Time Warp: Magazine Award Finalist for Offensive Iwo Jima Cover
How do you get nominated for a magazine award? Do something that offends almost everyone and tears down an American icon at the same time. Even better, claim you were just trying to get “attention.”
That’s certainly the strategy Time magazine deployed and they are seeing the benefits. Time’s persistent global warming hype led it to run a cover photo of the Marines raising the flag at
The cover, skewered by veterans, critics and even the National Press Photographers Association, was just nominated for an award from the American Society of Magazine Editors. Time was even picked as a 2008 Best Cover Concept Finalist for the design – competing with The New Yorker, Wired and Vanity Fair.
The controversy began with the April 28 issue when Time doctored the famous
Veterans were outraged. Donald Mates, an
Time managing editor Richard Stengel appeared on MSNBC April 17 to defend the magazine. He said the
“[O]ne of the things we do in the story is we say there needs to be an effort along the lines of preparing for World War II to combat global warming and climate change,” Stengel said.
But Stengel said the cover was about advocacy in a later appearance. He openly defied the traditional notion that journalists should be unbiased. “I didn’t go to journalism school,” Stengel said. “But this notion that journalism is objective, or must be objective is something that has always bothered me – because the notion about objectivity is in some ways a fantasy. I don’t know that there is as such a thing as objectivity.”
He made those comments at the
He also admitted he understood the image might be offensive. “Yes, absolutely,” Stengel said, reacting to a question if he thought some might be offended by the cover. “I certainly hear that some people would be offended by it. Obviously many people have – were offended by it. But I do think, and I have made this case and I’ve made the case to people who have talked about it, is that climate change and we can even discuss the merits of it or not – climate change is going to affect every living human being.”
In response to the cover, the
More than 33,000 signatures were collected for the petition, which called for immediate action by Time. The petition condemned the liberties the magazine took in addressing global warming:
MRC President Brent Bozell sent a letter dated April 23 to Time Managing Editor Richard Stengel also denouncing the magazine’s use of the photo and the absence of an apology from Stengel.
