Newsweek, Mired in Red Ink, Cancels Longtime Political Series (New York Times)

 

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By JEREMY W. PETERS
November 13, 2011

It has been one of Newsweek’s signature ventures and a staple of American political journalism since 1984.

Every presidential election season, the magazine detached a small group of reporters from their daily jobs for a year to travel with the presidential candidates and document their every internal triumph and despair — all under the condition that none of it was to be printed until after the election.

Then two days after Election Day, the sum of their reporters’ work would appear in the magazine. But the ambitious undertaking, known inside the magazine simply as “the project,” is no more. Newsweek, bleeding red ink and searching for a fresh identity under new ownership, has decided the project would not go forward this election season.

Explaining the decision to end the series, Edward Felsenthal, executive editor of Newsweek and The Daily Beast, its online partner, cited the quickening speed of the news cycle. In a news environment when scoops are often measured in milliseconds between Twitter posts, fewer news organizations are comfortable waiting to publish the kinds of attention-grabbing anecdotes that they would have once saved for longer articles.


“Sitting on election news felt to us out of place in an era where so much information comes out so fast,” he said. The pace seems measurably faster than even four years ago when many of the most titillating anecdotes about the 2008 campaign were reported in “Game Change” by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, a book that did not hit store shelves until January 2010.

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Palin Plots Her Next Move (Newsweek)

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by Peter J. Boyer

July 10, 2011 

 

"I believe that I can win a national election," Sarah Palin declared one recent evening, sitting in the private dining room of a hotel in rural Iowa. The occasion for her visit to quintessential small-town America was a gathering of the faithful that would have instantaneously erupted into a fervent campaign rally had she but given the word. Instead, it had been another day on the non–campaign trail, this one capped by a sweet victory: she had just attended the premiere of a glowingly positive documentary about her titled The Undefeated.

“The people of America are desperate for positive change, and deserving of positive change, to get us off of this wrong track,” she told me during a conversation that lasted late into the night and, inevitably, kept returning to the subject that has titillated the media and spooked Republican presidential contenders for months: her political intentions. “I’m not so egotistical as to believe that it has to be me, or it can only be me, to turn things around,” she said. “But I do believe that I can win.”

 

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Barack Obama and Co. give up a few secrets to Newsweek's Jonathan Alter in 'The Promise': INTERVIEW

By BOB ANDELMAN

Here’s the opening of a conversation that would get me divorced:

“Honey, I’m going to spend the next 17 months researching and reporting about President Obama’s first year in office. Oh, and I’m going to keep my full-time job at the magazine and keep showing up as a talking head on TV, too.”

Of course, I’m not Jonathan Alter, national affairs columnist at Newsweek, frequent political analyst on MSNBC and author of a fascinating, new, behind the scenes book, The Promise, President Obama, Year One.

If your only previous exposure to Alter has been in small doses via his appearances on MSNBC and “Meet the Press,” you’ll be impressed at how well his approach to politics and journalism holds up over the course of an entire book. There is straight reporting, of course, but also the occasional zinger or observation that captures the point in a sharp-edged arrow—I mean sentence.

And it isn’t a mere bow to Barack Obama as “The Promised One.” Alter identifies mistakes in strategy, errors in judgment and more than a few of the new president’s character flaws.

As a teen, I found Joe McGinness’s The Selling of the Presidency 1968 oddly compelling. It, in turn, propelled me to read histories of most 20th century presidents. So, for me, The Promise is like a Charleston Chew. Its flavor lasts all day and leaves you wanting more.

Alter is joining us on Mr. Media today to promote his appearance on Tuesday, May 25 at Forum Truth in Sarasota, Florida. His talk starts at 7:30 p.m. and the cost of admission includes a copy of his book, The Promise. You can make reservations online @ www.forumtruth.org or by phone, 941-349-8350.

JONATHAN ALTER AUDIO EXCERPT: "My wife has a really busy job, too. She is a supervising producer for 'The Colbert Report.' Her job is to book the guests on that show. Stephen Colbert--and rightly so--has high standards for the guests they get... We do a lot of shop talk (in bed). A lot of it revolves around, who should she get for the show and who should I interview for the book?" 

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You can LISTEN to this interview with JONATHAN ALTER, Newsweek editor, MSNBC analyst and author of THE PROMISE: President Obama, Year One, by clicking the audio player above!

  Copyright 2010 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

MORE POLITICAL INTERVIEWS FROM MR. MEDIA RADIO:
Barry Libert (Barack, Inc.)
Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich
Bill Adair (Politifact.com; St. Petersburg Times)
Pete Von Sholly (Capitol Hell)
Jeremy Redleaf (Juneau)
David Andelman (A Shattered Peace)
Brian Michael Jenkins (Will Terrorists Go Nuclear?)
Marty Beckerman (Dumbocracy)
John Amato (CrooksandLiars.com)
Philip Shenon (The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation)
Katy Chevigny (Election Day,” “Deadline,” “Arctic Son)
Chuck Workman and Stephen J. Kern (In Search of Kennedy, Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol, The Source)
Alec Foege (Right of the Dial: The Rise of Clear Channel and the Fall of Commercial Radio)
Tom Leykis (The Tom Leykis Show)
John Amato (CrooksandLiars.com)
Paul Levine (Illegal, Solomon vs. Lord)
Kamran Pasha (Mother of the Believers)
Brian Michael Jenkins (Will Terrorists Go Nuclear?)
Marty Beckerman (Dumbocracy)
David Andelman (A Shattered Peace)
Philip Shenon (The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation)
Chris Matthews (Hardball)
Rob Kutner (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart)
Jim and Maureen Tusty (The Singing Revolution)

Peggy Noonan Calls John McCain’s ‘Dang Fence’ Commercial ‘Desperate’ (Mediaite)

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(Editor's Note: Peggy Noonan is the patron saint of this site; she is the reason we exist!)

The Meet the Press roundtable has some not-so-pleasant things to say about John McCain and his latest “complete the dang fence” campaign commercial.


Said panelist Peggy Noonan after viewing the video: “Yes, oh dang was the worst part. I don’t know its impact, it seems desperate.”

Responded Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, who just published his own book on the 2008 election: “You have to round up and deport his principles in this race? It’s just kind of a sad thing.”

Ouch.

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