Sign In
SHARE
'New Yorker' Cover: It's Called a Joke, People
Ah, summer. That glorious season when a "controversy" becomes a CONTROVERSY.
By all rights, the flap over The New Yorker's new cover ought to be enclosed in major scare quotes. The cartoon, of Barack Obama as a jihadist and his wife as a Black Panther, sharing a "terrorist fist jab" in the oval office, is clearly meant to stir the pot, in the tradition of iconic New Yorker covers like this one and this one.
But many on the left think the magazine did their candidate a grievous wrong by producing an image that will no doubt be used, unironically, to reinforce the same smears it's trying to send up. And Obama himself is among them: His spokesman called the cover "tasteless and offensive."
The backlash is such that the New Yorker's editor in chief, David Remnick, has already sought to explain himself in a Huffington Post interview.
The truth is, even if The New Yorker did Obama's foes a small favor, so what? Since when is a magazine supposed to worry about how its content will affect the political fortunes of one candidate or another before publishing? And if The New Yorker can't assume some sophistication on the part of its readership, what publication can?
Loading...
Thank you for registering as a Portfolio.com Insider. Your comment has been added.
Create Your Public Profile
- Conde Nast Closing 'Portfolio'
- Apr 27 2009 10:02AM EDT
- Newspaper Circ: 'WSJ' Gains as 'NY Post' Tumbles
- Apr 27 2009 9:32AM EDT
- Idle Chatter: The Prognosis for Newspapers, more
- Apr 27 2009 8:55AM EDT
- Late Breaks: MySpace, NYT, 'New York'
- Apr 24 2009 4:01PM EDT
- Nostalgia, Entitlement and Murdoch's 'Journal'
- Apr 24 2009 4:00PM EDT
- Huffpo's Lerer on the 'New and Better' Journalism
- Apr 24 2009 12:44PM EDT
- Ailes Heats Up Cold Spring with Newspaper War
- Apr 24 2009 12:33PM EDT
- Happy Friday. Now Watch This.
- Apr 24 2009 10:24AM EDT
- Idle Chatter: NPR Cutbacks, Jon Meacham, more
- Apr 24 2009 8:50AM EDT
- Late Breaks: Twitter and the 'Times,' more
- Apr 23 2009 5:59PM EDT
- CNN Partner's Polling Finds CNN Fair, Balanced
- Apr 23 2009 4:10PM EDT
- 'Scientific American' Editor Out in Reorg
- Apr 23 2009 3:19PM EDT
- Idle Chatter: MySpace, Nerve, 'Millionaire,' more
- Apr 23 2009 8:20AM EDT
- Late Breaks: 'Observer' Editor Resigns, more
- Apr 22 2009 4:15PM EDT
- One Marriage, One Memoir, Two Opinions
- Apr 22 2009 2:31PM EDT
Archive
Categories
Links
- Contact Me
- News After Newspapers
- Romenesko
- Gawker
- Ad Age
- WWD's Memo Pad
- Keith Kelly
- NYT Media
- Jon Fine
- TVNewser
- Magazine Death Pool
- HuffPo Media
- Galleycat
- News Hounds
- Newsbusters
- Jezebel
- Editor & Publisher
- Hollywood Wiretap
- The Media Pundit
- FAIR
- I Want Media
- Viral Video
- Nikki Finke
- MediaFile
- The Business Insider
- Paid Content
- Valleywag
- Cover Awards
- Talking Biz News
- SI.com - Richard Deitsch
- Gapper Blog - Media
- Jon Friedman
- Nieman Journalism Lab
- NY Observer media page
- Media Shift
- Tyndall Report
- Media Nation
