I’m no fan of oversimplifying the decision-making process that guides news coverage or promotion thereof, let alone promulgating conspiracy theories, but I have to ask about this:
Why wasn’t Michael Isikoff’s investigative piece outlining the lobbying connections of Barack Obama’s lead strategist, David Axelrod, promoted in Newsweek’s Sunday e-mail to subscribers?
Below right, I’ve cropped the article descriptions from this list for purposes of formatting this post, but I have not removed any of the articles. Although Isikoff’s report appears in the same June 2 issue of Newsweek as the stories, it is nowhere to be found here. 
And it should be, especially considering that the first four articles listed are all generally pro-Obama in their tilt and three are explicitly framed as advice for candidate Obama. The other four articles cover minor issues such as Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy and John McCain.
What happened? One slim possibility is that the article is online-only and thus not eligible for inclusion in a round-up of magazine stories. But this seems not to be the case, as the screen capture indicates, both types of stories are included.
Another may be that Isikoff’s story was put to bed late, and not yet finalized when the feature-heavy e-mail was compiled. Possible, but if so not an adequate defense. Like last November, when WashingtonPost.com erroneously reported positive developments in the condition of Redskins safety Sean Taylor after he was already deceased, there is no excuse for not making e-mail alerts as timely as possible.
One more reason could be that Isikoff’s article is short, perhaps taken from the front of book section that is also home to Perspectives and the up-down-sideways Periscope arrows (if you can’t guess, this week Obama is up, Hillary is down and McCain is sideways). But that doesn’t make any sense, either. As the e-mail alert says,
Dear NEWSWEEK Subscriber,
Welcome to another edition of Political Perspectives, the subscriber-only e-mail newsletter previewing and highlighting NEWSWEEK’s coverage of the political world, in print and online. This week, Evan Thomas writes what an Obama adviser might say to the candidate about how to address the issue of race on the campaign trail. Elsewhere, Holly Bailey pores through John McCain’s just-released health records and Jonathan Alter looks at the lessons we can learn from Hamilton Jordan and Ted Kennedy.
It goes on like that, but there’s no mention of Isikoff or Axelrod. As the e-mail announces, it is not merely a list of their top features but the magazine’s “coverage of the political world, in print and online.” How does Isikoff’s reporting not fall into that category?
Surely there’s an explanation I haven’t ridiculed, and surely that will be their justification. I’m not the first to suggest that Newsweek specifically is in the tank for Obama, but I think I am the first to suggest that Newsweek is burying scoops that are problematic for him.
No matter, the Isikoff story still made it into the blogosphere. But as far as I can tell, only conservative blogs mentioned it. Even TalkLeft, which remains Clinton supporter central, hasn’t picked it up. One wonders how much further it might have traveled if the magazine had deployed its considerable PR assets on the story’s behalf.
The simple answer: they’re in the tank for Obama.
Nah, they couldn’t be in the tank for Obama right? It’s not like they’ve ever carried a candidate before? Oh wait, they did back in 2004 for Kerry. They published that nice investigative piece on Kerry right AFTER the election, not before. Isikoff just jumped the gun. This was supposed to come out in the Nov 15, 2008 Issue not the Jun 2, 2008 issue.
It was the editor of Newsweek who, in 2004, said that he figured the media coverage of John Kerry would be worth a 15-point bounce in the election returns. He wasn’t ashamed of the idea, either; it sounded like just the opposite. Evidently, Newsweek is doing its best to provide Obama with the same gift this time around.
I’m more amazed that you found someone who still subscribes to NEWSWEEK.
Boy, Isikoff has had to spike some of his top stories, including his Lewinsky story (only to be scooped by Drudge) and now his Obama scoop. Must suck.
Applying Occam’s Razor, it appears that Newsweek is in the tank for Obama.
Nice work getting featured on Memeorandum!
Re: your post, another possibility: that the relevant editors, upon review, determined correctly that Isikoff’s piece is not the “scoop” it first seems. The article’s title notwithstanding, Isikoff doesn’t claim in the text to have uncovered a lobbyist in Obama’s campaign or in Axelrod’s company– only something that “may soon get more scrutiny”. He doesn’t refer to CORE as a lobbying effort, but instead employs the euphemism “a creative lobbying approach”. He’s referring to an ad campaign. Then, buried within the article is the information that neither Axelrod nor his partners registered as lobbyists, that they were not required to do so under Illinois law, and that Axelrod contends that he has “never lobbied anybody in [his] life”. While that leaves room for cynics to speculate that Axelrod is lying– or, less dramatically but more specifically, that an intersection of his corporate and his political consulting work constitutes or has constituted a conflict of interest– Isikoff’s article still falls short of establishing such.
Hi there,
I’m glad that you covered the Newsweek story. I (a Hillary supporter) also covered it at Buck Naked Politics (and cross posted at No Quarter). My post is called “More Hypocrisy and Misleading Statements from Obama Campaign.”
http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/bucknakedpolitics/2008/05/barack-obama-sa.html#more
That cover story on Obama is pretty offensive in it’s overwhelming pro Obamaness.
Are we ready for Obama as president is the type of typical liberal guilting of voters into voting for their guy I expect these hacks to try and do all the way up to the election. Nevermind asking a more serious question, like is Obama READY to lead us?
NEWSWEEK has long been in the tank for liberal causes and Democrat candidates. I’ve talked to their writers and read their articles. It’s pretty said.
@Bryan Roberts
Are you calling Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation a liar? Because it seems to me she is calling you disingenuous.
Isikoff’s piece is carefully reported, not at all disputed, and yet you think nothing of Newsweek’s non-promotion of it?
Time to get those rose-colored glasses cleaned, my friend.
I’m pretty sure my comment was even-handed. Isikoff thoroughly established that Axelrod has been a consultant for corporate as well as political clients throughout his career, which is completely groundbreaking news, since no one has ever noted that before.
It’s one thing to disagree with the argument that a closer look at a given article reveals that it doesn’t add up to the supposed sum of its parts. Dismissing such an argument as something necessarily borne of an unwillingness/ inability to look at things– I assume this is what the term “rose-colored glasses” refers to– strikes me as sort of counterintuitive.
There’s no reason for me to get personal with Ellen Miller, to whom I’ve never spoken, and she seems reasonable enough to show the same courtesy to others. She’s making a strong argument for the perspective that we ought to use the term “lobbying” to refer to a broader set of activities than we traditionally do, to include the consulting activity that seeks to manage public perception. That can be argued on its own merits.
I’d be interested to know, for instance, whether the “medical experts” in the scenario she mentions were to be compensated in any way. I’d also like to learn whether any of Axelrod’s political clients were in positions to affect the outcome of his corporate clients’ policy initiatives at the time he was working for them. Would I need to express a certainty, without seeing any additional reporting, that the answer to these questions was affirmative, in order to not be called disingenuous?
<p>@Bryan</p>
<p>I can see that you’d like to drag this discussion off into the weeds at as great a length as possible. </p>
<p>For the record, I think all of the "lobbyist" gotcha is annoying and even a distraction. But since Obama and McCain have already both disdained the influence of money in politics, it’s only fair to subject them to this kind of scrutiny.</p>
<p>And when Newsweek has relevant reporting, it should promote such a story with the same diligence as its Obama cheerleading.</p>
Thank you for this piece. It needs to be reposted, to keep it high in the public’s consciousness. I noticed this too–after seeing a momentary reference to the article in RealClear Politics, it was for all practical purposes “scrubbed” from RCP, and in no time Newsweek was promoting the June 9th edition online. Thanks again!