Wait, we’re confused. The celebrity magazines going wild over Princess Kate’s pregnancy are spreading some tales too tall for comfort. What’s a checkout browser to do?
The Life & Style cover gushes, “It’s Twins!” Huh? Its cover photo of the hugging couple then backs away with a smaller headline explaining, “The Signs that Reveal . . .” Those signs, it reports in a four-page spread inside, amount to a single hunch dug up from a “board-certified obstetrician Dr. Dave David,” hometown unknown. There appears to be no Dr. Dave David, or a Dr. David David in the UK treating the royal family. One doctor by that name identifies himself on his website as a media personality, plastic surgeon, gynecologist and obstetrician to a number of US stars. He says Princess Kate’s bout of acute morning sickness “is a lot more prevalent when someone is having twins.”
Maybe all the magazines got it wrong about Kate, because US Weekly, the most pricey of the four, at $4.99, splashes that Kate has already had the baby! At least it seems so, judging from its dramatic cover: “Kate Rushed to Hospital” BABY AT LAST!” Three sidebar articles further support the happy event, e.g., “William’s Emotional Bedside Vigil,” “How They Told Their Families,” and “Inside Their New London House.” But perhaps, to be fair, worried editors upon hearing a scant rumor of Kate checking into a hospital — and aware of pregnancy rumors — staged a pseudo scoop to cover all bases just in case Kate had indeed been pregnant longer than anyone knew. Nah, it’s probably just a tease to get more eyeballs. Total number of Kate and/William photos: eight.
InTouch throws a knuckler: Its cover, “Finally! They’re Both Pregnant,” gives radiant Jennifer Aniston equal prominence to Princess Kate, leading readers to believe the events are somehow linked. Did they write? E-mail? Text? A three-page spread inside doesn’t say, but the package does trump talk of twins with talk of multiple births, quoting Dr. Peyman Banooni of Beverly Hills that Kate’s case of vomiting “has been linked to multiple births.” InTouch also scooped itself. On page 52 is a full-page shot of Kate modeling her new bangs with a caption, (“Kate and William are expected to make a big announcement very soon!) Yep, it’s on pages 24-27.
Editors at People missed their stop. The mag’s cover photo is identical to the pale cover shot on Life & Style, the one showing a mousy grin on William. Indeed, the two rival covers are almost identical, including photo strips. People’s cover blurb has little pep, just, “Princess Baby Drama,” and it buries twins speculation in a small word bubble almost unnoticed, “Could It Be Twins?” People atones for its blandness with an almost scholarly 10-page spread on the upcoming event, with 44 photos showing everything from the line of succession to how royals are raised.
This week’s New Yorker is an odd holiday grab bag. Harvard prof Louis Menand airily floats the idea of banning homework, showing scant effort to substantiate his thesis. Zadie Smith says she hated Joni Mitchell for years before realizing what a genius she was, as if this were some kind of unusual phenomenon. And wrapping up an 18-page exposé on the US government’s Cold War testing of chemical weapons on American soldiers, the reporter tells one of the rogue scientists “these were admittedly complex issues,” as opposed to asking, say, whether the hack scientist would have subjected himself or his children to such horrors.
New York’s Frank Rich thinks it’s shameful the way the media let itself be duped by frauds like David Petraeus, Lance Armstrong and Joe Paterno. He blames “that fundamental piece of the American character that makes us want to suspend disbelief well past the point that we should.” It’s the delusional “American character” — as opposed to German character, or French character, or Russian character, or Argentinian character, or Japanese character, or Greek character. Nobody does delusional like America, right? Next week’s column: Why on earth do conservatives insist that the liberal establishment hates America?
Time’s story on NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell doesn’t break much ground, although there is a chart illustrating the somewhat deflating idea of replacing kickoffs with punts to reduce injuries. There’s a gripping story, however, about a rebel sniper in Syria, in which the reporter tags along on his deadly beat, with the sniper “running alongside me as we dash past regime snipers to minimize my chances of being hit.” The larger, unsettling point is that rebel factions are splintering, with some motivated by glory and money, and others religious extremism.
What does a weekly magazine look like after it begins an editorial bloodbath ahead of closing its print operation, with firings claiming as much as half its staff? Well, in the case of Newsweek, it has a cover story on the question of “Who Was Jesus?” written by some guy who teaches religious studies at UNC Chapel Hill. There’s no letter to readers this week from Tina Brown, who was busy wielding the ax. But there are plenty of other unfamiliar bylines. Those who were busy fetching coffee for the past two years, it’s your moment to shine! For another week or two, anyway.