Is Tina Brown serious about Newsweek anymore?
Yesterday, my colleague Joe Pompeo called up Newsweek to ask whether the company was planning to issue any corrections or clarifications of Niall Ferguson's cover story, "Hit the Road Barack," in which countless manipulations and outright misrepresentations are marshaled in favor of an argument against Barack Obama's reelection.
Newsweek issued him the same statement they've been issuing everyone, without elaboration: "Niall Ferguson has responded to Paul Krugmans critique. Newsweek continues to monitor the debate."
Make no mistake about what is happening here. Tina Brown is dressing up Ferguson's failure as a provocation and conversation-starter. The problem is that this is not the kind of conversation Brown means to start.
Brown's theory of buzz has been expounded at such length over the years that to hear it again or describe it again would just feel like a PCP hangover. The point is that Brown wants her magazine to be talked about.
*snip*
In fact the reactions are, in the majority, blistering and critical. Some words in the headlines responding to Ferguson's piece, and his later, pissy defense of it: "unethical," "lies," "embarrassing," "ridiculous," "absurd," "very bad."
The defenses of the piece are hardly even defenses, and come from corners of the web, with the exception of Forbes, that can scarcely comfort Brown: Hotair.com, American Thinker.
The negative reviews are from The Atlantic, The New York Times, Slate, Business Insider, and Politico, among others.
*snip*
Yesterday, my colleague Joe Pompeo called up Newsweek to ask whether the company was planning to issue any corrections or clarifications of Niall Ferguson's cover story, "Hit the Road Barack," in which countless manipulations and outright misrepresentations are marshaled in favor of an argument against Barack Obama's reelection.
Newsweek issued him the same statement they've been issuing everyone, without elaboration: "Niall Ferguson has responded to Paul Krugmans critique. Newsweek continues to monitor the debate."
Make no mistake about what is happening here. Tina Brown is dressing up Ferguson's failure as a provocation and conversation-starter. The problem is that this is not the kind of conversation Brown means to start.
Brown's theory of buzz has been expounded at such length over the years that to hear it again or describe it again would just feel like a PCP hangover. The point is that Brown wants her magazine to be talked about.
*snip*
In fact the reactions are, in the majority, blistering and critical. Some words in the headlines responding to Ferguson's piece, and his later, pissy defense of it: "unethical," "lies," "embarrassing," "ridiculous," "absurd," "very bad."
The defenses of the piece are hardly even defenses, and come from corners of the web, with the exception of Forbes, that can scarcely comfort Brown: Hotair.com, American Thinker.
The negative reviews are from The Atlantic, The New York Times, Slate, Business Insider, and Politico, among others.
*snip*
