Cancelled my Newsweek this morning...

[Hobarticus]

Told them I didn't want their cowardly apologist rag at my door, again.

I've been thinking about it for some time. I wanted another viewpoint, a MSM perspective if you will, but last week the cover story was "100 Best High Schools in America". WTF? To paraphrase Rummy: "people are dying!" What do I care what Pigsknuckle High in Toad's Hollow or wherever ranks? What does that do to meet their obligations as journalists?

It's a crap mag that's 75% "Special Advertising Section", with some good columnists that I can read elsewhere. Buh-bye.

I've got The Nation, Harper's, Mother Jones, Common Dreams, Truth Out, Jon Stewart, and DU...that's about as much of the media as I trust, right now, anyway.

[derby378]

1. Don't forget the BBC

Like Louise Slaughter said last night on Keith, if we can't trust the British, who can we trust?

Got a song for you, BTW:

Newsweek got the story "wrong"
Newsweek got the story "wrong"
Did the Qu’ran hit the john?
Did the Qu’ran hit the john?
Here’s a lie you can’t retract
Here’s a lie you can’t retract
"WMDs are in Iraq"
"WMDs are in Iraq"
Sound Off
Bush Lied
Three, Four
Troops Died
Sound Off
No one died when Clinton lied
KARL ROVE!

[Stuckinthebush]

2. It's been a "craprag" for years

I had the thing delivered to me in college back in the 80's. I remember reading it one day and saying to myself, "This is useless garbage".

Good for you. Enjoy your new subscriptions to some non-craprags!

[tx_dem41]

3. Good list of media sources....

I gave up on the national weeklies (Time, Newsweek, USN&WR) a few years ago. To your list I would add The New Yorker and opendemocracy.org.

[katinmn]

4. Newsweek can flush themselves down a toilet

They should have never caved in.

Neither truth or dissent are tolerated in this country.

Who will take a stand?

[chelsea0011]

5. I perused the top 100 HS and noticed that many are from states

that rank near the bottom in statewide test scores and education like Texas which Al Frankin has mentioned is ranked 47th. So what give here with so many schools located in Texas and especially in Dallas? These schools must be exam schools that siphon off the best for "private" education. Did the article mention how many and which schools charge admission fees? One school from my home state of Massachusetts was a school in Worcester. Trust me. There are great schools in Massachusetts.

[Hobarticus]

12. That story just struck me as so bizarre, hackneyed,

and out of place, too, for those very reasons.

[tx_dem41]

13. Living in Dallas, I can answer that.

One of the schools is Highland Park HS. Highland Park is its own city/town surrounded by Dallas. Its is where the richest of the rich in the area live. So their tax revenues per student are huge.

The other two schools were actually in the Dallas ISD. One is a magnet school for science and engineering. It has a fine reputation within the school district, and I definitely wouldn't denigrate it as an "exam school". WT White HS is in the North Dallas, but it has a fairly diverse school population mixed between Anglo and Hispanic, although it probably has the largest % of Anglos than any other high school in the district.

[Midlodemocrat]

6. I just renewed my subscription.

I don't think they are the bad guys here. Rovian tactics at work, again.

I don't think they should have retracted the story, nor do I think they should have apologized, but in light of bits of the story we are getting, I really don't think they are to blame.

Plus, I love Anna Quinlen

[Hobarticus]

9. Anyone who'd cave to The Man IS The Man, in my book...

Can't blame their spinlessness on Rove. I agree that they aren't the bad guys here...but they shouldn't have caved. This story has been bopping around for years...they finally brought it to light.

They have an obligation to stand tall, and they took the opposite tack. Novak and O'Reilly do a lot worse with their facts, and don't retract anything, ever.

I love Anna too. I'll find her elsewhere, though.

[Midlodemocrat]

14. Well, you have a point.

I do like the magazine, though, and have found it to be the least right leaning of all the MSM mags.

I think there has to be more to this story about why they retracted this. The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a story about a year ago indicating that the Koran was being put in the toilet.

For my money, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the guards were forcing the prisoners to use pages of the Koran as toilet paper. Any human who is capable of the kind of abuse at Abu Ghraib is capable of just about anything.

Plus the BFEE doesn't see Muslims as human. Don't forget what Barbara said 'why should I fill my beautiful mind with stuff like that?'. Yeah, stuff like that. People dying. You complete POS.

[Hobarticus]

16. Zactly. I also agree there's a lot more to this

I think the DoD's upset that their pattern of abuse is getting so much exposure. Newsweek just happened to write the wrong article at the wrong time, and DoD decided to sic the dogs on them with a couple phone calls.

Again, it could have been any mag. My displeasure with Newsweek runs deeper than this, this was just the icing on the cake.

[in_cog_ni_to]

7. Good for you! I canceled Newsweek when I learned Michael Isakoff was

working behind the scenes with the likes of Ann, the man, Coulter, Brit Hume and Richard Melon Scaife to get dirt on the Clinton/Lewinski personal affair. Canceled to never read again. We have many better news resources now that give us the TRUTH instead of government propaganda.

[Hobarticus]

11. Zactly!

[w4rma]

8. You should have canceled them a while ago, imho. But not for this. (nt)

[Hobarticus]

10. Just the final nail in their coffin, for me

And if I can't respect them, I can't trust them.

[Last Lemming]

15. That's exactly the wrong thing to do

Every conservative in this country is flushing THEIR subscription down the toilet. You've just sided with them.

There was a reason they went after Newsweek--it actually had broken a few interesting stories (no specifics come to mind but I remember being surprised that a couple of important pieces came from good old Newsweek.) Hence high placement on the Rovian shit list. You should write to them and explain that you understand they've just been rat fucked by the master and you regret they took the yellow way out but you would support them for good future reporting.

Rove wants everyone mad at Newsweek, the right the left, and he's getting it. Don't give him the pleasure of your complicity.

[Hobarticus]

17. From a leftist POV, Newsweek has dropped the ball for a long time...

And as a consumer, it's not my job to handhold Newsweek until they feel better about themselves for caving to big bad Rove. They're goddamned journalists. They shouldn't be afraid of anybody.

I can follow any one of DU's link to a single blogger or website with more backbone. I can't respect them, and I can't trust them.

I'm not mad. Mad people stay. Disgusted people walk away.