Posted on 04/15/2009 5:13:44 AM PDT by Kaslin
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" (or circulation guaranteed to advertisers) from 3.1 million to 2.6 million, a 16 percent drop. At the end of 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported that Newsweek, faced with an estimated 21 percent decline in ad pages, could soon drop that circulation number by another 500,000 to 1 million readers. In February, the magazine confirmed the million-issue drop, saying it would drop to a base of 1.9 million in July and 1.5 million readers by January 2010.
"Mass for us is a business that doesn't work," Tom Ascheim, Newsweek's chief executive, told the New York Times. "Wish it did, but it doesn't. We did it for a long time, successfully, but we can't anymore." Now that U.S. News and World Report waved a white flag and said it would only publish monthly, the evidence is much stronger for wondering about the decline and fall of the American "news magazine" -- as if Time and Newsweek haven't already shed that label in everything but name.
Newsweek's strategy in the midst of all its financial decline is to double and triple the amount of editorializing, cast aside all semblance of "news" in favor of long, liberal essays by self-impressed Newsweek editor Jon Meacham and his international editor Fareed Zakaria. Is that really a business solution, or is it the captains performing violin solos on the deck of the Titanic?
One has to wonder whether Newsweek's financial gurus really think it's a smart business strategy to greet the Easter season with funerals for "Christian America," and greet the Christmas season by making the "religious case for gay marriage"? (That's not to mention all the reverent Obama worship in between.)
Christianity, in contrast to Newsweek, is in decent demographic shape. The American Religious Identification Survey that Newsweek touted -- from Trinity College in Connecticut -- estimated there are now 173.4 million self-identified Christians in America, up from 151.2 million in 1990. The percentage declined, but the actual number increased.
The real bold-faced result in the survey that spawned Newsweek's cover is the rise of what the pollsters called the "nones," up from 14 million to 34 million. In a typically ponderous essay, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham welcomed the alleged decline and fall of "the modern religious right's notion of a Christian America" because it creates a "calmer" political environment and a more "theologically serious religious life."
Translation: The "culture wars" should be declared over, and the left should be declared the winner. The Christian right should slink back to its church buildings and keep its antiquated notions of sin and salvation out of the public square. "Calmer" Christians will seek a creed that chummily goes along and gets along with the modern, secular culture. Only surrender on social issues is "theologically serious."
Newsweek watchers might find it odd that Christians should surrender, but Muslims should be granted greater respect. A month ago, Newsweek's cover announced, "Radical Islam is a fact of life. How to live with it." Fareed Zakaria argued the smart strategy was "nuanced, noncombative rhetoric" that avoids sweeping declarations like "war on terror." Zakaria's piece ended right in the secular liberal's sweet spot. He was confident radical Islamism would eventually lose adherents, because "they lack answers to the problems of the modern world. They do not have a worldview that can satisfy the aspirations of modern men and women. We do. That's the most powerful weapon of all."
Modernity will win, and archaic religion will lose. All this leads back to the sneaking suspicion that the top minds at Newsweek think they are the wisest of men, the definers of trends and the shepherds of public opinion. So why is everyone abandoning their advice? Why are the captains of a magazine that's lost half its circulation telling the rest of us where the mainstream lies
I guess the sign that a “news” mag like Newsweak is in its death throes is a deep slant to the left. Newsweak, in recent years, has read like a subsidiary of Mother Jones. Too bad, because that wasn’t always the case.
It’s hilarious. Newsweek loves to talk about “decline.” They blare headlines about the decline of Christianity, Fareed Zakaria pleasures himself to the thought of the decline of American power....while the whole time their entire business model is the most obvious example of decline.
Can you say, PROJECTION?
Now, I only subscribe to The Economist. Yes it is still liberal at times but it generally keeps it out of the strict news articles and it gives me a much better world view than anything else. I especially appreciate the LACK of JUNK NEWS like Hollyweird etc.
If NewsWeak were to disappear, my only problem would be that those dedicated lefties would metastasize into the remainder of the print media thus further increasing their dominance. Otherwise, its absence will reduce my Obama sightings on the magazine stands - whot a shame!
Have you tried World Magazine? It is an excellent news magazine from a Christian worldview.
[Jon Meacham welcomed the alleged decline and fall of “the modern religious right’s notion of a Christian America” because it creates a “calmer” political environment and a more “theologically serious religious life.
PS 11:1 In the LORD put I my trust: how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?
PS 11:2 For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart.
PS 11:3 If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
PS 11:4 The LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD’s throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men.
PS 11:5 The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.
PS 11:6 Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.
PS 11:7 For the righteous LORD loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright.
I have not. I’ll check it out when I get a chance. Most of my news comes from the internet now.
Maybe they will be more profitable if they make their mag even THINNER than it already is.
What's amazing is the numbers of Christians that remain so in the face of relentless ostracizing by the msm.
More and more people are turning away from the msm yet they still have tremendous power. Our duty, to God, our country, and our children is to bear witness to the lies they promulgate and to thwart at every turn their shortsighted and destructive philosophy.
I want Newsweek to fail, I want Time Magazine to fail, but most of all I look forward to the great day the NY Times goes under. And, of course, I want Barack Obama to fail - miserably - in his anti-Americanism. FUBO!
I picked up a Newsweak copy in my doctor’s waiting room, it had very few pages, I was shocked, shocked, I tell you.. If this rag gets any smaller it will be considered a “pamphlet”! What an outrage that the very few idiots who run this trash seem to believe that what they say or do is vital to America, ha, they have become the joke and an embarrassment to American journalism.
I read that rag only in doctors and dentists offices. I won’t ever pay for their leftist trash.
Newsweek. They’re still around??????????
I noticed the same thing. All three services were filled. It seemed half the church were new faces.
Newsweak is dead.
(I fully realize that all sensible, thinking Americans — that’d be conservatives —fully understand this information. I post it only for the brain-dead Obama voters and statists — that’d be liberals — who might have slipped out of their rubber rooms over at DU and are lurking, hacking or generally causing trouble here at FR.)
Recently, I read what probably amounts to the obituary for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. (My wife insists on buying the Sunday edition for the TV guide.) It joins the growing list of print newspapers in deep, deep financial trouble. The LA Times, NY Times, Boston Globe, Cleveland Plain Dealer, etc.
Here’s my horseback analysis of why they’re heading for extinction.
As generally liberal statist propaganda outlets, they have for decades supported a government “education” system (and I used the term very loosely) dominated by the NEA and the idiot bureaucrats running the DOE in Washington. The unions and the NEA have largely hurled the traditional three “Rs” and critical thinking skills under the bus in favor of touchy-feely diversity training, self-esteem building, political correctness, African studies, teaching Hispanic kids in SPANISH instead of teaching them English on day one, social promotions, basket weaving, navel gazing, etc., etc.
I won’t dwell on it here but would, instead, refer you to my personal experience with the government schools here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0lR1KQq2-U
What I cannot grasp is precisely why, after effectively dumbing down the members of the American populace who have traversed the conveyor belt of mediocrity called government schools, the overeducated owners and operators of these newspapers are surprised that this population has lost its interest in READING NEWSPAPERS: Many of them CAN’T read!!
Those folks – especially conservatives who resent the increasingly liberal drivel found in the major papers — who can and DO read things are now getting their information from the Internet or, for those too busy to actually read, from largely conservative talk radio (which helps explain why Algore, Pelosi, Reid, et al feel the need to control both these formats).
Their statist dumbing down has produced huge numbers of voters who lacked the critical thinking skills necessary to determine that their present-voting, slick-talking liar of a candidate had virtually NO management or legislative experience. And the economic illiterates they have elevated to high office in Washington for years have produced a growing economic crisis which has even those with any money left spending it on “luxuries” like food, clothing and shelter. Newspapers and advertising therein are far down the list.
And did I mention that the economic collapse Obama “inherited” has its genesis in Jimmy Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act? It was then expanded by Clinton and stridently defended by Chris Dodd, Maxine Waters and Barney Frank (who was sleeping with Herb Moses while he held a top spot at – appropriately – Fannie). Only government could turn the dream of home ownership for poor folks into a NIGHTMARE for the rest of us.
Now that they have control of the White House and both houses of Congress, the liberals who run most of the newspapers here SHOULD be on a beach somewhere throwing a huge party. Instead, they are dusting off their resumes. The Editor of the AJC informed us that she was actively seeking to get more conservative/traditional values writers in the pages down there. I’d submit that it’s too little, too late!
Perhaps she’ll write and let us know if that “Hope” and “Change We Can Believe In” thing helps with the job search.
If you just have to have one of those 1,000 new jobs dunning folks for Tim Geithner’s IRS, it couldn’t hurt.
Not surprising on a holiday Sunday like Easter. Many are relatives in for the weekend. But we enjoyed the same experience. We sat next to a family we'd never seen before...
I ask myself, self, why in the world, when NEWS is a daily happening, would I want to read old news, number 1, and number two, read an ivy league slant, to old news, and on top of that pay to have my intelligence insulted on a weekly basis. Fortunately the daily blogosphere has writers equal or better than any of the biased folks inhabiting leftest publications such as Newsweek.
If it wasn't for the wife picking up People, Star Magazine, etc every week...I'd have nothing to read during my daily constitutional.....
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