MAGAZINES

Newsweek To Go All-Obama, All The Time

WASHINGTON (CAP) - As part of its newly unveiled redesign, Newsweek magazine will soon be going to an all-Obama format, according editor Jon Meacham.

"We've already had President Obama on 36 of the last 52 issues, and frankly those were our best sellers during that period," noted Meacham. "Well, those and that one with the Star Trek cover."

Meacham said each issue will feature Obama on the front, and a section of the magazine devoted to the president, called ObaMachinations. "We think it will be one of our most popular features," said Meacham. "Our designers were particularly happy with the capital M in the middle of it."

Included will be a chart called Conventional WisdObaMa, where the magazine rates the president's latest moves with up or down arrows. "Mostly up," admitted Meacham.

Also, the Obama's Turn column will feature Obama's own words, mostly excerpted from one of his books. "He wrote two, you know," said Meacham. "I have several copies of each if you want to borrow one.

"Not the signed ones, though. I have those sealed in Mylar bags," he said.

The Obama section will fall between Scope, the magazine's short opinion-based features, and The Take, which spotlights feature-based opinions. After that will be the Features section, which will contain longer opinion-based features. And if there's room after that, said Meacham, they'll put some news in the back.

"Just to mix it up," he explained.

Meacham also didn't rule out the occasional non-Obama cover, or, more likely, a shared cover. "Ellen DeGeneres has apparently started some kind of campaign to get on there with him," noted Meacham. "If she Tweets me one more time, I swear I'll block her."

At the White House, Obama had no comment other than to say, "Look, I'm happy that Newsweek feels it appropriate to put me on the cover every week, but I assure you, I'm not naive - I know they're doing it to sell magazines.

"Well, and because I'm so darn appealing," he added, cracking a subtle but insouciant smile that Meacham said he's already pegged for an up arrow.