Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author, Anna Quindlen writes Newsweek's popular column, "The Last Word." Photo: Maria Krovatin

In July of 1963, Newsweek became the first major news magazine to put the face of an unknown black American on its cover. The issue amounted to an "unspoken editorial," according to Elliott, and was filled with coverage sympathetic to the civil rights movement. Four years later, in November of 1967, the magazine ran another civil rights editorial. The cover featured a picture of two African-American hands and the tagline, "The Negro in America: What Must Be Done." The cover story questioned traditional notions of journalistic "objectivity." Elliott claimed the article was the first example advocacy journalism by any major magazine." The following year, after the Tet Offensive, the magazine published another advocacy article, this time on the Vietnam War, calling for de-escalation and eventual withdrawal.

In the mid-1980s, Newsweek underwent a major redesign in its on-going attempt to set itself apart from its rivals. It also launched its first foreign-language edition, in Japanese. The 1990s saw the launches of Korean and Spanish/Latin American editions. In 1996, Newsweek entered into an agreement with a Russian publisher to provide material from current issues of the magazine for the first-ever Russian language news magazine. Newsweek further distinguished itself during this period by publishing special issues that provided comprehensive coverage of important news items, historical events, and contemporary ideas.

In the 1990s, Newsweek was one of the first publications to begin distributing its content through new digital technologies. It was the first newsweekly to introduce a quarterly CD-ROM version, a move that Wired magazine called "Big Media's most valuable accomplishment to date." In 1994, the magazine became available online and, in 1998, Newsweek.com became available on the World Wide Web with extensive archival material and daily updates. By the end of the century, Newsweek also had four regional editions (Atlantic, Asia, Latin America, and Australia) and 22 bureaus around the world.

Over time, Newsweek has become the least traditional and serious of the three major newsweeklies, with U.S. News and World Report on the other end of the spectrum, and Time somewhere in between. Newsweek is lighter, more oriented toward lifestyle and celebrity coverage, and more likely to publish stories with an emotional component.

In a study of cover stories, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that between 1977 and 1997 there was a clear decline in Newsweek's coverage of government and domestic and foreign affairs. "Softer" news areas such as health, science, and entertainment, increased as cover subjects. During those 20 years, Newsweek's coverage of entertainment and lifestyle issues took up 37 percent of its space compared 31 percent at Time and only 6 percent at U.S. News. These lifestyle stories covered a range of activities, including sports, travel, religion, cooking, health issues, and the arts and popular culture.

According to another study, Newsweek's pages devoted to national affairs dropped by 25 percent from 1980 to 2003. The number of pages assigned to international news also decreased significantly after the fall of communism, but in 2003 rose to 1980 levels, due largely to the public's revived interest in world affairs after September 11th and the war in Iraq.

Special attractions

Given the fact that Newsweek was the first of the newsweeklies to offer columns with bylines, it comes as no surprise that certain of its columns have become popular institutions. For more than 50 years, the "Periscope" column has presented a background perspective on the week's news. But the magazine's most distinctive element is probably the "My Turn" column, which stands apart as the only newsweekly column written by a publication's readers. As a sign of the column's popularity, Newsweek receives more than 600 "My Turn" essay entries per month, publishing only one each week.

Written March 12, 2006 exclusively for MagsDirect.com. All right reserved.

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