The Editor’s Desk

The recent comment that Newsweek was "going in a new direction" made me think about where the magazine should be going.

I have valued for a long time the thoughtful, in-depth coverage of news stories in Newsweek. Newspaper and TV news reporting always provided instantaneous snapshots of the news, but Newsweek gave more context and better explanation of the events. I liked the careful explanations of what was going on, and the background information provided understanding of the events of the day.

I realize that now a lot of print media are struggling financially, and I suppose Newsweek is, too. But I also have to wonder who will report the news in the future. TV network news reporting is becoming more shallow, and most stories without good visuals are usually ignored. Newspapers are becoming increasingly focused on local news and light, happy stories. The Internet just carries repeats of other news outlets. We have more news available to us, but increasingly it is of lower quality. If news outlets stop actually reporting real news, who will tell us what is going on?

Lately, Newsweek has printed very little actual news. The recent airliner landing in the Hudson River, for example, wasn't even mentioned, even though it happened almost on your front doorstep. Instead, Newsweek now publishes just opinion pieces by a variety of columnists. These vary from brilliant and insightful (Fareed Zakaria) to shallow and self-serving (Karl Rove). But whether these pieces are good or not, you are omitting the news.

What direction should Newsweek go? It should continue providing the thoughtful, careful reporting that it historically always has.

The magazine's name is Newsweek, not Opinionweek.

I don't know how I received a subscription to your magazine, It's the last magazine on the face of the planet that I would ever read. All you had to do was put Obama on one cover for me not to ever open one issue of it. There were at least 6 covers with his deceitful face portrayed. Get a clue the man is corrupt everyone he has or has tried to put in his cabinet are corrupt. The Black panthers were scaring people from the polls, who knows how many illegal votes were garnered from ACORN. The amount of money George the looney Clooney raised outside of our borders in Switzerland should have been illegal. This country is in serious trouble all because people like you elected the equivalent of Sanjai from American Idol as your president, He might be very intelligent but he has no common sense or experience. What would you expect from a person who grew up in a welfare state where his education and everything were handed to him. I wish he'd get off the reefer and come to his senses. You can keep sending me the chronicles of Obama and when we become Like Russia I'll use it for toilet paper as I'm very impatient when it comes to standing in line. Gaggingly Jean Munoz

Can assist my inquiries in the following research for school; http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/021609_Pawlowski_Slaying_Investigation
Commissioner Ramsey's interview & FBI meeting to investigate whether violence towards police has a connection with jailhouse muslum extremeist groups and influence while they were in jail? ie. contempt for police authority and possibility of their way to start to infiltrate our country???

Your new business model is wrong. Pure current news with a ???after the dust settles??? perspective is needed now more then ever. The problem with opinionated breaking news as it delivered today is that even with the best reporters the many early facts will be wrong. Due to human nature these first erroneous impressions are the ones that stick. The little corrections a month later are for the most part never read or it goes it in and out of the brain without changing that initial impression. Your new business model will make this bad situation worse for a number of reasons. The YouTubes and blogs of the world will still do opinionated breaking news in a more fresh and entertaining manner then your week old opinions on your new glossy paper. Raising prices during a depression is insane. The elite readers you are targeting have been swindled by Madeoff ,Citibank or themselves and thus are also cutting back spending.. Of course like the elite you are targeting the audience for ???after the dust settles??? news is also niche. They may be people who work or raise a family and don???t have time to have newsweek.com distract them with breaking news from RSS feeds but want a good old fashioned wrapup. So instead of cutting and running and losing your core readership in an attempt to find a new audience who probably exists only in your minds why don???t you do what old line companies that have survived have done. You need to stay with your core mission but do it both improved and updated way. The magazine should come out bi-weekly for an even better long term perspective. Drop distributing the magazine at newsstands. Newsstand delivery is too much expensive to woo a maybe reader. At first your magazine should be delivered both online and to mailboxes with the question revisited in two years. Drop all pop culture and gossip. Hard news and health issues only please. You should greatly expand what you have tentatively started to do recently. In each issue there should be a feature or column dedicated to updating stories that were a big deal at the time but were quickly forgotten. Another feature or column should dedicated to correcting early bad impressions and false reporting