The End of Newsweek
By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Dec 02, 2008 | In Reviews
It was nice while it lasted. For the past year, I’ve been writing occasional commentaries on items I’ve culled from Newsweek for no other reason than it was the source I had chosen to keep up with what the American mainstream is saying. In addition to its news coverage, the magazine offers a range of columnists; it is often interesting; and it provides plenty of grist for the Catholic mill.
But it is time to move on. The last straw was the November 24th issue in which not only did the incredibly shallow Anna Quindlen (Newsweek’s alternating liberal columnist on the back page) crow about the inevitable acceptance of same-sex marriage in “The Love Decision”, but a Newsweek editor also wrote a feature essay on “How Getting Married Made Me an Activist”—getting gay-married, that is. There is only so much venting of aimless and ill-considered personal desire that one can tolerate in a news magazine.
Did I say news magazine? Actually, I’ve learned a thing or two over the past year of subscribership about what constitutes news in at least part of the mainstream these days. Much of the magazine is devoted to health, celebrities, and the movies. To be sure, this accurately represents the preoccupations of many Americans, but it rankles a thinking man to have to pay for it, even if most of the cost of publishing is covered by advertising. Moreover, even when covering the socio-political stories one associates with hard news, Newsweek has a bad habit of filling its pages with data that has been hastily organized to convey some preconceived (and perhaps largely fanciful) theme.
Thus the cover story for the same issue features “Obama’s Lincoln”, with the blurb “The Strength of Humility: Channeling the 16th President”—a classic example of a (perhaps largely fanciful) Newsweek theme. Similarly, most of the major coverage of the candidates in the last election was devoted to figuring out what makes each candidate tick. In each case there was the obligatory effort to organize everything around a master theme, such as John McCain’s frustration at not yet having risen as high as his father and grandfather, with the implication that this is what drove him to seek the presidency. It is, in fact, extremely unlikely that Newsweek’s writers really ever learn what makes a candidate tick. But their characteristic overarching themes give us the feeling that we’re gaining important insight. Truth to tell, we may just as easily be absorbing nothing but a pre-conceived (and, again, perhaps largely fanciful) story line.
Then there’s the studied inclusion of both liberal and conservative columnists in order to suggest a sort of balance. For example, the magazine alternates Anna Quindlen and George Will on the back page. But the liberal columnists, nine times out of ten, simply write emotively to advance their favorite ideas. They tend to be propagandists and little more. The so-called “conservative” columnists seldom have an overarching idea to press; they aren’t so much “conservative” as simply thoughtful and willing to explore complex subjects in some depth. This is a very strange sort of “balance”. You may think this assessment reveals nothing but my own prejudices, but I assure you that both the style and the substance of these columnists are very different.
Of course, it is only fair to admit that Newsweek represents (and may help to shape) the mainstream, but it doesn’t provide a lot of solid food. So next year I’m trying Time instead. It may be a case of “the more things change, the more they remain the same”, but you can expect to find me picking on Time’s columnists in 2009. Still, I’ll stick with it only if there is enough meat. I don’t expect to agree with everything in the mainstream press; far from it. But if I pay my money, I want something more than ill-considered material to attack. I expect to learn something as well. Sadly, Newsweek tends to impart the illusion of knowledge more than knowledge itself. By the end of its year with me, the magazine had failed not only to persuade, but to teach.
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Posted by: Randal Mandock -
Dec. 10, 2018 12:56 PM ET USA
Thank you for illustrating the greatness in Pope Benedict's lifetime of service to the Church in humility. Truly a saint among us. You quoted Von Balthasar: "Ratzinger is sacrificing himself for the Church." Not meaning to cast any aspersions, but would the Church not be better off if more of the Church hierarchy would take on Benedict's humble example and decide to sacrifice themselves for the Church? As you rightly point out, the fact of our baptism as laymen binds us to making this sacrifice.
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Posted by: Jeff Mirus -
Dec. 10, 2018 10:37 AM ET USA
Leopardi: Three points in response. First, I certainly never suggested that the practical administrative measures that ought to be taken should be dispensed with. Second, realistically, there is not a lot most of us can do on that front, except keep demanding it insofar as we have any platform at all. Third, where does the strength come from which enables weak human persons, including bishops and popes, to do good? It comes from grace. And where does the grace come from that animates the Body of Christ as a whole? It comes from Christ--and from all the members of the Body who join themselves to Christ in their own bodies, to make up what is lacking in His sufferings for the sake of His Body the Church (as Paul explains in Colossians 1:24). Sometimes even the orthodox tend toward Pelagianism in our day; the Church cannot be renewed "by us" without that deep sacrificial union which causes grace to abound--not by us, then, unless we join ourselves to Him.
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Posted by: Leopardi -
Dec. 09, 2018 4:39 PM ET USA
I fail to see any meaningful parallel between the false notions of 'liberation theology' and the abuse crisis in the church which as you have so aptly pointed out is more related to an insidious infiltration of homosexuality in the clergy to the extent that this faction has established a real power base that makes eradication very difficult. I doubt that giving up wine and sweets will have an impact here! What's needed here is an authoritative and conspicuous backlash from a "high office"
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Posted by: FredC -
Dec. 07, 2018 9:19 PM ET USA
As the Psalms amply recount, moral wars are won by God's doing, not by man's. (Think Gideon.) So we should call on God for a remedy. However, we must also avoid Quietism -- assuming God will do everything. God usually works through human beings.