Newsweek Maintains Meaningful Silence: The Newsweek with the “Apocalypse Now” cover (featuring a giant wave) is apparently a double issue, meaning it will sit on the stands this week while competitors produce fresh editions. An alert emailer writes:
Can you imagine … what people would be saying if any Newsweek editor other than Tina Brown had taken a week off (because of a special “tsunami” double issue) during a time of HUGE war news and furious war debate? In the old days, Newsweek would have simply reversed itself and hustled out an issue.
That tsunami cover just sits there, dead, on the newsstand …
So “hot”!
I can think of circumstances in which an editor might find skipping a week appealing enough to justify missing some news–say, if printing and distributing each issue put you many thousands of dollars further in the hole. … P.S.: In fairness, Brown more or less told us she wasn’t going to be newsy. She did promise “an insight or synthesis that connects the crackling, confusing digital dots.” You’d think that would be hard to do if you don’t come out. But Newsweek‘s silence is even more eloquent, in its own way. …