-name writers that has left them wondering if reporters still have much of a role.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I guess pissing-off half the country was not such a good
business model.Especially,the half that reads and thinks!
In order to narrow their focus further, they'll have to eliminate the small remaining amount of non-Obama news that they currently print. They could even change their names to reflect this: Obama Time and Obama Newsweek.
They have realized that they are now irrelevant.
When Rick Stengel joined Time in 1981, every story in progress filled a thick binder -- the reporter's version, the editor's rewritten version, the top editors' version, the fact-checked version -- that would be unimaginable in today's cut-to-the-bone corporate culture.
Why is lower-quality print reporting considered "good news" instead of a bad symptom? Wouldn't it be good news if we saw that balanced print media were rising, not just that the entire industry is contracting?
I fear that we are facing a future of Americans get their news from sound bytes, The Daily Show, entertainment websites, and Saturday Night Live skits, rather than any in-depth source.
This might seem like a victory, but it's one only in a tactical sense. Not to be a downer, but the war is being lost and every American who loves his country should be out there doing something about it, IMO.
(As an example, even though I am facing layoff at my employment, I took some time to assist a teenager in learning how to research information better, and encouraged sharing of that learning to peers.)
And if they had any productive skills anyone'd be willing to pay them for they'd leave in a heart beat.
Unreal.
Both of these rags should have disappeared long ago.
Hopefully, that sound you hear is their death knell.
Now, now, they do use some space to praise other liberal icons...and global warming.
I had to look it up, but the last time I looked at Time magazine was back in 1989, their “Death by Gun” issue (combined with an HBO TV show). That was when they responded to the outcry against the outrageously unfair article by stating for the record that gun control was too important an issue to report fairly, and that TIME would continue to push for strict gun control.
I’m glad to see that “the chickens are coming home to roost.” I’m just sad that it’s taken more than 2 decades to get rid of this rag.
Mark
The kool-aid drinkers will alp it all up off the bathroom floor.
If the Lib LSM has it their way.... 0 will be the first black man to have walked on the moon....July, 21st 1969. Just wait...I ain't that far off.
They didn’t care how much it cost them, they WERE going to get the empty suit elected.
Now that they have a couple of years to rest, they’ll cut back till the midterms.
JMO
Heh, heh, heh. A ray of sunshine in an otherwise dark cloud cover of Obamanation socialism. Karma can be a b!t#%...........
One answer is to jettison the old straddle-the-center formula in which the newsweeklies spoke with an institutional voice rather than publish bylines. Each magazine's lead columnist -- Time's Joe Klein, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter -- is liberal. Newsweek has been running columns by Jacob Weisberg, the liberal editor of Slate, another Post Co. property. Newsweek also ran a controversial cover last month headlined "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage" -- "one of the last great civil rights issues," Meacham says. And its top writers appear regularly on liberal talk shows on MSNBC, with which it has a news partnership.What this shows to me is that they are so far out of touch that they don't realize their readership defines liberal as "center," thus skewing everything.
"I'm not going to be silly about it," Meacham says. "A lot of people think we're left of center. I think it depends on the week and the issue. . . . I'm not ideologically driven by any means."
[...]
"I get as many complaints from readers that we're too left as complaints that we're too right," [Stegel] says. "I'm really conscious of trying to be fair and balanced."
The comments on the male:female ratio and downsizing is interesting, too. O, what's a good liberal to do? (A.M.--I think I stayed within the excerpt limits because the original posted excerpt was so short, even beyond this being a relevant-discussion excerpt.)
Jon Meacham was and is a beard for New York Liberals!
Is that the one where they admitted counting 24-year-olds as "children" in their gun stats (or maybe in a following issue with regards to this one)?
I remember that issue, referred to by many as the Time suicide issue. It was the last time I picked up anything from this company.
They could just narrow their staff down to two, who could read and reread the works of Marx and Engels and broadcast it to the sheeple, with occasional bows to celebrities who were attempting to do the same, albeit sophomorically, and no one would notice any difference.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.