Jon Meacham's Cri de Coeur: Why Do You Read The Economist Instead of Newsweek?
After about an hour, there seemed to be no more questions for him, so Newsweek editor Jon Meacham turned to his audience—about 100 graduate students at Columbia journalism school—and said he had a question for them: Did anyone in the room read Newsweek or Time? There was a small, awkward rumbling before finally, a man shouted, "No!"
Mr. Meacham scanned the audience for his quarry and then asked the journalism student, clad in a black turtleneck, whether he read The Economist. Yes, he did.
"It's the most talked about and least read magazine," said Mr. Meacham. "Have you looked at Newsweek?"
"Sure," said the J-schooler.
"And it's not up to your standards?"
"I find less useful honestly. The news? I don't get it from Newsweek. The Economist is more courageous," he answered.
"The success of The Economist—the fact that you read it, a black-turtlenecked guy at Columbia," Mr. Meacham began. But then he changed tack.
"Look, I need you," said Mr. Meacham. "And I need—I've got people out there risking their lives right now. The Economist is not, by the way ..." He changed tack again. "I've got four people in Baghdad who could be killed at any moment who are trying to tell the truth the best they can of that story. We have people in 13 different countries. We have a guy in Afghanistan who has Taliban sources who the federal government has asked about because we have better intelligence than government does—he's risking his life."
"And how to communicate that we have things to say that are both factually new and analytically new and to get you under the tent is a fact that scares me—not The Economist per se. It's an incredible frustration that I've got some of the most decent, hard-working, honest, passionate, straight-shooting, non-ideological people who just want to tell the damn truth, and how to get this past this image that we're just middlebrow, you know, a magazine that your grandparents get, or something, that's the challenge. And I just don't know how to do it, so if you've got any ideas, tell me."
The grad student suggested they try re-branding. Mr. Meacham said thank you, and a few moments later, the lecture was over.
Read this crappy magazine or four reporters die!
I pick up a copy every now and then when I'm visiting my 85-year-old parents. How about having an intelligent cover story once in a while, instead of "Why Everyone Loves Ice Cream," "Why We Keep Watching Britney Spears," or "Why the Housing Crisis Matters." In fact, ban the word "Why" from your headlines. It assumes your audience can't think for themselves and it's demeaning.
People have lost faith in the media and their credibility.
The educated people have discovered if they want to find the "truth" of such matters as Timor, Nan King, Iraq, or details of other numerous issues, they have to go to underground sources or media from other countries and compare.
Congress and US media are notorious for omitting, slanting and twisting information. Media generally make generic statements while omitting information to back their stance. Instead media is filled with ads and garbage meant to distract.
Educated people are either not as naive as Congress and media wishes to think or "they" (media and Corporamerica)are not as smart as they would like to assume.
Either way, expect it to worsen.
Dear Jon Meacham, you just don't get it. I (a well-educated consumer of print journalism) do not exactly look down on Newsweek. I'm a big fan of yours, too. Nobody doubts that it has good journalism, even though it is is a somewhat dumbed-down, glossly format. But the Economist offers something beyond coverage of the same three, U.S.-focused issues. The Economist is far from perfect; it has a lot of problems. But, the fact is, there is a whole lot more going on in the world than the U.S. presidential election, Iraq, and Afghanistan, important as these issues may be. A lot more. The Economist regularly reports on issues in every region. The U.S. news media, a decade or so ago, got hooked on the "big story." That's a great scale economy, but is really does not do the trick. So, you know, if you want to become more global in your coverage and aim straight for the cosmopolitan set, without dumbing it down, then you will get new readers. But, I suspect you will lose a lot, too. You'd have to lay out more money for less subscribers. I doubt you will do that...
As a teen 15 yrs ago, I loved Newsweek b/c of its tone-- hard news written in a way that was understandable and a bit playful, but not condescending. These days, in trying to make Newsweek young and hip, the content and writing style has been way dumbed down. If I want entertainment or fluffy features, I'll read one of the bazillion blogs out there.
My advice to Newsweek: take a look at your own magazine circa 1992, and emulate.
Signed,
An Economist Subscriber
Who knew that Newsweek wanted the same audience The Economist gets?
And who cares?
The comment above was a thoughtful response to a truly ludicrous question.
I'm a 5'4" brunette. I want the same attention a 5'9" blonde gets. You know what? I'm not going to get it.
I read The Economist regularly. I'd pick up People before I'd read Newsweek. And you know what else? I'd read the airline's inflight magazine before I'd read Newsweek.
I read TIME magazine every week and I'm a photojournalism student. I find their stories hard-hitting and interesting. They are a news magazine that caters to the news reader who wants to see and know what is going on this week, at an affordable price might I add.
Do I read their featury stories? From time to time. But to say that TIME and Newsweek aren't good news sources is totally bogus and unfair to say.
Calling the Economists the only source for news is snotty and typical of an Ivy League school who want to be different and "unique."
Plenty of people still read those award winning magazines and enjoy their angle and writing. The Economist has solid reporting and writing too, it's meatier and more in-depth; which is what differentiates it from its not-good-enough-for-Ivy-grad-students compeitiors.
Newsweek's not bad, it's just no longer different enough from everything else out there to make it worth the effort, expense and time.
When I stared reading it as a kid, it was an event to get a magazine in your home every week. Now the Internet, feature-oriented newspaper coverage, free weeklies, cable, blah blah blah-- you know the story.
Presumably Newsweek knows the story too, it just never stopped to figure out what it can offer that no one else can. The readers haven't abandoned those great brave journalists working for the mag in Pakistan and Iraq-- the magazine abandoned them, by neglecting to package their journalism in a way that attracts a new generation of readers.
I can think of ten ways to save the mag, but I have my doubts whether the publishers are as unhappy with the performance as Meachem, who is terrific thinker and writer.
"We have people in 13 different countries." That's great. Too bad it feels like they're all either in D.C. and Baghdad. The Economist, by contrast, feels like it has reporters in every country (though every reader knows they don't) because they're constantly telling me about international stories I haven't seen elsewhere.
It's not that I don't like "middlebrow." My other favorite magazine is The Week, and it's no guilty pleasure. Both The Week and The Economist give me what I need: the stories I've missed beyond the newspaper front pages. Newsweek (and Time) just give me more details and more opinions of what I've already read. (The Week, I'll note, seems to have more international news than Newsweek, too.)
But I'll say this: I love Newsweek's website. It's fun and informative, and good for analysis of those "top story" stories. I never go to the sites for The Week or The Economist.
Here's a sobering fact: I went to Columbia Journalism School, and maybe because I did, I love Newsweek.
Just wait till Mr. Black Turtleneck graduates with his Ivy League loans. He'll learn to love Newsweek, too.
It's far cheaper than a subscription to The Economist.
The two magazines are not in the same market. Newsweek is current events for Readers Digest readers. The economist is for people who want to know what is going on in the world
Mark Whitaker set the pace for Meacham. Newsweek is just not the type of place most hard nosed journalists would want to hang their hats. It caters to the advertisers and fluff reporting which often times leads to a blurring of lines. I agree with the above poster. Newsweek and Time are now in a league with Readers Digest. They cater to lightweight readers i.e. the type Jeff Goldblum references as "People" magazine readers in "The Big Chill." You've got to be able to read the entire article in under the time it takes you to go to the bathroom. End of story. Meacham is joking if he thinks Newsweek and/or Time rival the likes of "The Economist." But then, he gets paid to try and keep the public believing they are serving up tough news reporting. Hardly. Barely. I couldn't stomach Newsweek under Whitaker's editorial leadership and it is in no way better now.
Poster above says: "You've got to be able to read the entire article in under the time it takes you to go to the bathroom." Uh, you can actually do that with The Economist, too. It's not the length of the article. It's the approach.
What Meacham meant to say, but didn't have the balls too:
Why are you guys reading the Economist and not Newsweek? Both mags present inaccurate, superficial glosses on far flung countries' issues---the only difference is that The Economist covers more countries. Oh ya, also The Economist is a sad attempt to prove that the British Oxbridge viewpoint on the world's wogs matters even in a post Empire universe. While at least Newsweek gives the viewpoint of the current (albeit inexorably declining)Empire.
Dear Mr. Meacham,
I'm an ex-J School grad. I'll answer for the black-turtleneck guy, who was telling you something you didn't hear.
We have people dying over here too. Literally and figuratively. Also, dying to have you tell us the raw truth about what this government has been doing.
But your magazine doesn't have the guts to pursue it because you will lose access.
You want to see your magazine regain relevance?
Change your editorial policy. Muckrake. Take six of your best and do what Knight-Ridder did in the run up to the war with Iraq: get the story straight. Have these six go back and tell the truth about the Bush years. And oh yeah, you might start with an honest story about the questions left to be answered about 9-11. And that includes every foreign influence involved, and who is covering up for whom.
You do that, and you will have a page-turner. You will be a force in the industry.
Uh...Duh. In all likelihood you never saw the "Big Chill" because if you had, your comment would not have been necessary. (I believe...it's called paraphrasing.) And yes, it's all about the approach. Newsweek's overall approach is lightweight, panders to the masses, has too much advertising, and contains far too much faux news. Need more clarifying? I'm happy to oblige.
I`d say there is a tremendous divide separating The Economist from any other magazine publication.
The insights are deeper and the stories more far sighted. Just the plain fact that there is a significant difference between the speed with which i read TE versus some other stuff keeps reminding me of the densitiy of information. So, if you want to change your image, i guess there is no alternative to smartening up.....
greetings from europe
It seems a real waste to have these reporters out in the field
risking their lives and publish with such little analytical content. The Economist may not have the reporters in the field but (following I.F. Stone's principle of analyzing what the information that is available) comes up with actual information as to what is likely happening.
So, cool off, Meacham! I read your rag while waiting at the dentist but never buy it. Instead I subscribe to The Economist: much more expensive than Newsweek but a better price-quality ratio!
You know it and we know it!
I read Newsweek only in the waiting rooms of doctors' offices. I read The Economist for news and information.
It's definitely a better mag under Meacham. I've noticed. Whitaker's editing was weak, smug, simplistic.
Dear Mr. Meacham,
You can't figure out why we have deserted Newsweek because the political correctness you stand for made it unwise for us to tell you the truth. I subscribed to Newsweek for years. I remember George Will's column pooh-poohing the China Syndrome the week Three Mile Island happened. I waited gleefully for Will's next column, which came out headlined, "As I was Saying..." Once leaving Newsweek was as unthinkable as leaving the Democratic Party. But then came your beloved Clintons, and you changed.
Here's your public face, the obnoxious Evan Thomas, trying to put the best spin on heading the Duke lynch mob:
[On Newsweek's coverage of the Duke rape case]: "The narrative was properly about race, sex and class.... We went a beat too fast in assuming that a rape took place.... We just got the facts wrong. The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong."
-- American Journalism Review, August/September 2007 issue.[1]
As a Newsweek subscriber of 20 years (and J-school grad) I find myself reading the magazine less and less each week. I get almost all the same information from the internet and NPR. And now, Newsweek is paying folks like Karl Rove to write pieces. I don't care what side of the political fence they come from, political hacks should be the subjects of stories, or sources, but they shouldn't be supplying unrefined and unrefuted spin straight to the printed page. That's the #1 sign to me that Newsweek has lost it's way.
I subscribe to the Economist and don't mind paying 3-times what Newsweek costs. Time has the name and U.S. News & World Report has substance but what exactly does Newsweek have? The bravery and hard work of the journalists overseas don't sell magazines, the brand does.
Mr. Meacham –
Is it really that big of a mystery? Let's look at the last four covers of Newsweek and The Economist (I'm a subscriber of both pubs, in addition to the New Yorker, Car & Driver, my local newspaper and, until just recently, the Wall Street Journal).
Newsweek
Feb. 11: "Becoming McCain" – Ok, how many McCain articles have I read in the last few weeks? Enough to make me sick, and enough to not read another one.
Feb. 4: "Road to Recession" – I've already read a half-dozen recession stories on the Times' Web site and heard another half-dozen more on KNPR before I saw this cover.
Jan. 28: "The Party's Over" – A story about the Republican party after Bush. This is something I haven't read before.
Jan. 21: "I found my own voice." – Another Clinton story? Not to mention the same story the entire country has already been inundated with? There's nothing new here.
The Economist
Feb. 9: "Half-way there" – A wrap-up of Super Tuesday. Boring, but it has an eye-catching illustration on the cover and – what's this? – a sub-head at the top that say's "China's rulers say sorry"?? That sounds interesting.
Feb. 2: "Has Iran won?" – Definitely sounds interesting and something I haven't read before.
Jan. 19-25: "Invasion of the sovereign-wealth funds" – Certainly haven't seen that anywhere, either. Plus, a 14-page special report on corporate social responsibility. I'm strangely drawn in...
Jan. 12: "Up in the air: The game after New Hampshire" – Another predictable election cover. But, again, look to the sub-heads: "The sadness of the Arabs" and "The chemistry of addiction". Both are stories that sound interesting and that I haven't read before.
The bottom line is that The Economist does give a wrap-up of the week's news, but doesn't beat you over the head with it. Plus, it covers world issues like no other, and has a superb science and technology section. (Why hasn't Newsweek caught on to the science and technology? Most major newspapers have). The Economist gives something NEW. Newsweek seems to be the same old stories, with the exception of Fareed Zakaria, who is far and away your best and most insightful columnist, and Michael Isikoff, who seems to consistently break stories.
To repeat in a language you idiots may be able to understand:
Reading the Economist is like reading a mid-level security briefing for British Intelligence.
Reading Newsweek is like reading a mid-level security briefing for US intelligence.
Both are shallow misunderstandings of the world, both are written by low level analysts either not in the field or in the field but only able to write taxi-driver journalism. (chalk full of interviews with cabbies to the hotel and to the airport, since cabbies are the only people who will speak to the journos---See Thomas Friedman ouevre)
Difference is the Brits (mistakenly) believe that the whole world, though post-colonial, is of grave interest to their little post Empire isle. The Americans (mistakenly) believe that the whole world, though of great importance to their de facto empire, if of no great interest to their country---so they concern themselves only with countries they have invaded or are considering invading.
And both mags make so many mistakes, it's laughable that any of you would be proud to subscribe to one or the other.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn at Harvard, 1978 :
"What sort of responsibility does a journalist...have to the readership or to history? If they have misled public opinion by inaccurate information or wrong conclusions, even if they have contributed to mistakes on a state level [korans being flushed down toilets?] do we know of any case of open regret voiced by the same journalist...?
"How many hasty, immature, superficial, and misleading judgments are expressed every day, confusing readers, and are then left hanging?" [the Duke lacrosse case, with mug shots of people not even yet tried, run on the cover as if they were already found guilty?]
"One discovers a common trend of preferences within the Western press as a whole. . . [with] generally accepted patterns of judgment. . .the sum effect being not competition but unification. Unrestrained freedom exists for the press, but not for the readership, because newspapers mostly transmit. . . those opinions which do not too openly contradict their own and that general trend."
What magazine should I read to discover analysis which does not already conform to what those inside the Beltway think?
What stories has the Economist ever broken?
It's a great magazine, but it's all context. The news comes from outlets like crappy Time and much less crappy Newsweek, and even the trapped-in-amber US News.
Then the Economist takes the news broken by the newsweeklies and the dailies and adds some polished analysis. Calling that courage is ridiculous. When's the last time an Economist writer had to dodge a subpoena? Or take cover from gunfire? Or make deadline on real breaking news?
Thank god I never went to J-school. All that stupidity and debt-slavery too.
Mr. Meacham:
If you're genuinely interested in understanding Newsweek's declining reputation, why not actually try reading through an issue without reflexively wincing -- repeatedly. To cite one recent example among many, the anti-Bush issue of two weeks back was sophomoric to the point of embarrassment. News flash: People can get unsubstantiated, partisan invective for free on the Internet. No one is interested in paying for more of the same from a lightweight like Evan Thomas. Worse still, you provided a platform to Jacob Weisberg to plug what can only be described as an inane polemic, the same Jacob Weisberg incidentally who just happens to work for Slate, which like Newsweek is owned by -- SURPRISE -- The Washington Post. This is an example of self-serving pseudo-journalism at its most egregious. If what Mr. Meacham says is accurate, and Newsweek indeed has impressive news-gathering resources at its disposal, why not put them to good use!! Informed readers , including working journalists, want new information. We most certainly do not need or want the likes of Jacob Weisberg channeling Freud or Evan Thomas troweling on cliches about presidential hubris. Can't we get that at any number of websites? You'd have to be obtuse not to see that you're diluting your brand by publishing such bunk.
Are those questions strictly rhetorical? If not, you may be interested in this diary from the Economist's correspondent in Nairobi:
http://www.economist.com/daily/diary/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10674712#...
Kudos to Meacham for trying to reach an audience he's not reaching. I went to his talk, and I was impressed that he wanted to know what people thought of his magazine and was willing to take criticism. Granted, that doesn't mean he has to apply it, but I was impressed that he asked what the audience thought.
By the way, "black turtleneck" was the only person in the audience I saw wearing a black turtleneck. And I know more than a few people at j-school who think The Economist is boring.