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Beauty and the beast.....

Was it sexist for Newsweek to use the photo of Palin in running shorts. Freep the poll!

Newsweek's effort to take a stab at former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on the heels of her book tour appears to be backfiring - at least from a legal standpoint. Recently, the latest cover of Newsweek took an image of Palin that originally appeared in Runner's World magazine. Palin has criticized the posting on her Facebook page, as NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard reported. "The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now," she wrote. And Newsweek's Jon Meacham insists the magazine did nothing wrong - that this is just the nature of what they do at Newsweek. "We chose the...

November 16, 2009 Payback Time: Why Right-Wing Men Rush to Palin's Defense Eleanor Clift ItÂ’s nothing new when liberal women complain about sexism, but when conservative men take up the banner, calling NEWSWEEK sexist for portraying Sarah Palin on the cover in her jogging clothes, that catches my attention. Why do right-wing men rush to SarahÂ’s side to defend her? My theory is that this is payback time. TheyÂ’ve been called sexist and racist, and subjected to media ridicule of their allegedly retro views. Palin is their way to push back against the elites that have marginalized them. For the...

The photographer who shot the picture violated his contract by reselling them to Newsweek. That photographer, Brian Adams, could not immediately be reached, and his agent, Kelly Price, declined to comment, saying, "I keep all of my clients' business private." But a spokeswoman for Runner's World confirms that Adams's contract contained a clause stipulating that his photos of Palin would be under embargo for a period of one year following publication -- meaning until August 2010. "Runner's World did not provide Newsweek with its cover image," the spokeswoman said. "It was provided to Newsweek by the photographer's stock agency, without...

On the cover of this week’s issue of Newsweek is a photo that was shot for the August 2009 issue of Runner’s World, in which Sarah Palin was featured on the monthly “I’m a Runner” back page. Runner’s World did not provide Newsweek with the image. Instead, it was provided to Newsweek by the photographer’s stock agency, without Runner’s World’s knowledge or permission.

For the second time since Sarah Palin stepped into the national political spotlight, a photo of the former Republican vice-presidential candidate featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine is sparking controversy. Palin herself blasted the "out-of-context" cover as "sexist" on her Facebook page. ... The reaction to the Newsweek cover has predictably sparked outrage from conservative supporters of Palin and kudos from liberals who oppose her. CBN commentator David Brady called the cover "a new low" for the "biased" magazine, adding that Newsweek has a history of portraying liberal women as "heroes for the next generation," while portraying conservative women...

Today I’m off on the Eurostar to Brussels (”a carbon neutral journey” it boasts on my ticket – which rather makes me wish I were flying instead) to speak at the European Parliament on Climate Change. No, don’t worry. The Goreistas haven’t got to me. It’s a sceptics’ conference – Have Humans Changed Climate? – being staged tomorrow by Tory MEP Roger Helmer. Many of my science and eco-heroes will be there, including Patrick Moore (the co-founder of Greenpeace who subsequently bailed when the charity turned far too red), Prof Fred Singer (who’ll be talking on Can We Trust The...

Newsweek's cover declares Palin is a "Problem" and says she is "Bad News" for the GOP and "Bad News" for everyone! "...The choice of photo for the cover of this week’s Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this “news” magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant... "...Newsweek is a joke. How can they be taken seriously when they claim to be a straight news magazine and simply declare on their own that Palin is “bad news?”...it should be called...ObamaWeek...The more they hate her, the more we love her!..."

Newsweek intentionally left out Obama from the list (that he would save the world.) And no surprise, 3 of the 10 are Republicans (or maybe more.)

The cover of next week’s Newsweek features a picture of Sarah Palin, along with the headline “How do you solve a problem like Sarah?� The cover is one more example of the periodical’s positioning itself as the ideas journal for people who think that the New York Times’ in-house editorials are middle-of-road, but have too many big words. And of the magazine’s cultural disconnect from much of the United States. To wit: “How do you solve a problem like Maria?� is an early song in The Sound of Music, which won the 1965 Academy Award for Best Picture. In the...

Emerging Bias: Newsweek Claims Fort Hood Shooter Exposed Overstretched 'Military on the Brink' By Tim Graham Created 2009-11-06 11:26 In a case of trying to find liberal angles on a tragic shooting, switching the focus of blame and judgment from the mass murderer to the military, Newsweek's Andrew Bast asked on the magazine's blog The Human Condition [1]: "Is Fort Hood A Harbinger? Nidal Malik Hasan May Be A Symptom of a Military On the Brink." So the shooting is the Pentagon's fault? And they may inspire more shootings to come? Newsweek is going there: Details remained murky, but at...

There are 29 of 'em. And they can be handily compared with the Newsweek Obama covers (here: http://trackacrat.com/2009/10/09/5007/), which number 30, both in terms of frequency and tone of coverage. I can safely report that the findings conform to the pattern established earlier: namely, that President Bush was consistently treated like a leper, while President Obama receives the all-star treatment. Some choice Newsweek Bush covers include the wonderfully objective titles of, “Bush’s $87 Billion Mess“, “The Price of Denial“, “How Much Power Should They Have?“, “Will Bush Listen?” and the awesomely condescending “Father Knows Best.” Follow the jump for links...

Newsweek Editor Calls Al Gore 'An Eco-Prophet' By Noel Sheppard Created 2009-11-01 18:35 "Al Gore's views on climate change are advancing as rapidly as the phenomenon itself." Such was Newsweek science editor Sharon Begley's sub-headline of her proselytizing piece "The Evolution Of An Eco-Prophet [1]." Fortunately for the Goracle's loyal followers, Begley didn't ask him how the planet could possibly have cooled the past eleven years despite his warnings about the plague "carbon dioxide." As for all those powerful hurricanes Prophet Al hath foretold, tropical cyclone activity has been at 30-year lows [2] for the last three years. Even New...

In "The Godfather," Sonny talks about going "to the mattresses," meaning war with rival Mafia families. Now President Obama and the Democrats are holing up together on their Posturepedics as they work out battle plans on health care, banking reform, and Afghanistan. The question is whether they'll be daring soldiers of the future or content to fight the last war. That war, when Republicans controlled at least one branch of government, created a mindset where many moderate Democrats now constantly fear giving the other side ammunition. There's some logic in this. Overreaching is always a danger in politics, and House...

The White House must be so proud. Following their lead, the state-run media is now boldly bashing FOX News, too. The former news magazine known as Newsweek is now calling FOX News “un-American.”

The October 19 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands October 12), "Why Joe is No Joke," features Joe Biden as an "inconvenient truth teller" who has bucked President Obama on health-care reform and Afghanistan

It goes without saying the Obama-loving media will be in full damage control mode this weekend trying to spin Friday's announcement that Chicago will not be the host of the 2016 Olympics, but this one has to take the cake: Losing the Olympics Bid Is Good for Obama

Laugh if you must, but this is the one bit of spin you’ll hear today that has the virtue of actually being true. And of course it’s also the one bit you won’t hear from anyone in the White House. This is pretty embarrassing for the White House. (Especially letting Obama having to fail in front of his wife – ouch!) But ultimately, it’s a good thing for him. As I wrote on Monday, the Olympics are notorious for running massively over budget. The organizing committees are always rife with infighting and power games, as all manner of colorful cronies...

SNIP Wow – I did NOT see that coming. The way I figured it, this White House is far too protective of the President’s strategically-crafted image to allow him to travel thousands of miles for only to fail on the world stage. I thought it a done deal - who's better at vote counting than the Obama people? I would have bet money that Rahm and Axelrod knew they had the numbers in the bag before they let him step on Air Force One. I was so very wrong. Not only did they fail, they failed in the first round!...

There's a side of America that scares Frenchmen, French Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand was quoted by Time magazine Paris-based writer Bruce Crumley, and it's the side of American determination that doesn't let a 32-year-old rape case die, even if the perpetrator is an elderly survivor of the Holocaust. Seeking to explain the "cultural divide" that's as "wide as the Atlantic" between America and Europe, Crumley noted that Europeans are "shocked and dismayed that an internationally acclaimed artist" such as Roman Polanski "could be jailed for such an old offense." Of course, at no point did Crumley cite any public opinion...

Let me say this clearly so there are no misunderstandings: some of the protests against President Obama are howls of rage at the fact that we have an African-American head of state. I'm sick of all the code words used when this subject comes up, so be assured that I am saying exactly what I mean. Oh, and in response to the inevitable complaints that I am playing the race card—race isn't a political parlor game. It is a powerful fault line in a nation that bears the scars of slavery, a civil war, Jim Crow, a mind-numbing number of...

Rifqa Bary, the teenage girl who converted to Christianity from Islam and then fled for her life after her father threatened to kill her, faces daunting obstacles in her quest to be free. As a high-profile apostate, she is Islamists' highest value target right now. And on top of that, she faces a Leftist media that is complicit with those who want to see her dead or institutionalized. Witness the outrageous treatment that Newsweek gave to her story in its September 9 issue, and especially to Jamal Jivanjee, Rifqa's friend and confidante. Newsweek reporter Arian Campo-Flores, said Jivanjee, asked him...

Money-losing Newsweek hopes to break even by 2011 and plans to as much as double its subscription rate over the next two years. Ann McDaniel, managing director of Newsweek, which is owned by The Washington Post Co., said the magazine will aim for a "smaller base of very committed subscribers and get more money from each of them," while speaking at The Post Co.'s annual shareholders meeting at the company's D.C. headquarters. Analysts suggested that the new Newsweek is modeling its editorial strategy on England's Economist, and now it appears to be doing the same thing with its business strategy....

Death, Republican Style It's the GOP that's out to get Granny.

This isn't an accusation from Ted Kennedy's political opponents, but a nostalgic remembrance by one of his friends. Ed Klein, former Newsweek editor, tells the Diane Rehm Show: "I dont know if you know this or not, but one of his favorite topics of humor was indeed Chappaquiddick itself. And he would ask people, have you heard any new jokes about Chappaquiddick? That is just the most amazing thing. Its not that he didnt feel remorse about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, but that he still always saw the other side of everything and the ridiculous side of things,...

The Obama administration has added anoother journalist to its payroll. From the American Spectator Daren Briscoe, a Newsweek correspondent who was embedded with Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, has taken a job with the Obama administration, according to an email sent to a listserv of his classmates at the Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. The email, written by Time reporter and fellow Columbia grad Jay Newton-Small, said Briscoe would be serving as deputy associate director of public affairs for the Office of National Drug Control Policy as of Monday.

About a month ago in this space, I told you that The New York Times had rigged a poll about Americans wanting to pay higher taxes to fund government-run healthcare. The Times poll said 57 percent were willing to pay more tax; 37 percent were not willing to do so. But what The Times did not tell its readers was that 48 percent of those polled voted for Barack Obama. Just 25 percent supported John McCain. So, of course, the poll results would skew left. Now, we have another media deceit. In the most recent Newsweek magazine, there is a...

Reading books by the opposition is generally an educational yet unpleasant endeavor. Devouring Renegade: The Making of a President was no exception to this rule. Its deliberate (self-?)deception proved both annoying and painful, but revealed much about the mindset of mainstream media members. Of course, its author, Richard Wolffe, no longer hustles from a reporter’s perch at Newsweek because since April he has officially spun tales for the benefit of a public relations firm instead. Like many others ensconced in the journalistic milieu, Wolffe reflexively attempts to deceive his audience regarding the nature of his own political bias. He is...

Panetta orders internal probe of secret spy program after some members of Congress say CIA misled them. ### CIA Director Leon Panetta has ordered an internal inquiry into the agency's handling of a contentious and still highly classified intelligence program that has caused a heated dispute between the CIA and Democrats on the House intelligence committee. The move by Panetta appears to be an implicit acknowledgment by the agency that it should have disclosed information about the post-9/11 secret program to Congress much earlier than it did. *snip* CIA and congressional officials have refused to describe the nature of the...

...they were upset that their 14-month-old brother Trig, who has Down Syndrome, was "mocked and ridiculed by some pretty mean spirited adults." I'd like to know the names of those mean-spirited adults who mocked and ridiculed her special needs child. I don't believe it for a second. I think what she is talking about is that she was criticized for the way she dealt with her pregnancy with Trig and her caregiving of him after his birth. Remember, Sarah Palin is a right-wing, evangelical Christian for whom "family values" and the role of the mother are paramount. Many right-wing Christians...

[Evan Thomas:] "...he [Obama] has a very different job from Reagan was all about America and you [Chris Matthews] talked about it. Obama is 'we are above all that now.' We're not just parochial. We stand for something. I mean in a way, Obama's standing above the country, above the world, he's sort of God."

“In a way Obama is standing above the country, above the world. He’s sort of GOD. He’s going to bring all different sides together.” - Newsweek editor Evan Thomas

A Conversation From Heaven In an interview with Newsweek, Obama responds to the critics of his critics. ROB LONG

Newsweek editor Evan Thomas brought adulation over President Obama’s Cairo speech to a whole new level on Friday, declaring on MSNBC: "I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God." Thomas, appearing on Hardball with Chris Matthews, was reacting to a preceding monologue in which Matthews praised Obama’s speech: "I think the President's speech yesterday was the reason we Americans elected him. It was grand. It was positive. Hopeful...But what I liked about the President's speech in Cairo was that it showed a complete humility...The question now is whether the...

In the two weeks since Newsweek has redesigned, the magazine’s editors have sent out a statement that they intend to sever any and all connection to the turgid, dusty newsweekly of yore. And Jon Meacham, the magazine’s editor, is trying to recapture that age-old magazine editor’s trick for his newly conceived book: buzz. For the next issue that hits newsstands on June 8, Comedy Central funnyman Stephen Colbert will be Newsweek’s guest editor, The Observer has learned.

Everything you know about Iran is wrong, or at least more complicated than you think. Take the bomb. The regime wants to be a nuclear power but could well be happy with a peaceful civilian program (which could make the challenge it poses more complex). What's the evidence? Well, over the last five years, senior Iranian officials at every level have repeatedly asserted that they do not intend to build nuclear weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has quoted the regime's founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who asserted that such weapons were "un-Islamic." The country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a...

Twenty-seven years ago, I began my professional career at Time Magazine as a reporter-researcher in the World section, which was devoted to international news. Generally speaking, the World section ran 12 pages in the magazine. Nation, devoted to news within our borders, ran about the same or a page shorter. Think of that—an American publication, marketed to millions, that devoted slightly more of its attention, and vastly more of its budget, to news about events outside the United States.

"Hey Dad! Great news! My report card grades are half of what they were last term!" And just before my father would have smacked me upside my head for being so absurd, I would have quickly pointed out that the editor of Newsweek, Jon Meacham, is celebrating the fact that his magazine's circulation is being cut in half. Of course, back when I was a kid Newsweek at least made an attempt to be balanced and no magazine editor in his right mind would have been happy about such a drastic decline in circulation. However, that is exactly what Meacham...

According to Newsweek's Ramin Setoodeh, "American Idol's" Adam Lambert could "be heading home" due to those homophobic Christians that watch every week. Lambert, Setoodeh wrote in a May 12 blog post, "has been called the best ‘Idol' singer in the history of the show, thanks to his Celine Dion-like pipes. But he's also one of the most controversial, thanks to his Marilyn Manson-like wardrobe and his (not-so) ambiguous sexuality." Despite the fact that Randy, Simon and Paula all like Lambert, and he's garnered enough votes to compete in the semi-finals of "Idol," Setoodeh warned of a "possible roadblock" to a...

During the 2008 presidential campaign, there was a steady drumbeat of opposition to Barack Obama from some U.S. Catholic bishops, which only increased after his election. But despite the attention these attacks received in the media and on Internet blogs, polls show that the Catholic people are not listening. He has been criticized: • for being the most pro-abortion president ever, even though he wants to develop programs that will reduce the number of abortions while keeping it legal under most circumstances (he supports restrictions in the third trimester with an exception for the health of the mother); (snip) These...

Newsweek's Joshua Alston got his laptop stolen when he was in the shower. Sounds like the beginning of a porn movie, but it's one about detectives. Cyberdetectives that mock their suspects before sending the police. Alston was showering when he heard a thump. After coming out of the bathroom he noticed all his gadgets missing, including his laptop. Fortunately, he had installed a little program called LogMeIn, which allowed him to securely and remotely log into his notebook. He waited until the thief got online to start getting information that would allow him to pinpoint his location and go to...

Eleanor Clift of Newsweek writes: "The great asset he (Obama) has is the collapse of the Republican Party. They have neither a credible message nor messenger. They’re railing against big government, when the core issue is the failings of capitalism. They call for smaller government and berate Obama for moving toward socialism when people are not hungering for tax cuts. They’re looking for jobs so they can pay taxes. Instead of developing alternative policies, they’re back to attacking FDR. He won four elections."

The magazine has distorted what the Bible says about marriage. Now, it overlooks the results of its own poll and other data showing Christianity’s influence in the U.S. As families prepared for Holy Week recently, they saw on newsstands the Newsweek cover story, “Decline and Fall of Christian America.” But a close examination of the data cited by Editor Jon Meacham opens serious holes in his misguided declaration that the Christian God is “less of a force in American politics and culture than at any other time in recent memory.”Meacham drew many of his conclusions from the American Religious Identification...

Newsweek greeted the coming of Easter with a black cover, and the headline "The Decline and Fall of Christian America," spelled out in red in the shape of a cross. Inside, it was more declarative: "The End of Christian America." Why? Because they found that the percentage of self-identified Christians had fallen 10 points since 1990. OK, then let's compare. How much has Newsweek's circulation fallen since 1990? Just since 2007, their announced circulation has dropped by 52 percent. It would be more plausible to state "The End of Newsweek." At the end of 2007, Newsweek reduced its "base rate"...

Most regular church-goers have heard their less scrupulously observant fellows called “Christmas and Easter Christians.” Well, they also have their counterparts in the mainstream media: “Christmas and Easter Anti-Christians.” How else to explain the spate of skeptical, negative stories that inevitably accompany the two most important Christian holy days? This Holy Week has been typical. Newsweek proclaimed “The Decline and Fall of Chrisitan America” on its cover. The Washington Post/Newsweek “On Faith” blog featured a post that belittled the significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The Discovery Channel aired a documentary that painted Jesus as little more than an opportunistic...

Rudy Giuliani discusses attacks on Christianity by both Newsweek and President Obama. Could anyone imagine if Newsweek had condemned Islam? Oh, right... that would never happen.

It was a small detail, a point of comparison buried in the fifth paragraph on the 17th page of a 24-page summary of the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey. But as R. Albert Mohler Jr.—president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest on earth—read over the document after its release in March, he was struck by a single sentence. For a believer like Mohler—a starched, unflinchingly conservative Christian, steeped in the theology of his particular province of the faith, devoted to producing ministers who will preach the inerrancy of the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ...

"The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now—and what, as a nation, we are about to become."

And I thought their "learning to love radical Islam" cover was bad!