WEAKLY DOMESTIC

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.

(CAP News)