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Time and Newsweek, July 29
(posted Monday, July 22)
Newsweek and Time offer nearly identical packages on TWA Flight 800: Both reconstruct the flight and crash; profile the victims; speculate on likely suspects (consensus: Middle Eastern terrorists); investigate lax American airport security; and question whether the FAA is sacrificing safety for convenience (sound familiar, ValuJet?). Time's account of how U.S. airlines have resisted expensive new security measures is especially good. Also, Newsweek retains its status as the (Almost) Official Newsweekly of the Olympic Games with four stories, and Time publishes a comprehensive profile of Bosnian Serb strongman Radovan Karadzic that chronicles how he flitted from ideology to ideology until he found one--violent nationalism--that could catapult him to power.
The newsweeklies duel over the Joe Klein-is-"Anonymous" revelation. Serial liar Klein plays the victim in his Newsweek column, writing that the media scrutiny has made his last few months "pretty awful," but insists that his conduct is "justifiable." In Time, columnist Margaret Carlson indicts Newsweek editor Maynard Parker for his active role in the cover-up. (Parker approved a "Periscope" item about Primary Colors that he knew was false.) She also paints Klein as a hypocrite by citing a column from early 1996 in which he castigated the Clintons for their "lawyering, fudging, misdirection, obfuscation, and generally slouch behavior" in the face of tough questioning.
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The New Yorker, July 29
(posted Monday, July 22)
While other media perform last rites on Bob Dole, The New Yorker explores the relationship between Bill Clinton and another dead Republican, Richard Nixon. Monica Crowley, a 27-year-old who aided Nixon in his Final Years, contends that Tricky Dick craved Slick Willie's attention. Nixon scorned Clinton when Clinton ignored him, and admired Clinton when Clinton consulted him. Also, The New Yorker manages to find something new to write about Atlanta, describing how the city has relentlessly destroyed its history for the sake of commerce. And Ken Auletta charts the troubled marriage between ABC and Disney. |
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U.S. News & World Report, July 29
(posted Monday, July 22)
Flight 800 also takes the cover of U.S. News, but the magazine skips the emotional stories about victims to detail how investigators are probing the crash. U.S. News also probes the week's other New York crash--at the stock market. It concludes that the bull is dying, but that the bear hasn't yet escaped its cage. In the "News You Can Use" category, the magazine offers investors 10 stock tips for the erratic market. |
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Atlantic Monthly, August 1996
(posted Friday, July 26)
After 15 years of stories about Christian fundamentalism, journalists have finally discovered a new religious trend: megachurches. This month's Atlantic publishes the longest, if not the first, article on gigantic, "full-service" Protestant churches (sometimes dubbed "mall churches"). The good news: Megachurches are tolerant, communal, and economically efficient. The bad news: They're killing neighborhood congregations and religious traditions. Also in the Atlantic, yet another essay on why the American people feel alienated from politics; as usual, de Tocqueville, Lincoln, and push polls figure prominently. James Fallows--just named editor of sister publication U.S. News & World Report--writes a nice essay on why girls throw like girls. |
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Economist, July 27
(posted Friday, July 26)
The Economist champions deregulation. The lead editorial and a cover story explain how red tape shackles the economy, then present a simple, decisive solution: a "regulatory budget" that "would cap the compliance costs that each agency could impose." Another economic issue addressed this week: how to protect copyright in a world of electronic reproduction. After gloomily estimating the scale of piracy, the Economist concludes that it's probably here to stay, and that "content companies" may need to content themselves with lower profits. |
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Weekly Standard, July 29
(posted Monday, July 22)
The Weekly Standard puts tabloid favorite O.J. Simpson on its cover. "Why He Still Haunts Us" makes the familiar point that race defeated justice in the O.J. trial, and blames the acquittal on the civil rights movement, which "grew corrupt, turned on the society it had served, and became an active menace to it." No issue of the Standard is complete without the slap at Bob Dole; this week, Michael Barone polls the "swing" voters of Michigan and finds that they view Dole as a wishy-washy, bungling geriatric. Also in the magazine, John Podhoretz calls Independence Day the "last war movie," and argues that the liberal Hollywood elite could never "imagine any circumstance in which a present-day American military force might be worthy of celebration for going into battle against a real army." |
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New Republic, Aug. 12
(posted Friday, July 26)
The New Republic, which has editorialized for years in favor of welfare reform, urges President Clinton to sign the GOP welfare bill--and predicts he will. TNR calls the GOP proposal flawed--there are too many block grants and too few dollars--but says "it will finally start the process by which America's underclass problem can be solved." TNR publishes commentaries on the bill from a gaggle of wonks and pundits--David Ellwood, Glenn Loury, Katha Pollitt, James Q. Wilson, and others. All except Wilson are pessimistic. Also, Literary Editor Leon Wieseltier defends Joe Klein. |
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