Fall 2005 PDF - Milton Academy

George Hackett ’71What’s aNews Magazine to Do Today?George Hackett has been a senior editorat Newsweek for 13 of his 25 years withthe magazine. During his career, Georgehas edited some of Newsweek’s mostpopular features, including “Periscope,”“Perspectives,” “My Turn” and “ConventionalWisdom Watch.” He has also beenan entrepreneur as well as an editor.George launched both “Cyberscope” and“Focus: On Technology” during the ’90s,before becoming Newsweek’s science andtechnology editor in 1995. Add an earlyperiod writing in the “National Affairs”section, and you have a well-qualified commentatoron the state of news gatheringand reporting in 2005.The agent most responsible for drivingmany of the recent changes in the worldof journalism is the speeding up of thenews cycle, according to George. NetworkTV news and newspapers, not so long ago,were the reliable delivery vehicles for upto-dateand even breaking news within a24-hour news cycle. Today, events explodevisually all over the world, as they happen,on cable and Internet outlets. Furthermore,bloggers broadcast their analyseswithout a pause. The “commentary” onevents accompanies the viewing of them,as they happen in real time.The weekly news magazine fits securelywithin today’s timeframe for news delivery,and has surrendered neither its nichenor its clients, according to George. Newsmagazines offer accuracy: they have thetime and the drive to check facts; andreflection: in a relatively compact format,they can gather, organize and digest majornews events, and questions or trends thatinterest the public. News magazines havevalue-added aspects: color features, opinionand humor, length and context, andportability. People still do like to havesomething physical to hold.Public attitudes toward the press havebeen on a downward track for yearsaccording to the Pew Research Center.George notes that the public seems to feelthat the mainstream media are behind thetimes, and perhaps not transparent; thepublic suspects partisan views may beshaping the coverage. The center’s June2005 survey verifies the recent trend—itshows the public to be critical of the press,yet still favorable in its overall view ofnews organizations themselves. “In fact,the public has long been two-minded inits views of the news media, faulting thepress in a variety of ways, while still valuingthe news and appreciating the productof news outlets,” according to the reportreleased June 26, 2005 [http://peoplepress.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=248].Several issues contribute to the syndromedocumented by the Pew survey, Georgefeels. “There are very few news organizationsthat spend the money necessary togather the news well,” he says. “It’s expensiveand tricky. The network news ratingsare down, and there’s a correspondingGeorge Hackett ’717 Milton Magazine