Defending Tina Brown's Newsweek Rage

If you follow the magazine industry like I do, then you're reading a lot about how people are freaking out about Newsweek's allegedly incendiary cover this week, which features a crowd of Middle East Muslims and the cover line "Muslim Rage." (See here for just one example.)

The commentary on the cover is incendiary, and ridiculous. Some of the criticism is of the cover, and other criticism is over the cover story author, a former Muslim turned harsh critic of Islam (especially in its more conservative and radical forms) named Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Frankly, it's a good cover. Not awesome, but a good cover. For that matter, the 2008 New Yorker cover that sent the Obamaites into hysterics (it showed the Obamas dressed as radicals) was also a good cover. I am not sure what standards people are bringing to the conversation when they write (as they have) that the Newsweek cover is beyond the pale, unacceptable, and evidence of incompetence.

No, the evidence of Tina Brown's Newsweek incompetence was her absolutely reprehensible defense and promotion of a recent Newsweek cover story by Niall Ferguson, a story that has been ripped to shreds over its blatant (and easily disproved) lies.

Newsweek is not what it used to be. It is a Tina Brown vehicle, with all the good and bad that implies. But not everything she does that is provocative and controversial is bad. One of the silliest complaints I've read lately is that Brown's covers and other efforts are designed to get people talking about the magazine. Well, duh; that is what covers are supposed to do. Get people to talk about the magazine, get people to therefore read the magazine, sell more copies, feed more people to advertisers. You might not like that business model, but Brown didn't invent it.

There is some political ideology at work here. Leftwing critics have no problem making sweeping statements about the Muslim world when it supports their viewpoints; see any number of "Why they hate us" arguments against American policy in the Middle East or other justifications for anti-U.S. or anti-Israeli actions among radicals in the Middle East. But Ali brings up very disturbing claims that the Islamist fringe isn't as small as liberals like to think it is, and if you think about how the body of non-radical American Christian conservatives occasionally helps or is silent about the violence and hate-mongering of the Christian nationalist fringe in this country, then her argument at least deserves a hearing. Newsweek provided it; snarkers attacked it.

As someone who has produced magazines with cover images or content that sparked unjustified criticism and insult to me and my staff, all I can say is that critics should focus their criticism on what Newsweek is really doing wrong, not on imagined outrages. They will still be plenty busy, I assure you.

Chewbacca Carries Esquire

Just proof that the Spanish edition of Esquire has far better covers than the U.S. edition, which is stuck in a multi-year cover design rut.

The above cover is occasioned by a one-page interview inside the magazine with Chewbacca actor Peter Mayhew. Yes, a one-page interview got the cover treatment, something few magazines do. But when it allows you to put a Star Wars pic on the cover, I suppose it's irresistible, just as it was irresistible to me to buy this issue, even though I don't read any Spanish. (Well, I can make out "Esquire," "Leia," and "Chewbacca," so I guess I can read some Spanish!).

Magazine Cover Copies

A continuing (if very irregular) (and just odd) feature in this blog is my highlighting of magazines that use the same cover images. Years ago, someone did a study of Time and Newsweek covers to see how many times they used the same images on their covers, and it turned out that they did it very, very rarely.

But the genre of the fantastic appears to be less lucky. Or less picky. Here are some dual-use images from several decades ago. In the ancient past, when America ruled the world and the future looked bright.

The Japanese edition of Starlog magazine ran this arresting cover image – which apparently also made it to the cover of the Japanese edition of Omni magazine.

Fantastic Films, Dynamite, and Starlog all made use of this Luke Skywalker lightsaber picture from Luke's sojourn on Dagobah to promote their cover stories about The Empire Strikes Back. The strange thing about its popularity is that it's not a very good photo; it's too dark, grainy, and simply unclear. However, it is moody, which is good. But there are better Empire pics they all could have run with.

From

From

Daryl Hannah's starring role in Clan of the Cave Bear got the cover treatment in Heavy Metal (which is odd, because HM never put film shots on its cover, unless it was for Heavy Metal's own movies) and Starlog (which is also odd, because Starlog was a science fiction magazine, and Clan was a caveman film). Same photo, horizontally flipped by one of the magazines.

The Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Copyediting

 As often is the case when I write a post about magazine covers, this is apropos of nothing particularly significant.

This morning I found online the above cover of a 1992 issue of Omni magazine. I immediately figured I should order a copy, because it features an article on Mystery Science Theater 3000, one of the great TV shows of all time. Except ... Omni mistitles MST3K on the cover text: "Laughing at the Future with Mystery Science 3000."

It would not be the last time that MST3K was incorrectly identified on a genre magazine cover. Four years later, Starlog would announce the MST3K motion picture by shouting on its cover, "Joel, Tom Servo & Crow make a movie!" Which would have been great, except that creator and host Joel Hodgson had left the show some time earlier and it was his successor, Michael J. Nelson, who made a movie with the help of his robot friends.

The Two Best Horror Film Magazine Covers Ever?

While enjoying the latest installment of Don Guarisco's Fango Files over at Schlockmania, I got to thinking about how the two most recent issues of Fangoria that he chronicles – issues #8 and 9 – were true boundary-breakers back in 1980s when they appeared.

I've written about them before, but I am inspired by Don's memories of the issues to nominate these two gross/fascinating/fun covers as best horror film magazine covers ever. Any other contenders you'd like to nominate?

The Monsters of German Postwar Science Fiction

 

For your Friday viewing pleasure: io9 has a photostream of German science-fiction magazine covers from the early postwar era, focusing on the fanciful monsters portrayed by Terra magazine's artists.

The occasion for io9's posting these is apropos of what, I don't know. But it's an amusing trip back to a long time ago. The appropriately titled Monster Brains blog has even more (and bigger) scans of old Terra monster/SF covers.

And if you enjoy stepping into the Teutonic way-back machine, Dieter von Reeken has a gallery of covers from another old German SF magazine, Utopia. More spaceman- than monster-focused (see example, left), Utopia nonetheless sported some very classic covers of its own. There's also a larger collection of Utopia covers in the Retro Futurism community.

And, finally, check out Flickr user Paul's collection of classic German (and some non-German) SF magazine covers.

Racy Magazine Covers, Redux

In case you thought I was making too much of the spate of nudity on non-adult magazine covers of late, take a look at this: The Daily Beast (the new Newsweek online service) has a roundup of the "15 best naked covers."

I should point out that the New York Review of Books is nowhere

Trends: Does Every Magazine Really Need Nude Models on Its Cover?

What can you say about an era in publishing when you find more clothing on the cover of Playboy's model than on the cover of Rolling Stone or ESPN Magazine?

We can maybe trace this back to Demi Moore and Vanity Fair and blame it on them. Moore has appeared – as our Brit friends would say – starkers on Vanity Fair's cover more than once, though her most famous appearance showed her extremely pregnant and extremely unclothed. That cover has been copied and parodied countless times since then (just do a Google Images search on "vanity fair" and "demi moore" and you'll see). But it also seemed to have settled the matter in the minds of mainstream publishers' heads that putting a totally naked person on the cover of a magazine that doesn't normally feature totally naked people will boost sales.

And I'm sure it does.

I'm not a spring chicken. I know that sex sells. I'm not even slapping their wrists for it. I'm just amused, albeit a bit bemused.

 

 

Vote in Amazon.com's Best Magazine Covers

If you're a magazine person like I am (a reader, editor, writer, publisher, and somewhat collector), then you might want to take a look at the survey at Amazon.com, which asks you to rate the best designed covers in a variety of categories.

It's only a fun survey, and of course Amazon's doing it to try to feed into its magazine subscription service. I don't care about that; it's just fun to look at good magazine designs. In almost all of the categories, I thought all of the nominees were quite good and a strong case could be made for selecting almost any cover. But the ones I chose were picked because I thought they were well composed, would jump off the newsstand, were provocative without being offensive, and showed creativity.

My selections:

What are your choices? The survey is here (you'll need to log in to your Amazon account to vote).

Daniel Radcliffe and the Half-Blood Cover Photo

Well, the ol' tubes of the internets are buzzing with mostly complaints about gay lifestyle magazine Out's new cover featuring actor Daniel Radcliffe. (Do tubes buzz? We'll never know; Ted Stevens isn't around any longer to ask.) The image, as you can see, makes the handsome young actor look either crazy or strung out after a night of drugs.

The story inside the magazine is at least somewhat interesting; it's about Radcliffe's befriending of a transgendered musician. It also plays up the fact that Radcliffe has become a very public champion of equal rights for everybody, including the LGBT population. Gay magazines love to play up gay-friendly actors or other performers – especially if they're gifted in the looks department – because there's only so many times you can put Rupert Everett or Adam Lambert on the cover. And, let's face it, some folks love to fantasize about the gay-friendly-but-straight actors like Radcliffe. Hell, even Mel Gibson used to be a gay icon, and he's barking mad in his homophobia.

So I'm glad to see Radcliffe being unafraid to identify himself with gays, lesbians, and transgendered folks. He's proving himself to be a thoughtful person, one who is also a talented actor.

But what does this Out cover photo convey? That he needs to get out in the sun some more, despite his natural Britishness? That no one – no one – should ever wear a tank top? That you can make even Daniel Radcliffe look unattractive if you try hard enough?

In short, the photo is horrible. It was chosen, no doubt, to give some edge to an actor associated with a wholesome young-adults movie series, but it was still a bad choice. That's not to say that you can't dirty up Radcliffe. Esquire's UK edition did so a little while ago, and it looked fine. The cover photo showed the roughed-up actor in a way that supported the editorial content inside, and it didn't make you speculate about the magazine's professional judgement.

Another UK magazine, the gay lifestyle magazine Attitude, had Radcliffe on the cover and didn't think he needed to look vampiric. The American mag Details (and is there any gayer straight magazine?) had a very good-looking Radcliffe on the cover. And you certainly didn't think this blog in particular would publish a bunch of Daniel Radcliffe magazine covers and not include at least one Starlog cover, did you?

Of course, Dumbledore should have been getting this love from the gay publishing world, and maybe he would have, if that dastardly old Snape hadn't offed him ...

Hugh Hefner -- Marge Simpson Cover Gets Most Media Attention "in Memory"

The hullabaloo over cartoon character Marge Simpson's upcoming Playboy magazine cover and pictorial inside has not abated. Pretty much every media outlet is reporting it, which makes it a very smart publicity move (and hey, that's what covers are supposed to do: Drive publicity and buyer curiosity). It even supported two top-ten "trending topics" on Twitter one day.

Now Playboy founder and editor Hugh Hefner has acknowledged via Twitter that the move has generated tremendous publicity.

Hefner (Twitter name: hughhefner) tweets: "Marge Simpson's cover & pictorial are generating more media attention than any celebrity in memory." Still, not all of that info has been correct; he adds in a later tweet: "The Marge Simpson pictorial in the November issue is 5 page not 3, as reported elsewhere, including a gatefold & data sheet." What? No Homer Party Jokes? Alas ...

Media Roundup: Controversial Magazine Covers, Christie Hefner, The Upper Room, Just Drive

The latest of interest from the worlds of media (with an emphasis on print):

• The Web Designer Depot blog has a list of the most controversial magazine covers, which is worth a look. There is a lot of overlap with the American Society of Magazine Editors' list of all-time best American magazine covers.
• A sale of Time Warner's print magazine business is said to be in the future, according to one source. That's according to a major shareholder; Time Warner itself ain't sayin' nothin'. Hmm, after they've unloaded print and AOL, doesn't that just make them a Hollywood film studio with a really tall building in New York City?
  
• There's some more info about her exit from Playboy Enterprises to be gleaned from The New York Time's recent profile of Christie Hefner. She alludes to feeling the pressure of knowing her decisions affected the jobs of so many people, and she also was not looking forward to managing the company through yet another economic downturn. So last December she announced her impending departure from the top spot at the company her father founded 55 years earlier. She remains a political and media force. Though the Times notes some of the activities with which she is filling her schedule, I suspect it is only a matter of time before some big project or job comes along to fully utilize her talents.
• Methodists have a long history of publishing, going all the way back to the tracts written by founder John Wesley. The Upper Room is a small (sized) big (circulation -- about 2 million) devotional magazine produced by the denomination. The Tennessean has a report on the magazine's new publisher, who already has a successful track record (ooh, a tract record??) making a Methodist publication a financial success.
• My favorite recent newsstand find is a special issue from the UK's Car magazine. Epic Drives is a deluxe special publication (read that: high cover price, very nice paper, big size) featuring a collection of their recent road trips in various (usually high-end) autos around the world. Porsches, Lamboghinis, Koenigseggs, Jaguars, BMWs, Audis, Maseratis, and more. But you don't have to be a car nut (or a Car nut) to enjoy this collection of articles. Written with typical UK punchy journalism, the articles contain plenty of interesting atmostphere about the places visited, which include the highways of Scotland, the Arctic Circle, Moscow, South Korea, Turkey, and -- again -- more.
• Journalism is dead; long live journalism schools? The Badger Herald reports on an increase in j-school students across the country. Well, someone's got to work at Borders.
  

My previous media roundup.