Newsweek's "Conventional Wisdom" box at the front of the magazine has never been about what the "conventional" or public opinion is, but about Newsweek cheerleading for its liberal heroes and sneering at conservative foes. The November 15 issue gave the Tea Party and Sarah Palin sideways arrows after the Republican rout. (The voters also drew a sideways arrow, but only because they'd picked Obama in 2008).
But what's really shameless is Newsweek offering an up-arrow to itself. In the November 22 issue, when it was sold for a dollar (and the assumption of its debts). The merger with Barry Diller's Daily Beast only brings it another step into the shameless liberal opinion world online. But "Newsbeast" gets an up arrow for bringing in British leftist Tina Brown as the editor. A smiling Brown is pictured inside the up arrow and the copy is goopy:
Harman-Diller-Brown trio take helm. "Hot, hot, hot" times ahead for the old mag.
That is certainly not the conventional wisdom. Betting your billions on news magazines in general is beginning to look like investing in whale-oil lamps. Tina Brown failed with Talk magazine, didn't last at The New Yorker. Even among liberals, this content merger looks like a dicey business, with Brown's Beast looking like a Huffington Post copycat.
This should get a down arrow for public shamelessness...as should Howard Kurtz bringing on his new Daily Beast boss to his CNN show Reliable Sources along with new Newsweek owner Sidney Harman to puff up the new enterprise. Conflicts of interest are not something Newsweek really minds when it's trying to claw its way out of the antique shop.
UPDATE: A few pages earlier, Newsweek also panders to the new boss with a an entire page taken up by a black-and-white picture of "Brown at the offices of Tatler [magazine], November 1979." The text that came with it quoted her from "remarks to the staff."
This is the just the dream, really. To have a magazine that is of such quality. Of such legend. Of such relevance in today's spinning vortex of a world that can actually bring sense, bring meaning, bring connection to all the splintered fragments that assail us every day and every minute.
Of such legend? (Like the phony Koran-in-the-toilet legend?) Of such relevance?
