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!