Dumbing Down The News

Time magazine has joined the ranks of Newsweek in deciding that Americans are too stupid to appreciate in-depth reporting on Afghanistan-- a country where we are (supposedly) waging a major war on the Taliban.

Every world edition of Time magazine this week has a cover story on the resurgence of the Taliban-- except the U.S. edition, where we get treated to a blase cover hawking a story on whether the Bible should be taught in public schools (Bible: yes; religion: no-- in my opinion)


The move by Time echoes a similar decision by Newsweek last fall, when they pre-empted a worldwide cover story on Afghanistan with a U.S. celebrity cover of photographer Annie Leibovitz. By the way, Newsweek got "called on the carpet" by Jon Stewart for white-washing the nature of Leibovitz's same-sex partnership in its coverage.