TIME Doesn’t Want to Bore You With Real News

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This never gets old. When America’s venerable newsweeklies don’t think Americans can handle the truth — see Newsweek‘s work on global warming and losing Afghanistan — they put real reporting on their international covers and soft-peddle the U.S. with all sorts of nonsense.

And if you’re going with nonsense, why not the nonsense that Americans love most — pop theology. According to Folio magazine, a cover featuring Jesus or the Bible can raise single-issue sales by roughly 50%, and as a result TIME and Newsweek frequently try to out-Christian one another on consecutive weeks. (See “Jesus, What a Cover!” from the Dec/Jan 2006 issue of Mother Jones.)

So, yeah. This week it’s TIME serving up “The Case for Teaching the Bible” to Americans, and “Talibanistan” to its international audience. As Wonkette puts it, “Americans get the special-ed stories.” I don’t know if I should be disgusted with and embarrassed by the magazine editors who made this decision, or the magazine readers whose tastes they are clearly pandering to.

Oh, and check out Rose’s thoughts on Mother Jones‘ Arts and Culture blog, The Riff.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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