Fulfilling the Mission   

Each magazine likes to think it's fulfilling the newsweekly mission better than the other two. "I think what we have done is move the cutting edge of what news magazine journalism is forward," says Maynard Parker. "We were the first to do signed opinions, signed stories, and move to less of a group journalism practice. What I think you get..as well is stronger reporting mixed in with what I think are some of the best analysts in the business [on] politics, foreign affairs [and] science."

The judges of the 1992 National Magazine Awards agreed, at least in part, singling out Newsweek twice that year – once for a special political issue and again for general reporting excellence. And AJR's readers, in the 1993 "Best in the Business" poll, saiù Newsweek offered the best magazine coverage of the Clinton administration. Newsweek's willingness to gamble by jumping on late-breaking covers has had its winners, such as the February 14 issue on the political fallout of the mortar shell that killed almost 70 people in a Sarajevo marketplace. The book was ripped up on a Saturday, the day the shell hit. The gamble has sometimes missed, too, such as the cover portraying Nancy Kerrigan as another "stalking" victim. Tabloid taste has also been evident at times, e.g. the June 27 cover featuring O.J. Simpson's mug shot with the headline, "Trail of Blood."

Jim Gaines doesn't claim Time is doing anything really different, just better. "If you look at our coverage of Whitewater, Waco, any of the big stories that have happened, and compare them with Newsweek and U.S. News," he says, "in my opinion we beat 'em. Not equal, but exceeded." Some of this he attributes to having partially reversed the trend toward reporters doing their own writing. When Gaines took control, he made it clear that for covering breaking news, he wanted correspondents to go back to vacuuming facts for writers in New York. "If you want correspondents to write the piece, you're going to tell them to stop reporting about 18 hours before the piece is due. That is a waste of time, especially when you're a weekly magazine struggling against a lead time."

Time's Waco coverage did carry late-breaking details. (A GQ article referred to "Time's kick-ass, Newsweek-thrashing cover story," an assessment that no doubt pleased Gaines, who was fired from Newsweek because Parker believed he couldn't write hard news.) Time's cover in July 1993 – also crashed on a Saturday morning – about the U.S. rocketing of Baghdad in retaliation for the attempted assassination of George Bush demonstrated Gaines' willingness to rip up the book occasionally. But Time also has been crýticized for its use of photos: staged pictures of child prostitutes in Russia; an old White House stock photo used to suggest President Clinton was worried top aide George Stephanopolous might be indicted in the Whitewater probe; a computer-altered mug shot of O.J. Simpson.

U.S. News, meanwhile, likes to think it is ýoing things differently. Instead of looking for the fresh angle from which to interpret recent events, the Washington-based newsweekly tries to sift last week's news for its implications about the immediate future. As Co-Editor Merrill McLoughlin explains it, "We think of our job [more] as pushing toward the debates to come, well ahead of what's happening this week."

The approach has produced some notable stories: describing Saddam Hussein as the "world's most dangerous man" before many Americans had ever heard of Kuwait; reporting, months before Yasser Arafat stood on the White House lawn shaking hands with Israeli leaders, that the PLO would soon be seeking to make some kind of deal; and presenting facts, two weeks ahead of the competition, showing that reforms in Russia stood no chance despite Bill Clinton's encouragement during his trip to Moscow last winter. Its investigation into the costly failings of special education programs in America prompted congressional action.

But there's also a conservative monotone among the magazine's columnists, offering nothing near to the diversity of opinions found in Time or Newsweek. Nor is U.S. News as likely to track a breaking story with the same intensity as its two competitors, unless the story is the size of the Los Angeles earthquake or the Waco tragedy. Editors insist they are merely avoiding the usual rehash, but one reporter says there has been uncertainty at the top about which breaking stories are likely to sprout legs and therefore merit immediate, substantial coverage.