Saturday, November 26, 2011

Time and Newsweek magazine covers, U.S. vs. rest of world

This recent comparison has been making the rounds:


As have a few other recent examples:


But this has gone on for many years.  A few others from a few years back:

I suspect the weekly news magazines are simply basing their cover decisions on what sells in the U.S.  Sad.

3 comments:

Michael C. Rush said...

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Eamon Knight said...

What, you mean: Americans are insular, and want their media to tell them about the rest of the world only insofar as it affects themselves?*

I could have told you that, simply based on frequent trips down there over the past 30 years, comparing what was on TV news to the typical content of the CBC.

* Present company excepted, of course.

jz said...

Just a minor quibble: Living here in Taiwan, I recognize most of the Asian edition Time magazine covers, but for some reason, for the October 3, 2011 issue, we got the US cover too. Maybe their local marketing is a bit more complex than just US vs. the world.

But your larger point still holds, of course. You can see this with CNN too - whenever CNN International shows a US-produced show, the drop in IQ and increase in dB are palpable.