Look: I used to read Newsweek. And as it turned out, me reading Newsweek inevitably resulted in me writing the occasional, angry blog post criticizing their journalistic decisions. About a year ago, however, I subscribed to TIME, and -- although you deserve due congratulations for pulling in a new print subscriber in this Age of Internets -- you have consequently replaced your competitor as the easy target of my news-oriented scrutiny.
Thus far, though, you've had it pretty easy. I even defended you, several months ago, when Jon Stewart criticized you for running a cutesy Valentine's week cover in the U.S. the same week you ran a much more respectable-looking cover for your international markets. I generally enjoy reading your articles; I often learn things; and I always try to give you the benefit of the doubt, despite the fact that you keep letting Joel Stein write your pithy "Last Word" articles, even though he's not nearly as funny as he seems to think he is.
This week, per usual, I got my issue of TIME in the mail. The cover story is, "The Next Leader of the Unfree World: Why China's Xi Jinping will be the new President who really matters."
Looking at the glossy front page, I had a strange sensation of deja vu, as if I'd seen the exact same cover before. Lucky for me, I've taken to creepily hoarding all my back-issues of TIME rather than throwing them out, so I was able to quickly sift through every magazine I'd been sent over the last year to help me figure out why the cover seemed so familiar. It didn't take long for me to solve the mystery.
Weird, right? You use the exact same overexposed, Hell-themed cover style practically every time your cover story is about Asia or the Middle East!* Even more coincidentally, you only use this distinctive stylization technique when talking about China or the Arab Spring -- no other cover in the past year looks like this.
...Hold on -- that's not quite right. Actually, there were exactly two other issues over the last year that used a similar cover design strategy:
Here's the thing, TIME: I'm totally cool with it if you want to try and persuade me, with words, that merely thinking about China and the Middle East should engage my fight-or-flight response, as long as you do so in the clearly marked editorial and opinion sections of your magazine. There, mired in the usual hotbed of conflicting opinions, you can go ahead and let your fear-mongering prejudices fly, at which point I can evaluate your rhetoric and figure out whether or not you fit my Abnormal Psychology class's definition for clinical paranoia. But this? Subliminal messaging? You're better than that, TIME. Don't make me go and take my subscription money to to Atlantic Monthly.
*I say "practically every time" and not "every time" because your issue featuring the PM of Israel has a normal-colored portrait on the cover. Also, I'm deliberately excluding your "Escape from Syria" cover story as part of this list, because the story is more about the featured American photographer than it is about Syria/Syrians.
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