March 28, 2007

Time Caught in Act of Dumbing Down the News for US Readers

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Blogger Paul Schmelzer has been busy raising questions about some of the nation’s widely read periodicals when it comes to the selection of their cover stories—namely the difference between Time‘s April 2 U.S. and International editions. While the international cover features a story about Pakistani religious extremists filtering across the border of Afghanistan “with the intention of imposing their strict interpretation of Islam on a population unable to fight back,” the US edition of the publication features the story, “The Case for Teaching the Bible.” Schmelzer wonders why Time isn’t giving the U.S. the same edition that the rest of the world is seeing on newsstands. The choice can’t only be about marketing and keeping newsstand sales up in the U.S. Something’s a little fishy here.

This isn’t the first time that a major US news weekly has pulled this trick of presenting the news differently to US readers than it does to the rest of the world. Last September, Newsweek gave international readers a cover story about the Taliban and US readers a cover featuring photographer Annie Leibovitz, in essence replacing with a hard-hitting news story of international importance with a much lighter celebrity piece. In the case of both the Time and the Newsweek cover story cover-ups, the stories were related to coverage of the Taliban. Is marketing getting in the way of the serious news in the U.S.? Or is the media afraid to tell Americans what they don’t want to hear? Only Time can tell.

—Rose Miller

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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