Newsweek unveiled its redesign just two weeks ago, but the company is already shaking things up big on the content side. Exhibit A: The June 8th issue will feature political satirist/professional Bill O'Reilly impersonator Stephen Colbert. This is newsworthy for two reasons: 1.) It's the first guest editor in the history of the magazine and 2.) The guest editor is a fake person of sorts -- a persona created by a comedian to mock the right-wing and expose hypocrisy.Editor Jon Meacham told The New York Observer that "I was just very impressed with the range of his knowledge and he had an almost encyclopedic feel for anything that came up. As we think about ways to both inform and surprise readers of the magazine, the notion of having him as a guest editor seemed like a good one."
Will it work? That depends on how you define it: Colbert has enough fans that it will probably generate a spike in sales. The question is whether it makes Newsweek into a joke and harms its reputation. Newsweek says that the real editor will still have some control of the magazine and that Colbert's contributions will include helping design the cover, writing a guest essay, and the Observer adds that Colbert "will play around with columnist's biographies and help pick out pull quotes for stories. There will be a section dedicated to all the unpublished letters to the editor Mr. Colbert has written to Newsweek since he was a kid."
But if that's all it is: an essay and some mildly funny adjustments to biographies, then all this is really is is a transparent publicity stunt -- sticking Colbert on the cover, getting Newsweek some ink, and then delivering a product that isn't all that different.
Regardless of what Newsweek is up to: a real satire issue or a cheap publicity, you only need one word to describe it. Desperate.
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