Average Rating: 
Rating:  - All The News For The Week
If you only read one news source on a regular basis, make it Newsweek. I've been reading Newsweek since the 1970's, and it keeps me up-to-date even when I haven't really been paying attention to the news on a daily basis. The articles are always well written, and extremely timely. I have been even more impressed recently, as some of the In-Depth special coverage has answered the exact questions I have been having. Great magazine!
Rating:  - NEWS LITE...
Newsweek, as is its prime competitor, Time, is a glossy, weekly news magazine that covers national and global new events. It also covers business, education, art, entertainment, and current newsmakers. Its coverage is snappy and timely, with well written articles and essays, though dubiously objective, as the magazine has a distinctly liberal bent. It is this slant that distinguishes it from Time. The articles have as much depth as may be expected from a news magazine with a broad agenda and are well illustrated with photographs. As a subscriber, I look forward to receiving each weekly issue. Newsweek, as does Time, also publishes topical specialty issues throughout the year that provide more depth of coverage in a specific area.
Rating:  - News? Heck, it's indistinguishable from People Magazine!
My wife and I are longtime subscribers to Newsweek, but no more. We are finally letting our subscription lapse.Here's why: 1) We didn't initially subscribe to People Magazine. It's hard to escape the slew of here-today-gone-tomorrow "celebrities" that seem to increasingly grace the pages of Newsweek. In just the last couple months, P. Diddy has had at least four articles written about him. Who the heck cares? Is this news? 2) All ads, all the time! Even the "news" articles are ads. One entire issue was dedicated to the Playstation 2. Recently they jettisoned a couple news articles to include reviews of high-end cars, wine, and other jealousy-inducing items. You would assume from the tone of so many Newsweek tech articles lately that unless one buys the latest battery-powered gizmo, life on earth as we know it would cease. Better treasure your last breath - and how convenient this transition since several times this year the magazine has been overwhelmed by healthy lifestyle inserts that appear to be part of the magazine. But a closer examination reveals them to be nothing more than massive ads for drugs and health-related products. Very deceptive, since there is no empirical evidence included to counter the claims being made in the article-like inserts. Simply appalling. 3) Pop culture run amok. Any aspirations Newsweek ever had to being a top news journal have been jettisoned. Instead we are greeted with a lowbrow look at "What's Cool" rather than "What's Newsworthy". When everything is relevant, nothing is. 4) Lowering of journalistic quality. Where have the editorial works by the movers and shakers that shape the future (and accurately recall the past) gone to? You used to be able to read an article or editorial by someone like Solzhenitsyn or Kissinger, but now you are more like to get an article by J. Lo or Aguilera. How Eleanor Clift can stay with this magazine and still look at herself in the mirror is beyond me. At least George Will has some other outlets for his work. 5) Calling Anne Coulter! The magazine was never known for being centrist in tone and - with the exception of Will - continues to drift left. But curiously, the left it is drifting towards resembles more the left of eighteen year old Brown University students than the left of, say, Tom Daschle. If ever the left was irrelevant in modern discourse, it's displayed in all its glory in the pages of Newsweek. 6) Target audience dumb-down. It seems the target audience for the magazine consists of teenage girls who follow hip-hop and their video game-playing boyfriends. Does someone need to educate that group? Certainly. But with everyone rushing in to fill that market niche, isn't there anything left for adults? Even a casual read of featured writers like Anna Quindlen reveals a complete lack of logic on the pages of the magazine. No wonder the current generation lacks discernment. In short, find something else to keep you abreast of the real news. Newsweek's day has come and gone.
|
