It's bad enough that the new design of Newsweek came with blatant cover-story campaigning for Joe Biden [1]. Then in the next edition, when it was time for Letters to the Editor, was there any chance of an anti-Biden message being published? No.
In the October 26 edition, there were only four pro-Biden letters hailing his "valiant voice of sanity." But here's where it gets funny: Newsweek ran a chart of its reader mail. Of the letters on the Biden cover, it said 25 percent were positive, 25 percent were neutral, and 50 percent were critical.
Not one of them was worthy? It's like Newsweek is saying: "Stop criticizing our heroes. We're not going to publishing your critical letters anyway."
In fact, this issue ran only seven letters: four for Biden, two criticizing Newsweek for allowing Christopher Hitchens to lament Obama's Nobel Prize, and one generic attack on "the right wing media."
The letter highlighted in large red type said "I'm glad Joe chose a life of service to this nation. And I'm glad Obama chose Joe, especially given his foreign-policy expertise. No typical vice president here."
This is pretty comical stuff from the "news" magazine that published an insulting cover story in 2005 [2] on how George W. Bush was isolated within a bubble of people who agreed with him.
-Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center.