A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

THE COVER FEATURE ON BEARS WILL BE AWESOME: The news that Stephen Colbert will be guest-editing next week's edition of Newsweek strikes me as a good place to jump off and discuss Newsweek's redesign. The editor's letter indicated that the goal was do a weekly version of what traditionally have been monthly magazines--less focused on pure reporting and more focused on giving the readership context and analysis. It's a laudable and sensible idea for a newsweekly to try this in the Internet age, where a weekly "reporting" is invariably behind the times, but the context and analysis needs to be better and more provocative to really work. Also, the design, while not reaching Wired levels of manic-ness, feels overly self-consciously "modern," with curved edges and the like to say to readers--"see, we're now!" It has potential, but it's just not reaching it.