America's reign as a world power is coming to an end, soon. This the latest from Newsweek, where Newsweek Poland correspondent Andrew Nagorski is warning that the collapse of the United States is imminent. "It's harder now to shrug off the America-in-decline theories than ever before," he notes, citing such rock-hard evidence as the fact that New York Times columnists are mopey, Greece is close to bankruptcy, and "there's even something in the air." Hope your passport is ready! (more...)

video So apparently there was this photo spread in GQ that featured John Edwards' baby mama Rielle Hunter, and it caused quite a stir across the great American news punditscape (yes, that word now officially exists.) What - you missed it? Well, in the event that you need to catch up on what all talking heads think of this strange twist in an already bizarre story, the fine folks at Newsweek.com have done all the watching for you, and put together this highly entertaining video. (more...)

video Hey have you heard? Lawmakers are discussing different ways to reform the current health care system. Turns out, the mainstream media has been spending a little time covering it, particularly now that the debate appears to be in its final stages. Check out the following video produced by the smart folks at Newsweek.com, that edits many news clips and tells you everything you'll ever need to know about where we are in the health care debate. (more...)

It has long been the tradition of First Ladies to become advocates for children-related causes: From Barbara Bush's literacy program to Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign, presidential wives have made the health and safety of our children one of their top priorities. And Michelle Obama is no different, taking up the issue of child (and adult) obesity that has reached critical levels in America. Her latest platform? A Newsweek cover story. (more...)

A serious journalistic query should an intrepid reporter want to follow this lead: has anyone seen Newsweek editor Jon Meacham and WNBC investigative journalist Jonathan Dienst in the same room? Sure, they come from completely different media backgrounds and, save for both making occasional appearances on MSNBC, have little professional overlap. But we can't help but look at the photo evidence and wonder whether something is up? (more...)

As time passes, the arguments on both sides of the health care debate are becoming increasingly cloudy and dramatic. And here's yet another sign that America is getting a little too groggy to think coherently on this: a Newsweek story suggesting that the American health care system should more closely resemble the veterinary business. (Headline: "Treat People Like Dogs.") (more...)

Criticizing the American public for the role its own immaturity plays in political gridlock is all the rage lately. Jacob Weisberg did it in Slate early last month, (rightly) pointing out it's unrealistic to expect government to tackle the biggest issues facing the country while also getting smaller. And Evan Thomas does it in the latest Newsweek, similarly blaming a "culture of entitlement." (Still, Weisberg and Thomas might allow that there's a bit more those in Washignton could be doing to work together and get things done.) But the most...interesting "cultural immaturity" critique also comes from this week's Newsweek, in the person of George Will. Will's argument: that men are getting more and more immature and less and less, well, manly. Now, Will might even be right about this, but his methods in making his point leave something to be desired. (more...)

In his once relevant Media Ink column, Keith Kelly provides a rather dismal report on the overall health of Newsweek column in today's NY Post. And while its true that the weekly news magazine suffered some pretty significant losses over the last year, Kelly's report ignores both important context and, more importantly, the quarterly trend of profits and losses. Sure, some have predicted their imminent demise, however a complete look at how the last year has gone for Newsweek reveals that rumors of their death are greatly exaggerated. (more...)

Politics is a dirty business, but even among the thickest of thick-skinned folk there have been few scandals as stomach-churning as the John Edwards sex scandal. A man who was nearly a heartbeat away from the presidency had a lovechild with a staffer and pinned the blame on a loyal subordinate. The wife had cancer at the time; the lover, barely a political type, was a walking hippie stereotype with a history in astrology. The National Enquirer broke the story. The subordinate wrote a damning tell-all book. The whole tragedy was impossibly stranger than fiction. Out of all this irresponsible suffering, Newsweek has found an unlikely hero: Rielle Hunter. Columnist Jonathan Darman argues that it is in her silence throughout the entire ordeal that the public can see her true "dignity," and that she is unlike most mistresses of the modern era in that she has not used her new-found fame for financial stability or to generate more fame for its own sake. (more...)

Does mourning in the digital age make a loss any less devastating? That's the question asked by Newsweek's Lisa Miller in the magazine's March 1st issue. While it may seem trite, ridiculous, and frankly even a little insulting to try to express your pain and grief over a loved one's passing in 140 characters or less on Twitter, the rise of social networking has also allowed us to grieve as a global community, not just individuals alone in suffering. (more...)

Newsweek and The New Republic recently published "America the Ungovernable" and "Is America Ungovernable?", respectively, making the case that perhaps the recent political, economic, and social turmoil in the country is not a product of bad leadership, but the nature of the nation. If two major news and political publications run with the story, it's officially a trend. Luckily, Charles Krauthammer is around to nip this mildly insulting talking point-- we're ungovernable as a people?-- in the bud before it spreads like wildfire (to MSNBC). Simply put, Krauthammer is not buying the portrayal of the American people as an angry rabble of anarchists and contrarians because he was here when the media tried this to protect a weak Democrat the first time around. In his Washington Post op-ed today, Krauthammer notes that putting the blame of an inefficient government on the people was all the rage in the late 1970s, when then-president Jimmy Carter was having trouble garnering bipartisan support for his policies:

"In the latter days of the Carter presidency, it became fashionable to say that the office had become unmanageable and was simply too big for one man. Some suggested a single, six-year presidential term. The president's own White House counsel suggested abolishing the separation of powers and going to a more parliamentary system of unitary executive control. America had become ungovernable. Then came Ronald Reagan, and all that chatter disappeared."

In the old days, Newsweek was trying to sell America as an irrational mob, also, he declares. But his ire is not limited to what he sees as a new wave of Carterism in the press, but to his fellow columnists elsewhere who have expressed some partisanship towards the President. He takes stabs at Tom Friedman's alleged desire to turn America into China and a flip-flop from New York Times' columnist Paul Krugman on the filibuster, which he claims Krugman was for before he was against it. "Just yesterday," Krauthammer writes, "the same Paul Krugman was warning about 'extremists' trying 'to eliminate the filibuster' when Democrats used it systematically to block one Bush (43) judicial nomination after another." Such a multilateral attack to the left will likely push some buttons, though maybe not the people attacked in the article, but their counterparts on TV. At the very least, this would be worthy of a spot on Keith Olbermann's "Worst Persons" any other time of year when CPAC isn't happening. Should Krugman et al choose to respond, however, someone should probably get the popcorn ready.

Between the current economic downturn, the increased presence of terror threats at airports, a crippling series of snowstorms and Congress' seeming inability to pass any bills whatsoever, patriotism has been running on an empty stomach lately. Luckily, Newsweek's Daniel Gross is cooking second and third helpings of chicken soup for the American soul - the seasoning is a little bitter, but anything helps. (more...)

On Monday, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported that newsstand sales for American consumer magazines “declined,” in the summary of the NYT, “9.1%, to 39.3 million, in the last half of 2009 versus the same period a year earlier.”  Frightful as these numbers may appear, that they are not more frightful, the major-domos of magazine-publishing inform us, is cause for optimism, if not quite champagne.  That's because, in the first half of 2009, newsstand magazine sales declined 12.36%.  The decline, in other words, is decreasing.  The decline is in decline.  Though far from stanched, though still voluminous, the bleeding, we are encouraged to believe, has slowed.  The NYT quotes Kenneth Godshall, “executive vice president for consumer marketing at the industry group Magazine Publishers of America”: (more...)

video The smart editorial minds behind Newsweek seem to have a keen understanding of both the current zeitgeist and the future of magazines. This is perhaps best evidenced by the following video recap of Lost, as told through the eyes of staffers who have never seen the show. Excitement and confusion, all rolled into one -- brillz content, indeed. Oh, and thank you Newsweek, for finally showing us what the future of magazines look like -- basic cable television! (more...)

A recent Newsweek column makes a bold, if slightly counter-intuitive pronouncement that pairs media and politics: "Roger Ailes is the real head of the GOP" argues Howard Fineman in "Life of the Party." But it just sounds so familiar... Ah, yes! Mediaite has been making a similar case since September, when a column by Managing Editor Colby Hall called Ailes "The Most Powerful Political Figure In America," supported again last month when we named Ailes the #1 Media Innovator of 2009. Glad we can agree, Newsweek, but let's run down the evidence. (more...)

I think this can be considered the magazine coup of the decade -- thus far. Newsweek has announced that President Obama will pen next week's cover story on Haiti for the magazine. According to a report in the WSJ, all Newsweek editor Jon Meacham had to do to get the big get was ask: (more...)

Apparently, Iranians don't do satire very well, no doubt one of the nasty side effects of not having a functional free press. Earlier this year Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahari suffered the brunt of Iran's confusion over a Daily Show interview he had participated in. Bahari was jailed during June's protests and then interrogated over video footage of the interview showing him being interviewed by "an American journalist pretending to be a spy." In reality this "spy" was Jason Jones. (more...)

A new column in Newsweek by Daniel Gross examines the new wave of "old-school cable slugfests," including, but not limited to "Rupert Murdoch vs. the bureaucrats of Time Warner; Scripps vs. the unpredictable Dolans of Cablevision; content vs. distribution." They're a sign of things to come, he writes, but they will also hurt consumers, who will be asked to pay more and more for products that are becoming free. Confusing, right? (more...)

When looking ahead at the next year, pundits turn into prognosticators. Bloggers covering all sorts of topics and industries are now giving their predictions for what's to come in 2010. Conventional wisdom says to go the conservative route with these choices in order to avoid looking foolish when none of your projections pan out. At the same time, there's a key difference between picking things that are realistically possible and those that are already on the road to happening. I've assembled my favorite predictions covering a variety of fields and what's supposedly in store for the near future: (more...)

DeadMalls.com is celebrating a decade of recording the death rattles of American shopping malls. Chronicling the nasty and brutish lives of malls throughout the fifty states with pictures and anecdotes, the site launched in 2000 and celebrates its first ten years next month. It seems a remarkably appropriate tenure. (more...)

Newsweek's "Interview Issue" has the sort of cover that you — or nerds like me — want to pick up. Editor Jon Meacham's editor's letter tried to explain why: (more...)

The year 2009 was a remarkably troubled year for magazine publishing — filled with lay-offs, declining ad revenue, and serious questions about the viability of the medium as a whole. Yet, in this sea of bad news, a few titles were able to eke out some positive attention and influence over the field — thanks, in part, to the vision and leadership of their editors. Who among them did we find to do his or her job the best? Jon Meacham, Editor-in-chief for Newsweek. His runner-up and reader poll winner after the jump.

Editor of the Year: Jon Meacham

Newsweek did the unthinkable. And its not that they re-invented their magazine by layout, design and mission. No, they decided to aim for a smarter audience instead of appealing to the lowest common denominator. And for that alone, Jon Meacham deserves certain laurels from his media brethren. Don't get us wrong - there are still significant questions about the long-term viability of the magazine; some have even said that it won't survive the next year. It is true that the magazine has lost money this year, but their quarterly losses are trending in the right direction: from an estimated $20MM in Q1, to $5MM in Q2, to $4MM in Q3.

But Meacham deserves this honor for reasons more important to the bottom line. Of course, he's spent most of the year at the top of the Magazine Editor's category in the Power Grid. And why? Because nobody has more consistently nailed the national zeitgest better than Meacham and his team of editors -- special shouts-out goes to Ted Moncreiff and Bonnie Siegler, two incredibly important deputies to Meacham who had major hands in the editorial and visual reimagining of Newsweek.

Runner-up: Robbie Myers

Industry insiders claim that there was one magazine party that actually was incredibly festive because there was reason to celebrate: the year-end party for Elle. And what was the reason? For the first time ever, Elle sold more total ad pages than its competitor Vogue. Of course, it's worth noting that ad pages in Elle come at a much more affordable rate than Vogue, but good news in this economic climate is to be cherished and celebrated, so cherish and celbrate we will.

Much of the success at Elle can be attributed to the smart savvy and industry respect of Robbie Myers, its editor-in-chief. Its super hot creative direction led by Joe Zee is complimented perfectly by its super-smart entertainment coverage, which consistently features writing that rivals any other magazine out there. But it's also about buzz -- lately, it's become hard to watch a television talk show without seeing an Elle employee. Also, their Women In Hollywood event didn’t just garner great attention, but it practically got Alec Baldwin the gig to host the Oscars. Congrats to Ms. Myers for having a great 2009.

Reader's Choice: Jess Cagle Mediate held an online poll for Magazine Editor of the year and our reader's spoke loudly - Jess Cagle was the winner going away. Why does he deserve this laurel?

Weekly magazines have a particularly hard time keeping up in the Internet age. Editorial staffs have to work harder and think far more analytically than the staffs at monthly magazines just to compete with blogs who cover the same terrain. Jess Cagle took over a shaky ship, amidst rumors of Entertainment Weekly's imminent demise, and not only killed off those rumors, but re-invigorated an editorial product that has regained much of its enthusiasm and energy from yesteryear. Of course, its worth noting that reader polls often measure the enthusiasm behind an individual nominated, but judging by the voter turnout, it appears that the Entertainment Weekly staff is firmly behind Cagle's leadership. And that spells good times ahead for EW.

Special Mention - Of course there are many other editorial stars that deserve special mention for navigating their respective titles through a particularly stormy sea that was 2009. Judged purely on consistent editorial product, it's hard to top The New Yorker's David Remnick . Rick Stengel of Time has reinvigorated that weekly title as well. New York's Adam Moss always merits inclusion in these lists because, well, he's Adam Moss and he does an amazing job week in and week out. Representing the little guy, Backpacker's EIC Jon Dorn has deservedly received numerous plaudits from his publishing peers this year as well. Ruth Reichel deserves notice, but for sad reasons, but she has never received more love and support than when Gourmet was shuttered.

Here's an interesting tidbit buried part way through Newsweek's interview with Hillary Clinton and Henry Kissinger. As part of their interview-themed issue, out this week, Newsweek features the two comparing notes over what it's like to be Secretary of State. Short version: very tiring. However in the process of describing how one of the requirements of her job is to keep an eye on future problems, which lead to a description of this scenario, perhaps call it Climategate, The War Games? (more...)

Verena von Pfetten is Air America's Senior Lifestyle & Entertainment Editor, and the former Living Editor at the Huffington Post, which makes her my former colleague and great friend. (She is also Canadian, as well as the former Verena van der Woodsen to my Blair Sklardorf). Verena had the good fortune, or misfortune, depending on how you look at it, to run into me at a moment of inspiration, during which I suggested we experiment with a new form of our traditional 5QQ — the impromptu video. Verena gamely gave it a whirl, and what followed was about as informal and off-the-cuff a rendering of the 5QQ as we have ever done (usually we email the questions to our quarry, who then have time to think about the answers. Not so today with Verena. Lucky her!). (more...)

2009 has been a horrible year for the magazine publishing industry. Much has been made of the perfect storm of an ad recession (brought about by a dismal economic climate), and the growth of up-to-the-second digital media. But in the midst of this blizzard of bad news, there has been one beacon of hope for editors and publishers alike: Stephen Colbert. Vanity Fair tells us that putting Colbert on the cover leads to sales! (more...)

video Last night, Bill O'Reilly had Time Magazine managing editor Rick Stengel on his show to discuss Time's decision to name Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke as their Person of the Year. After Stengel explained their decision to put Bernanke on the cover (over the Kardashian sisters, as O'Reilly suggested), the conversation turned to print as a medium. According to O'Reilly, Newsweek isn't going to survive. (more...)

the traffic game If you want to write an article that gets the people talking, one good way is to just start classifying women in random groups, related to age and hot sexxx. Hot sexxxy cheetah ladies cannot resist this delicious media bait!...The headline of this story should be, "I Really Hope Many People Get Very Vocally Mad About This Story, And Talk About Sexism, Because Then It Would Be Funny How Seriously They Took This Story." -- Gawker's Hamilton Nolan responds to Spencer Morgan's piece in today's New York Observer. (more...)

With every big Barack Obama speech -- and there have be a number of them since last January! -- comes days of media speculation revolving around whatever the current Obama narrative is, and how the upcoming speech might fit into it. Or what Obama has to do in said speech to change the narrative. Or a combination of the two. (more...)

Ah, to be Rev. Rick Warren on a "very special" Thanksgiving Meet the Press.  Despite being connected to a Ugandan minister who supports the death penalty for gays, you don't get asked about it -- not even in a follow-up to the interview that occurred weeks earlier -- and you aren't pressed to explain your "I'm not a politician" position while calling abortion a "holocaust" and discussing your public position in opposing same-sex marriage in California. (more...)

We are about to head into six weeks of non-stop, end-of-decade countdown and highlight lists. Newsweek got a head start on the competition with their much passed-around the decade in seven minutes, but that is no doubt just the tip of the iceberg of what's to come between now and December 31. Granted it's been a helluva a decade. Or, according to Time 'The Decade From Hell,' which is the moniker they've opted to give it. (more...)

video It is a very small world. You may recall back in June The Daily Show sent correspondent Jason Jones to Iran just ahead of the elections to film a series of "funny" spots about how the country was dealing with the election. Of course, neither the Daily Show nor the rest of the world could have anticipated the sweeping and violent protests that followed the elections. Yet instead of shelving the spots for a more appropriate time, the show opted to air the segments anyway; it was a decision that struck as amazingly tone deaf (I actually thought it bordered on offensive), particularly for a show that prides itself on being one step savvier than the rest. (more...)

video We've written a lot about Sarah Palin over the last week, but has anyone wondered what Mystery from The Pick-up Artist or Tucker Max thinks about her rise to media/political stardom? It may have something to do with cleavage. Well, on Geraldo At Large this weekend we got to see what a similar author thought of Palin, the Newsweek cover and powerful women in general. (more...)

video Maybe Newsweek was onto something, after all. At the end of the first week of Sarah Palin's hugely successful book tour the question most pundits (and much of the G.O.P.) seem to be asking themselves is what do we do about the Palin problem. Answer: no one has a clue. (more...)

It looks like Time is the first to opt off the Sarah Palin media gravy train, which may or may not mean the rest of us also get to stop talking about her in the near future. It's an interesting decision for the magazine to make -- it's not like they tend to shy away from topical or controversial covers, and Palin is a surefire conversation (newsstand) starter. However, perhaps they felt they were so thoroughly trumped in the topical, controversial, week-long headline generating department by Newsweek's cover that they opted out of the game altogether (literally: none of the feature articles address Palin). That said, this cover is sure to be a big conversation piece with the Park Slope crowd. Update: Office Hours favorite James Poniewozik has a media column about Palin that just went live: Survivor: Alaska.

video Sarah Palin is currently involved in a heated back-and-forth with Newsweek magazine (while Runner's World ducks for cover) over their use of a sexy cover photo of her on their most recent issue. This whole thing sounded weirdly familiar to me. Newsweek magazine accused of sexist cover photo, headline calling her a problem? Sure enough, it looks like this is an annual event for Newsweek. There are a few key differences, though. (more...)

While we wait for Sarah Palin to activate her still dormant Twitter feed, and keep our fingers crossed that Barbara Walters' interview with Palin, beginning today, is slightly more hard-hitting than Oprah's was, we'll have to rely on the old Palin standby (UPDATE: Meacham responds below): Facebook. (more...)

How to solve a problem like the coverage of Sarah Palin? According to Newsweek you take the low road. The weekly magazine, which since its relaunch has opted for increasingly blogosphere-like headlines to generate readers, apparently has decided that the best way to cover Sarah Palin's reemergence on the national stage is with an old photo from Runner's World (Palin is well known for running marathons). Wow. Were there no other photos available? Did they perhaps neglect the Google search option in their rush to be as condescending and marginalizing as possible? Maybe so. The headline, however, would suggest otherwise. (more...)

At this point it's just depressing. New York magazine's Chris Rovzar -- the Daily Intel blogger who is absolutely all over the media beat these days -- is reporting that the Washington Post Company's Budget Travel will be the next magazine to fold outright, based on tips from numerous sources. (UPDATE: Not the case, actually! See below.) (more...)

video We're less than two months from the end of the decade and up to now, the media has been suspiciously quiet about it. Maybe it's going to be a surprise party, but it wouldn't have been unreasonable to believe that the retrospective coverage would have been wall-to-wall for the entire second half of the year. There's always December! (more...)

On Friday night's episode of The O'Reilly Factor the host pulled no punches, launching directly into an especially vicious Talking Points segment aimed at Ft. Hood gunman Major Nidal Malik Hassan, but mostly the media's portrayal of the killings. O'Reilly was indignant as he called out the "far left loons" who questioned the role that public policy played in these "vile crimes." (more...)