The latest issue of Newsweek has a picture of President Obama, and the headline, "Why are Obama's critics so dumb?"
Campaign politics have never been easy or pleasant, and there's way too much negativity. For those who believe the media is supposed to simply report facts as "the fourth estate" in an unbiased and balanced manner, well, that doesn't really happen too often. It's easy to tell from the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal that the famous financial paper leans Republican, just as it's obvious that The NY Times favors Democrats in a far left or liberal way.
But what about a magazine cover? Is it right to say that Americans who criticize the President are dumb? Newsweek is getting a lot of press over this - and you can add this blog article to the mix. There's an old adage that "there's no such thing as bad publicity." I suspect this controversial headline will sell a lot more magazines.
Whether you agree with all of the President's policies, or whether you agree with author Andrew Sullivan's admittedly biased (his words) view, we're wondering how you feel about the headline. By the way, Mr. Sullivan never uses the term "dumb" within the article; it's clearly designed to get readers inside.
So, what do you think?
Ken Greenberg, President and CEO of Long Island advertising agency Austin & Williams, is an expert in all aspects of financial marketing, Predictive Analytics and Geo-Mapping. To read more about Ken, visit his bio section on the A&W Web site.
Comments – 2 responses to “Did Newsweek Go Too Far?”
Care to comment? We’d love to hear your thoughts.
Jan 29, 2012 at 1:29 PM Did Newsweek go too far?
No.
It’s a headline for an opinion piece designed to grab attention and it worked.
The article, as I think you saw, is much more nuanced. It’s about how most criticisms of the president miss the mark, and how many of them are just as provocative and unsupported as that headline, in order for his critics to gain attention and spark action among their constituents.
Sullivan’s criticisms of the criticisms about this president are that the right generally think Obama is too far left, and the left think he’s not progressive enough. The Newsweek writer’s point, whether you agree or not, is that Obama is neither, he’s a pragmatic centrist who was able to achieve quite a bit over the last few years by walking that middle road.
In a period when magazine readership is in rapid decline against the free and instant access to the digital “news” arena – where opinion is more readily available and attention-grabbing than in-depth, fact-checked, and researched reporting – I think it was an incredibly smart decision to use that headline. Suddenly, Newsweek is relevant and part of the national dialog again. So from a public relations business model, the headline worked.
The next question is, did the headline succeed in getting people to read an article that many may have overlooked? I think the fact that your blog is centered on it for the day answers that neatly.
Yes, perhaps a more accurate headline would be “Why are Fear-driven or Manipulative Criticisms of Obama’s Policies and Record So Dumb?” But that just doesn’t seem to have the same ring to it.
Feb 2, 2012 at 3:49 PM Jewill,
Thanks for you comment and observations. Commenting on political pieces is usually not our thing, but this got to the heart of communications and engagement.
Ken