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Harry Taft commented on Betrayed by the Zeitgeist she once channeled, Tina Brown invokes it one last time

The consideration not discussed here, while dwelling on the reasons for failure of Newsweek, is the deliberate ( not ? ) decision to filter all that is written about through the Liberal/Progressive lens. Vast populations that once read this magazine with an expectation of objective writing came to the conclusion that what was written about was being defined by a political point of view. Since purchase and subscription have to be affirmatively acted upon, many of us decided to look elsewhere for something to inform. Based on generally acknowledged statistics about political points of view, this served to cut the market in half. One statistic I've never seen has to do with what percent of each political point of view are readers, people who seek out sources of information and enlightenment. A great portion of one party is made up of what can be charitably referred to as "low information" types. Promise them anything to get them to vote so power is retained. Again, I don't know what the numbers look like, but I have my suspicions. I think Newsweek and its leaders bet and lost on the size of their potential readership. Practically every publication available to the public has the same point of view and is on the same trajectory. Too bad. Thank God for the internet.

Posted on December 25th, 2012 3:30pm