I've said before that BAGnewsNotes is one of my favorite sites. Michael of BAGnews recently covered the latest Newsweek cover of photographer Annie Leibovitz, on the occasion of the publication of her new book. Michael dives head on into Newsweek's coverage of the long-term relationship between Leibovitz and the late, great Susan Sontag, with all the schoolgirl-like snickering about this lesbian relationship, which up until recently I don't believe was widely known. He also questions the editorial choice to include a post-mortem picture of Sontag, but that wasn't the aspect of the story that struck me most.
What struck me was the fact that the Newsweek team opted to put Annie Leibovitz on the cover at all. Not that she isn't a brilliant photographer, but because what they had chosen for the cover on the non-American editions.
Think about this. Americans have roughly 150,000 troops currently stationed in the Middle East fighting in a warzone. Each one of them has a mother, father, spouse, sister, brother and/or child home, worrying about them. And what Newsweek thinks will sell far more magazines here is Annie Leibovitz.
How's that for supporting our troops?