Customer Reviews

Newsweek

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(31)
1 star:		(72)

 

 

Since The Daily Beast's Tina Brown took over as editor-in-chief of Newsweek, this once-venerable magazine has gone from substantive, informative, and engrossing to lightweight, sensationalistic, and repulsive. Brown has nixed the InternationaList and NationaList (brief but enlightening summaries on otherwise underreported stories from around the country and globe), cut The Take (a series of thought-provoking columns) from about five a week to one or two (with the one or two being from the worst of the formerly well-stocked stable of columnists (long gone are Ellis Cose and Fareed Zakaria, for instance)), and started padding out the weekly with such filler as "ARE DOGS STEALING OUR JOBS?" and "WHO'S EATING YOUR LUNCH?" (a two-page graphic relating the scoop that Facebook has vanquished MySpace and Friendster, and positing that something called Blekko might one day supplant Google).

Worst of all is her prize catch, Niall Ferguson, who is taking a sabbatical from Harvard apparently only for the purpose of attacking Barack Obama in any and every forum given him. This would be fine, naturally, if Ferguson's criticisms had any validity or made any sense--but they don't. For example, in the February 21, 2011 Newsweek, Ferguson claims that Obama "never once considered a scenario in which Mubarak faced a popular revolt." This is patently false, of course; as the New York Times reported today, Obama "ordered his advisers last August to produce a secret report on unrest in the Arab world, which concluded that without sweeping political changes, countries from Bahrain to Yemen were ripe for popular revolt." Ferguson also trots out a platitudinous quotation from Otto von Bismarck, of all people, as the sole support for the contention that Obama missed an opportunity during the protests in Iran in 2009--of course, what, in Ferguson's view, Obama should have done, remains unhinted-at. Ferguson wraps up his meandering, pointless hatchet job by raising the specter of the Muslim Brotherhood--yes, the same Muslim Brotherhood that has a 15% approval rating in Egypt, and whose candidate garnered all of 1% in a presidential straw poll there.

In sum, I'll be canceling my subscription momentarily.

My wife and I are longtime subscribers to Newsweek, but no more. We are finally letting our subscription lapse.

Here's why:

1)...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. ... 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....P>...P>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.

I have subscribed to Newsweek since 1968. For years it was a useful summary of the week's important events with thoughtful editorials and a few final pages of "fluff". But, it has seriously deteriorated in its content, size, and readability.
A nostalgic side of me wants to renew my subscription (with hopes that it will recover), but I am letting my subscription lapse after 41+ years...

After 15 years as a loyal subscriber I finally decided to ditch it - the agony started in May 2009 when some boneheads in the management suddenly changed the entire design of the magazine - font, format, layout, content - the whole nine yard. Now it looks, feels, and reads like a cheap mail order catalog. The moment you pick it up, you will have hard time to find what you want to read, no way to tell the real articles from promotional and advertising pages. Also gone are the real in depth news coverage, replaced by pages after pages of opinionated essays, which nowadays you can find by tons from blogs online easily with better quality.

I don't see what the magazine is aiming at by this re-design. But I'm sure going on this direction, it won't be long to see it stops printing and people asking "who killed Newsweek in 2009?".

I tried to like it, really tried, but 4 months is enough, can't stand it anymore. Bye Newsweek, hello Time.

Like a number of earlier reviewers, I, too am a long-time subscriber to Newsweek - well over 20 years. Since I don't subscribe to the daily newspaper, I relied on Newsweek to give me a comprehensive summary and insight into the major news events of the week, with just a couple of editorials. Unfortunately late last year they changed to an all-editorial format - so now I am only getting various opinions about a range of subjects - NOT what I want in a NEWS magazine. This is a far cry from the investigative reporting the magazine used to provide. So for the first time ever, I have purchased a subscription to TIME magazine in the hopes that they will provide the type of news summary that Newsweek used to provide. I will not renew my subscription to Newsweek when it expires, and I fully expect that this once-great magazine will eventually disappear. Such a shame, really.

NewsWeek used to be the best weekly news magazine. I have been a subscriber for 35 consecutive years. I used to read it to get the inside stories about what is happening in the news. Since they changed it 9 months ago it is now only editorial opinions about things I couldn't care less about. I only keep reading it now because I already have a paid subscription for it. I will not renew my subscription when it runs out in March, I have never paid more then $23.00 per year to subscribe. I got a renewal notice for $42.00. I wouldn't pay that much even if the magazine was still good. They must want to go out of business.

I read with interest the many comments from long-time subscribers about the recent changes in the format of the magazine. I too have subscribed to Newsweek for quite a few years, but with the new editorial format, I find reading the magazine almost agonizing. The final straw was the recent cover: "What's so great about the IPad --- Everything". I hadn't realized that Newsweek is now a subsidiary of Apple...Cancel my subscription.

This used to be a great weekly, but now it is hard to tell the ads from the news. This is intentional. I will not renew my subscription.

Newsweek recently implemented a "New Format" with very small font sizes. It is very difficult to read without using a magnifying glass. The "NEW STYLE" is very poor. I have cancelled my five year subscription and will try "Time" magazine. Certainly do not recommend the new NewsweekNewsweek for any age or profession.

If you are sick of Newsweek's slide into mediocrity, I recommend reading a relatively new magazine called The Week. It's a compilation of the top news stories from around the world, as well as summaries of pop culture (car reviews, recipes, real estate trends).