The Photogenic News

Too beautiful not to report? -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Newspapers and magazines (old media) are over a barrel these days. As Time pointed out, they were already suffering from internet sites giving all the same stories and insights away for free. Then the September 2008 market crash did nothing to help matters. The mid-January issue of Time had a scant 56 pages, giving immediate testament to the severity of the problem. Their ads have taken a dive.

Now, along comes President Barack Obama and he is truly a God-send to the magazines, given the dire circumstances. Regardless of your political views, Obama is manna from Heaven for Time and Newsweek. Here is why: he and Michelle are stylish, young, photogenic and even a little bit mysterious. My coworker's 5th grade daughter is an Obamaphile along with her entire class -- she has a stack of news magazines featuring Obama on the cover. How can there be such a blatantly "lookist" phenomenon and what might be the implications?

15 years ago, Lady Diana was the talk of the town. Magazine publishers the world over knew that they could boost sales a lot by putting her face on their covers. Magazines like US and PEOPLE could do it unashamedly -- give the people what they want. The tabloids rejoiced, there was no limit to Di-namic media profits. But serious news magazines had a bigger quandary -- how do we work Lady Di into a legitimate news cover story? There were a few things -- her divorce, work with AIDS and land mines and of course her tragic death. News organizations had to "pump it up" to justify much beyond the headline-quality material. Pump they did, because a Diana cover could sell twice as many magazines in one week.

Now come Barack and Michelle. They are probably the first truly attractive, vibrant, chic couple since the Kennedys 46 years ago. (With all due respect to the Clintons, Reagans and others). Not only do they sell magazines, they're the First Couple of the Free World -- Time and Newsweek can pretty easily justify a cover every other week. This brings me to other knotty questions about the obligation of news outlets in a capitalistic system of news-selling. The top tabloid subjects this week are as follows:

* John Mayer and Jennifer Aniston
* Justin Timberlake
* Britney Spears
* Zac Efron
* Tiger Woods
* Angelina Jolie
* Rhianna
* Octuplets Mom
* Academy Awards
* Oprah Love Triangle (alleged)

These are the topics that engage Americans standing in line at Krogers -- hardly material for Meet the Press. I remember being disappointed that PEOPLE shifted to a tabloid style @ 10 years ago. Then, I realized that they actually had stories about heroism, coping and politics toward the back of the magazine. The truth was "out there" -- it just wasn't glamorous or superficial enough to rate a front page appearance. I've noticed very much the same "lowest common denominator" at work in TV and movies -- see my blog, Television for Dummies.

If you like to read WSJ, UTNE Reader, obscure blogs or Newsweek, you are in the minority in so many ways. Not only are you NOT reading the most popular weekly, you are probably demanding a higher quality of analysis, reporting, news-worthiness and even for that matter, grammar. I have no major, Earth-shaking conclusions here except that true news may end up in the domain of non-profits (think PBS, NPR, church, AARP and charity-affiliated magazines).

The all-mighty dollar is less mighty when it turns America into drooling, tabloid sex junkies that care more about J-Lo's cleavage than they do about the credit crisis. It's a free country, so maybe J-Lo's cleavage should get all the air time that the dollar bill requests. Considering the sad state of our economy, J-Lo is probably helping the economic stimulus. But less exciting things like Citibank nationalization should still find a forum in some medium that doesn't have to tart itself up for space at a Kroger's news stand. In my idealistic mind, I think that such a place must exist -- let's please create it if it's not there already.

© 2009 blogSpotter