Is this really what we “Need to Know NOW”?
US newsweeklies not long for this world…
Last year the two American newsweeklies Time and Newsweek, who usually do everything in lockstep, went through one of their periodic revamps. Forget about the news online as a lifesaver, the two publications, particularly their international editions, are decades past their prime already. Despite their impressive pedigrees (Time Warner and Washington Post respectively) with circulations and advertising revenues heading terminally south, the once-potent mix of pre-digested opinion served up as well-illustrated news-in-depth had lost its appeal. Middle class Americans no longer felt they need be even superficially informed as to the week’s events, great and small in anything like their former numbers, and young Americans simply read print media less. English-speaking non-American readers, for their part, no longer felt the need to have their news filtered through a US lens, if they ever did. Carving the world up into a small dictionary-sized ratebook of national and regional advertising editions, the real overseas rationale, has now lost its appeal to luxury brands and multinational corporations alike.
Understanding correctly that the competition from the successful popular print media already in existence was far too entrenched for them to dumb down, both publications opted to “dumb-up”. A contradictory and difficult feat that they both seemed to manage partially at best, much good may it do them. The gateway to publishing extinction yawns ever nearer.
Of the two, Newsweek took a better stab at it, carrying longer more in-depth articles from its stable of conventional contributors and journalists, but alas - none of it compelling reading and unlikely to reverse the downward slide. Expect both publications to morph into all-online operations and/or monthlies. It’s just a matter of how long. Even so, I don’t think quality US monthlies Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s have much to fear.
If a 13-page section of Newsweek’s double issue August 24 & 31, 2009 the cover story billed as the “Smart List - What you need to now know NOW”, is anything to go by, it wasn’t. Not only that, this was the first time, to my knowledge, that one of the US newsweeklies pulled the widespread Christmastide publishing stunt of merging issues in high summer.
What Newsweek felt you needed to know so urgently turned out to be a grab-bag of 22 trivial and a few not-so-trivial items varying from a serious 2,000 word piece by historian Niall Ferguson on where the Sino-US relations are headed to a 250 word para on...toilet paper.
Here’s what you “needed to know”, the inference being you were too prejudice or too dumb to know it already…
Aliens Exist…Astronomers and their satellite-based equipment are now telling us that there are as many as 200 billion suns in the Milky Way that support terrestrial, Earth-like worlds and by 2013 the Kepler telescope, launched this March, will have located hundreds or even thousands of habitable worlds. That’s good to know. Now all we have to do is find a way to get there before…and..., if aliens exist as Newsweek insists they do, who’s going to go the way of the Red Indians? Them or us?
Books aren’t Dead…the number of books in print in 2008 rose 38 percent from the year before (which itself was up 38 percent on 2006). The reason being, is that over and above mainstream and self-publishers university libraries have been making their publishing rights available, Newsweek tells us. But then, whoever said books were dead anyway?
French Reds are Green…a New Yorker drinking a French Bordeaux instead of a Napa Merlot saves 4 lbs of co2 because it’s container shipped as opposed to air freighted or trucked. Shipment by sea is more carbon friendly. And this is news? Or is the point that it’s now more patriotic to drink French wine rather than Californian?
Settlements can be Stopped…in just 150 words Newsweek asserts Jewish settlements in the West Bank can be stopped from accelerating because some of the settlers are ultra-orthodox or economic settlers. If that were so we can confidently predict the end of the Israeli/Palestinian question next year. Don’t hold your breath.
We should Love our Cars…a Harvard economist tells us the Japanese and French only ride their high-speed railways less than 400 miles a year and the environmental and economic benefits are minimal. Hang onto your God-given right to individual transportation come what may suggests Newsweek. Obama’s just wasting taxpayer’s money spending $9.2 billion building high-speed trains, especially when cars are becoming more energy-efficient. And Rush Limbaugh calls Newsweek an eco-socialist rag…?
Elections aren’t the Answer…elections aren’t working in Iraq and Afghanistan. Therefore elections are a waste of time…anywhere. I don’t know whether Newsweek actually means that, but that’s what the sloppy subbing is saying…
Hedge Funds are Good…hedge funds took the rap for much of last year’s financial mayhem and that doesn’t make much sense. If 20% of hedge funds went bust, that’s actually good because the government didn’t bail out a single one of them. The firms that caused the havoc were the big investment banks, which tried to behave like hedge funds, screwed up and did get bailed out. And that is a point worth making.
Americans Marry too Much…Newsweek tells us that ”many of the problems faced by America’s children stem not from parents marrying to little but rather too often”. Really? You don’t say…
Old People are More Innovative…in 150 years the average age of a Nobel Prize recipient has risen more than five years, from 34 to almost 39 years old. OmiGod, almost 39! That’s rurly old!
It’s too Late to Stop Global Warming….. among the mish-mash of the silly season’s research findings journalist Fred Guterl makes the important point that the preponderance of scientific opinion now feels global warming must be kept below 2 degrees or 350 ppm, not the uncomfortable but achievable 550 ppm or even 450 ppm we’ve been talking about, and we’re already at 387 ppm. Temperatures are rising quickly at the poles, the polar ice cap is in retreat, permafrost is showing troubling signs of change and the oceans reducing their uptake of carbon. We may have to face the fact we are fiddling while Gaia’s melting…
The Environment is Healthier than Ever…acid rain levels have dropped 60 percent since the 1990s, air quality has improved 91 percent since 1980 in terms of lead content. The Hudson River is a lot cleaner now. Hallelujah! We are saved. What a silly headline, this sub should be sent to work in an abattoir for a month.
Socialism is the Best Medicine…only patriotic noodles or the truly ignorant would insist the US has the best health system in world (actually it’s the 37th). Perhaps they can take pride in it being the most expensive? The best health system the rich can buy, maybe? The US exhibits some of the best and worst aspects of medicine. Americans wait longer to see primary-care physicians than patients in Britain, Germany, Australia, Canada or New Zealand, all countries with strong public-health systems. Where America scores is the short wait for elective (i.e. unnecessary?) surgery. Quite…but what on earth has socialism to do with any of this?
We’re all Hindus now…65 percent of Americans believe that many religions can lead to eternal life, including 37 percent of white evangelicals, the group most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone. And that makes us all Hindus? Still it’s comforting to know that only 45 per cent of Americans think we’re damned for all time.
Wiping is Washed Up…finally Newsweek comes up with a real item of compelling if not fundamental interest. A US survey showed half of toilet paper users spend their days with fecal contamination. The average American uses 57 sheets of toilet paper a day the “dry way”, or 36.5 billion rolls a year. If America turned “wet” by way of the bidet it would save 15 million trees, 17.3 terawatts of electricity and more than 473 billion gallons of water annually. In which case let the next Japanese invasion of the US be led by Toto and French bidet-monkeys, and the hot topic at December’s Copenhagen UN Global Warming Conference be wind power, methane and sanitary ware along with wonted hurricanes of hot air.
We are all diminished when any half decent publication bites the dust, particularly when it has a long and distinguished history. So it is particularly sad to learn that the unworthy ghost of the once great Far Eastern Economic Review, fatally, ignobly and unnecessarily maimed by Dow Jones, is to be killed off finally by its unsentimental new owner. I sincerely hope Time and Newsweek can survive in print form and find a meaningful role, but the sloppy and facile fare currently dished up to their declining readership indicates they have had their day. They exhibit none of the creative or managerial signs necessary for a revival. Weeklies can and do do well in this day and age. Look at The Speccie or The New Yorker, they’ve had their ups and downs. Or check out the check-out at your local supermarket. Whatever your bag, there’s a rag to suit.
