Newsweek

David Carr has an article today’s New York Time analyzing Newsweek’s redesign. My Dad, because he is old and gets up early like a freak, has already written a great summary for the laymen:

As become customary for Big Media reporters, Carr said the problem with the re-design is that it doesn’t account for the Internet, which has made the newsweekly obsolete, along with the newspaper, and for all I know, the filling station.

Big Media look out for each other. Carr felt obliged to write his real message between the lines of his article. Any alert or even one-third alert reader got Carr’s subtext, namely, “this product is Christ-awful and Meacham is the champion ass of journalism.” 

During the article Carr holds The Economist up as the holy grail of weekly newsmagazines and print journalism in general. It is one of the few dead tree outlets that is booming. Carr mentions the image-concious nature of Economist readers while my Dad argues that the Economist is simply a great magazine that dares to be worth the money you pay for it. I side with pops on this one. 

What’s next for Newsweek? Find out after the jump. 

My Dad’s (and to a degree Carr’s) conclusion is that Newsweek is doomed because it is doing less and hoping no one notices. I don’t agree with this. I saw the death of Newsweek in one sentence of Carr’s article:

In its recent reboot, Newsweek has responded to punishing advertising and circulation economics — it was down over 23 percent in advertising pages in the first quarter of the year compared with the first quarter last year — by doubling down on its legacy as a Beltway driven magazine.

There is no shortage of blogs, magazines or newspapers that are “beltway-driven.” They are relaunching into a market that is SATURATED with discussion and opinion that is written by people in Washington, for people in Washington. It is cute to think you can do it better than anyone else, but a organization in as much trouble as the Washington Post Company needs to face facts. 

Imho, beltway-driven is code for “lazy.” It is code for “I want to have an influential news magazine but I don’t want to have to find any ‘news’ beyond what I chatted about at a cocktail party last night.” If Newsweek wants to save itself, it should take its cue from the substance of The Economist,, not the style. My favorite Economist articles of all time have been about Tonga, Svalbard and the Conflict in the Niger Delta. I love wonkery as much as the next guy, but I really don’t need to read the latest definitive interview with President Obama or another profile of the Speaker of the House. Newsweek is squandering an opportunity to become The Economist for the United States.

There is 50 states worth of political, economist and social news out there just waiting to be found. Base reporters outside Washington to cover how the recession is affecting citizens nationwide. Find unique and oddball stories that still have some universal truth. Cover business, politics and social issues with relatively equal weight. Keep it succinct. No more than one or two 2000-word opuses per issue. What would this kind of journalism look like? It would look like this story on the troubled mayor of Kansas City from today’s New York Times or it would look like anything the team at NPR’s Planet Money does. If Newsweek tried less hard to be “important,” it might find itself selling some magazines and actually becoming more influential.

Also, for God’s sake, please fire George Will.