How 'Newsweek' Facelift Is an About-Face

See, kids, this is why you resist the urge to talk smack about your competitors.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Newsweek is set to undergo a major makeover, one that will result in "a slimmer publication" with "more photos and opinion inside its pages." And, yes, there will be more job cuts, and a big reduction in circulation, although not quite as big as the 1.6 million copies Folio reported.

Now for the irony: When Newsweek unveiled its last redesign, a little over a year ago, editor Jon Meacham used the occasion to take some not-so-subtle shots at Time, which had opted for the more-photos-and-opinion course a few months earlier.

"Some people in our business believe print should emulate the Internet, filling pages with short bites of information," Meacham wrote in his editor's letter. "We disagree. The simple idea behind our new look, which launches in the issue you are holding, is that you want to read more, not less. Other media outlets believe you just want things quick and easy. We think you will make the time to read pieces that repay the effort."

To be sure, Meacham won't cop easily to charges of emulating the internet even now. Instead, he'll talk about how Newsweek is focusing on being "provocative," on leading the discussion instead of following it with excessively high-concept cover packages.

But the math is simple: You can't publish a slimmer magazine with more photos and more opinion without sacrificing long, reported pieces (at least not without resorting to nano-fonts). And that's too bad -- Newsweek's massive special election report was one of the best pieces of long-form journalism I've read this year.

But it's reality. Magazines do have to become more like the internet -- at least the ones that compete in areas, like news, where the internet has a natural advantage. Time recognized that first. Newsweek is playing catch-up.