New Time mag cover epitome of elite media bias

Media bias? What Media Bias?

With that question in mind, I had to do a double take when I found out via the Business and Media Institute that for only the second time in 85 years Time magazine decided to forgo its traditional red border for green for its April 21 issue.

Not only that, but "Time took the famous Iwo Jima photograph by Joe Rosenthal of the Marines raising the American flag and replaced the flag with a tree," according to "Iwo Jima Veterans Blast Time's 'Special Environmental Issue Cover" by Jeff Poor over at Businessandmedia.com.

Now, as far as I'm concerned, Time magazine's editors can do whatever they want on their cover, because we do have this thing called the freedom of speech in the country, but Time magazine is a member of the elite media, one of the elite outlets of the best reporting in journalism, and one of the most popular news media magazines with a goal of maintaining a well informed audience, and a denier of media bias.

In describing this cover, A "Time editor tells MSNBC 'there needs to be a real effort along the lines of World War II to combat global warming and climate change.'"

Veterans think this is an "absolute disgrace" to Marines who were Iwo Jima survivors, and I tend to agree. On the same note however, I can also tell you that this is not good journalsim. The purpose of journalism, as I reported in a previous post called journalism 101, is to report the news, not make the news. In this issue, Time magazine breaks one of the premire rules of good journalsim.

A time editor purported that " “[O]ne of the things we do in the story is we say there needs to be an effort along the lines of preparing for World War II to combat global warming and climate change." This is a fine quote if Time magazine were a liberal magazine or a conservative magazine like National Review, however it is not.

Time magazine is a place where people go to get their news and a good analysis of the news. This cover is the epitome of bad journalism and a quentissential example of media bias. They are bias in their attampt not to report the news, but to make and shape the news.

If Time magazine came out and said it was a liberal leaning magazine, this cover would be fine. But considering it claims not to be a source of good journalism, then the editors should portray all of the facts regarding global warming, both the pro and con, and let its readers decide, rather than trying to inculcate the idea that global warming is real, which is aweful journalism -- and bias, and not the way of maintaining a well informed audience.

Likewise, it Time magazine would have stuck to the basic rules of Journalism 101, American Veterans would not be upset right now. It's that simple.

A time editor, on MSNBC, defended the cover by stating, "O]ne of the things we do in the story is we say there needs to be an effort along the lines of preparing for World War II to combat global warming and climate change. It seems to me that this is an issue that is very popular with the voters, makes a lot of sense to them and a candidate who can actually bundle it up in some grand way and say, ‘Look, we need a national and international Manhattan Project to solve this problem and my candidacy involves that.’ I don't understand why they don’t do that.”

This editor misses the point. It's fine that he believe in global warming, and he might even be right about it, but there are other theories out there that need the same respect by an elite magazine that considers itself non-biased. By forcing it's values on its readers this way, the magazine is not being fair to its readers.

It does not matter if 80% of the people believe in global warming. It is not Time magazines job to cater to one segment of its audience no matter how large it is, or whether this segment is right or wrong -- unless the magazine changes its mission statement.

Bias? What bias?