Magazine Content

U.S. News and World Report: The world presented in U.S. News’s May 23 issue is heavier than the one in Time and Newsweek. Dave Chappelle doesn’t appear. Neither do the runners-up from The Apprentice. There are more stories, and more weightier topics, than in the other traditional news weeklies. The magazine is also written in a more direct, “hard news” style; anecdotal leads appear, but not as often. Still, even here there is no attempt to recap the week, but simply to focus on issues editors believe important. U.S. News’s editors seem more interested in a hard-news agenda — from stories on shipping terrorists overseas for interrogation to an article on the dangers of life in the commercial fishing business.

Of the three traditional news weeklies in this week, U.S. News covers the greatest number of the “big stories” from May 11 in its 96 pages. Most get short treatment. A large piece about the spike in violence in Iraq includes information about the security forces being attacked. The United Airlines strike winds up a brief, as do North Korea’s nuclear aspirations, fused with information about Iran’s nuclear gambit. King Tut gets a very brief four-line photo caption under what was basically a mug shot of the boy king. It is a no-nonsense issue of a no-nonsense magazine.

Cover — The image is a large picture of a slot machine and the words “You Lose” in between two sevens. The story? “Secrets of the Casinos, How new tricks and technology give the house a winning edge.” In the top left corner of the cover a stern secretary of defense looks down to tease a story about “Rumsfeld’s Lean, Meaner Military.”

The eight-page cover package is markedly different from recent examinations, in other news weeklies, of Vegas as racy cultural phenomenon. The stories here look at the unsexy side of gambling. In fact, one could make the argument that the report fits in with the magazine’s “news you can use” focus. It is decidedly negative and something of a warning about the dangers of gambling. The opening photo is not of showgirls or fountains, but a four-column close-up of a pair of hands pushing the buttons on a slot machine — the gambler’s “courtesy card” tethering her to the machine. The stories reveal that while gambling has become a hot pastime, with poker becoming particularly popular, the odds against winning are getting longer. The package explains how casinos use reward cards to gather data on gamblers in microscopic detail, and includes a piece on gambling addiction. Pictures play a role in the presentation, but they are not of the same emotive quality as the shots in Time and Newsweek.

The article teased on the cover is a five-page story about Donald Rumsfeld’s restructuring of the military and impending base closures. It is a straightforward roundup look at Rumsfeld’s efforts to make the military “nimbler” and how base realignment fits with those plans. The conclusion? “It is easy to talk about making the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines work together more closely. It is more difficult to make it happen.”

Other pieces — U.S. News groups its national and international sections together as “Nation & World.” As a result, readers bounce around a bit. Following Rumsfeld is a one-page piece on the spike in suicide attacks in Iraq, followed by a two-page piece on the U.S. practice of shipping terrorist suspects overseas for interrogation, followed by a “Letter from New York” on efforts to rebuild Ground Zero. Finally, Gloria Borger has a one-page “On Politics” column that looks at the perils of one party’s controlling the executive and legislative branches at the same time — there’s a lot of blame that can be heaped on the party.

The issue wanders into areas untethered to news of the week, but they are not necessarily light. A 24-page “Executive Edition” insert includes content tailored to the socio-economics of the magazine’s readers. There is medical news (about a hospital company that specializes in heart disease), along with some business news (a story about online stock trading companies) and some lifestyle news (a piece about buying wine) among others. And the issue offers a special four-page report on the dangers of commercial fishing: fishermen have the most dangerous jobs in America after loggers.

Many short items appear in the front and the back of the magazine. The opening pages feature Washington Whispers, a two-page section with lighter briefs on politics, on John McCain’s book “Faith of My Fathers” being made into a movie, and an item about Egg McMuffins being passed out a White House meeting to celebrate Chief of Staff Andy Card’s birthday. Next comes the White House Week page, which walks readers through some of the week’s more standard Washington fare: The state of the highway bill, the potential for departures of justices from the Supreme Court and how the new director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, is planning to reform the nation’s intelligence apparatus. After that the magazine still has a three-page section of briefs from the week featuring, among other things, a piece on the Newsweek Koran flap, John Bolton’s nomination to be U.N. ambassador, North Korean nuclear tensions, and the filibuster showdown in the Senate.

In the back of the magazine, following the gambling cover story, comes a series of short money and health items along with pieces on a range of topics — two pages on St. Augustine’s legacy, two pages on inner-city youngsters at elite colleges, two pages on animal hibernation — and columns from Lou Dobbs, John Leo and David Gergen.

In all there are 22 stories of a page or more in the May 23 issue, which means even with a shorter page count, it has, by far, the most long pieces (Time had 13 and Newsweek about 17).

In short, U.S. News seems the most serious, sober-minded of three main news weeklies. But it also seems bound by tradition. There is more news here, and less attitude, but also not much innovation of the kind found in some of the more serious alternatives that follow.