The
List Compiled by Democracy
in Action/Eric M. Appleman -- updated January 26, 2010. Exhibit flyer.
Introduction The one-year anniversary of an administration offers a
benchmark
for observers to consider how the president and his team are
doing.
Commentators, pundits and talking heads analyze everything from the
president's leadership style and personal qualities to the concrete
actions and accomplishments of the administration to how the media are
covering the president and the administration. Whole books are
being written on President Obama's first year, and academics will
engage
in rigorous research into questions big and small on into the
future.
This survey examines how Obama1
has been portrayed on American2 magazine
covers
(national news, opinion and specialty magazines) during the
first year of his administration. Just as with first impressions
of
people, the first year of an administration can significantly shape our
perceptions of the president. In a November 2009 column Peggy
Noonan
observed, "The first year is when indelible impressions are made and
iconic photos emerge."3
The exhibit covers actually covers about 14 months from the transition
period to the end of January 2010. In a
sense a president's tenure begins before he is even sworn in.4 During
the transition the president-elect builds his team and lays the
groundwork for implementing his policies. After the initial
series of "he won" covers—not considered
here—magazines of all stripes offered their takes on the incoming
president and administration, and there were also covers marking the
Inauguration. Expectations run
high with any change of administration, but they may have been
particularly high for Obama given the lofty rhetoric of his campaign.5 To cite just a
few examples, both The Economist
(11/8) and
Time (1/26) had great
expectations covers; New Yorker portrayed
him as George Washington; Newsweek
(12/8) ran a "How to Fix the World" cover with Obama; and In These Times (1/2009) pictured
Obama lifting the world on his shoulders.
Over the next twelve months the realities of governing in difficult
times have set in. The administration has grappled with the
global economic crisis, pushed
for health care reform, and pursued wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and Obama's governing philosophy and leadership style have become
clearer. By December 2009 and January 2010 doubts were setting
in. New York (12/7)
asked "
Whatever
Happened to Barack Obama?" American
Interest (1/2010) had Obama "Flirting with Failure," Foreign Policy (1/2010) pictured
Obama and Jimmy Carter ("Well, Maybe"), and The Economist (1/16/2010) saw it
as "Time to get tough." The election of Scott Brown (R) to the
U.S. Senate from Massachusetts in the January 19 special election drove
home the point. In a trifecta of covers (2/1/2010), Time asked "Now What? Obama Starts
Over," Newsweek delved into
"The Inspiration Gap," and a New
Yorker cover by Barry Blitt showed Obama first walking on water
and then falling into the water.
At a Glance
Magazine covers help to sell a publication
and highlight feature articles within it. For some magazines,
newsstand sales are a significant factor, and a
punchy cover can provide a boost, while others depend largely upon
their subscribers. Magazine editors and
art
directors seek to convey stories of interest to their audiences using
compelling
combinations of photographs, photo illustrations or illustrations and
text. Editorial decisions, including those about what to put on
the cover, are shaped by different calculations at a general interest
magazine such as People as
compared to magazines such as CQ
Weekly and National Journal
or some of the opinion magazines such the Weekly Standard, where newsstand
sales are not a factor and influencing policy-makers is a
priority.6 While editors face
the imperative of getting their
publications out on time, over time the results of their efforts
provide snapshots of history. Magazine covers give at-a-glance
impressions of the issues and personalities of the day. One can
go
back and
look at past issues of Time magazine, for example, and get a
sense of the concerns of decades ago.
The past few years have been a very difficult time for magazine
publishers.7 Ad
revenues have fallen and magazines have had to cut editorial staff and
make other changes. Some magazines have gone out of business
altogether or out of print (for example USN&WR now only
does a monthly print issue), others have reduced their frequency from
weekly to bi-weekly or bi-weekly to monthly or reduced their size (Rolling
Stone) or undergone major overhauls (for example Newsweek
in May 2009 shifted to doing more analysis and commentary; the first
issue with the new look happened to feature Obama on the cover).
Yet magazines continue to occupy a unique niche in the media
universe.
Even if we do not subscribe to a particular magazine, we see magazines
when we are riding on Metro or the bus, waiting at the dentist office
or for a hair cut or walking past a news stand, and they influence our
perceptions.
The Week ran the most Obama covers of all the
publications
surveyed—15 in 2009; the next most prolific news magazine was The
Economist with eight Obama covers in 2009. Looking at opinion
magazines, one could ask whether conservative or liberal/progressive
magazines run a president on the cover more frequently; reader.
For the period covered by this survey, The Weekly Standard had
the most covers of the opinion magazines, however many of the opinion
magazines are now bi-weekly or monthly so no conclusions can be
drawn.
Themes
The economy was a dominant theme of magazine covers featuring Obama
during the first year of his administration. During the
transition,
the Obama team was already at work on its economic stimulus plan.
National Review (1/26) led off with "It's raining money," a
cover illustration showing Obama amid a swirl of money; The Week
(2/13) had a similar illustration "After the Deluge," and The
American Conservative (2/9) "Paper Pusher" showed Obama throwing
money out of a helicopter. In The Economist
(2/14) cover "To the rescue" Obama and team and a big bag of money
arrived by row boat in a Kevin Kallagher (Kal) illlustration inspired
by the Emanuel Leutz painting of Washington crossing the
Delaware.
Many other covers addressed economic themes. Reason
(3/2009) argued for a "A Better 'New New Deal'" in an issue featuring
an illustration by cartoonist Henry Payne on the cover. New
York (3/30) asked "Does Anyone Around Here Know How to Fix an
Economy?" The Week
(3/6) showed Obama facing the budget deficit, shown as a dragon by Free
Harper in "Taming the beast." Focusing on intervention in the
auto
industry, Roman Genn portrayed Obama as "The Mechanic-in-Chief" for National
Review (5/4), while The Week (6/12) showed him as a car
salesman in "Such a deal." On the left, The Progressive
(10/2009) "Giving in to Blackmail" cover had an illustration of Obama
handing a bundle of money to a business executive holding a tin can.
Another popular theme of Obama covers was the debate over health care
reform. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,
spending on health care accounts for over 16 percent of the nation's
economy. Obama vowed to accomplish health care reform in his first year
in
office. The Week (5/22), The Economist (6/27), National
Review (7/20) and Time (8/10) produced cover portrayals of
Obama as a doctor. National Review's illustration of
Obama as a proctologist in particular prompted some discussion. The
Week ran a couple of other Obama/health care covers: "Bailing out"
(8/28) and "Strong Enough?" (9/18).
Examples
of Covers Featuring Images of President Obama addressing Health Care
Reform
Compared to covers focusing on domestic issues, there were
relatively few American magazine covers featuring Obama on the
international stage. Examples included CQ Weekly (4/20)
"Sharing the Stage;" The New Republic "Rendezvous in Beirut"
(5/20) and "Who runs U.S. foreign policy?" (8/12); The Week's
"Perilous passage" (3/13) and "On the hot seat" (10/2); and The
Economist's "Welcome to Moscow" (7/4) and "The quiet American"
(11/28).
Afghanistan was a significant issue and rose in prominence in the
months leading up to the President's December 1 speech at West
Point.
Several covers from before the speech had "Obama's war" type headlines
without images of Obama himself (these are beyond the scope of this
survey; see note 5). Obama was included in The Week's
(10/23) "War and peace" which tied in the Nobel peace prize and in The
Nation's
(11/9) "Obama's Fateful Choice" which had a photo of Obama in an
outline map of Afghanistan. The December 1 speech provided a peg
for
more Afghanistan war covers. Time's "It's His War Now"
and Newsweek's "The Post-Imperial President" both used photos
from the speech, while The Week's "It's his war now" featured
an illustration of Obama in Afghan garb astride a white horse.
Magazine covers addressed Obama's ideology and more broadly his
leadership style from early on. During the transition there were
covers comparing him to FDR, Abraham Lincoln and even George
Washington. The Nation (12/29/2008)
ran a "Barack Obama, Pragmatist" cover. Other covers treating
ideology
followed during the early months of the administration. Covers
from
right-leaning magazines showed Obama as a socialist or near socialist
and a big spender while covers on progressive and liberal magazines
expressed discontent that Obama was not doing enough. National
Review (3/23) presented an illustration of Obama done in the
socialist realism style ("Our Socialist Future"). On the left, The
Progressive (May 2009) featured an Obama cover to accompany the
article "Howard Zinn on Changing Obama's Mindset" while The Nation
(6/15) ran one on "Exacting Change" and Tikkun (9/2009) asked
"Has Obama Abandoned You?" The theme of liberal discontent also
showed up on more neutral magazines. CQ Weekly (9/7)
played off an Obama campaign sign with "Maybe We Can: Angst on the
Left" and Newsweek (11/2) ran "Yes He Can (But He Sure Hasn't
Yet): A Liberal's Survival Guide."Magazines also offered
more ideologically neutral assessments of Obama and the administration.
New
York (8/10) presented a cover "The Selling (and Selling and
Selling) of the President." Rolling
Stone (8/20) looked at "Obama So Far" and National Journal
(10/17) asked "Is He Tough Enough?" These culminated in the one
year anniversary assessments offered by many magazines.
A number of magazines showed the personal side of Obama. Men's
Journal
(March 2009) presented the "jock in chief" while Parade
(6/21) showed him in his role as a father with Sasha and Malia. In
Touch (4/27) showed him and Michelle on "How We Keep Our Love
Alive" and the New York Times Magazine
(11/1) took a look at "The First Marriage." First Lady Michelle
Obama
was the subject of more than a dozen covers including the first in
which Oprah Winfrey shared the cover of O Magazine (April 2009)
and the
inaugural issue of Children's Health (Oct. 2009).
Several covers generated a bit of attention. The most
controversial Obama cover during the first year came from Washingtonian
(May 2009); the magazine used a months-old photo of the bare-chested
Obama on vacation in Hawaii to promote "26 Reasons to Love Living
Here." Golf Digest's
(Jan.
2010) cover "10 Tips Obama Can Take
from Tiger" also garnered notice as it came out shortly after the Tiger
Woods
scandal broke; the cover showed a Photoshop-created image of Tiger
Woods and Obama
on the golf course. Esquire
(May 2009) produced what it billed as "the first ever mix 'n' match
cover;" its "How to be a Man" issue featured perforated cover
photos
of the faces of George Clooney, Obama and Justin Timberlake that
allowed readers to make their own cover combinations.
Interestingly
introduction of Bo the dog and the dinner crashing Salahis did not
appear to make the cover of any American magazines despite the media
flurries surrounding those episodes.
Visual Approaches
The covers in this survey encompass many different styles from straight
photographs to photo illustrations to paintings. Photographs
offer
documentary immediacy and are a good solution for covers featuring
breaking news. If it has the resources, a magazine may select a
well known photographer such as Nigel Parry, Platon or Annie Liebowitz
to do
a shoot; more frequently it will pick up a photo from one of the wire
services or photo agencies. A close up head shot is a very common
format. Newsweek
used an extreme close up of Obama's face to launch its redesign in
May. Wider shots document a president in a noteworthy setting or
during an event such as a major speech. At the magazine, the
editors select from available images and determine cropping.
Sometimes old photos are recycled as with the Washingtonian
example above. Images from the campaign appeared in National
Journal (7/11) "Obama's America," The Nation (11/23) "The
Obama Generation," and Washington Monthly (Jan. 2010) "The
Party of Obama." Vanity Fair's March 2009 "The Obama Era
Begins" issue reused an Annie Liebowitz photo
of Obama that had appeared as part of its July 2007 Africa cover
series; however in this second run of the photo actor Don Cheadle was
cropped out.
Photo illustrations range from something as simple as
adding an American flag background to realistic-looking but contrived
scenarios to obvious exaggerations. Time's (8/10) "Paging
Dr. Obama" or Golf Digest's (Jan. 2010 image of Obama with
Tiger Woods convey verisimilitude.
More exaggerated is The Economist's (6/27) "This is going to
hurt" showing Dr. Obama holding up a huge needle. The
American Conservative's (Jan. 2010) "Going South" portrayal
of Obama as a third world general is very imaginative indeed.
Illustration allows infinite ways to create a mood or
tone. After editors set the cover subject, an art director can
reinforce the theme of the cover by
choosing
a particular artist or style. The artist in turn may introduce
unique nuances and refinements that the art director had not envisaged.8The New Republic's
(12/2)
"And
Now..."
issue
uses
a painting by Robert Hunt to good effect to show Obama "as he emerges
to face the trials by fire that lie ahead for his administration."
The distinctive work of Roman Genn
is well known to readers of National Review, while
illustrations by Thomas
Fluharty or Gary Locke often grace The Weekly Standard.
While the subject of Fluharty's "Here the People Rule" illustration for
The Weekly
Standard (9/14) is the health care town hall meetings held around
the country
during the summer, Obama appears in a couple of details. The work
references a Norman Rockwell
painting but shows a less civil tone. Fluharty
includes an image of friend and fellow illustrator Gary Locke as the
central figure. An earlier issue of
the magazine appears in the Locke figure's pocket with an illustration
by...Fluharty.
Finally there is the question of the headline. Typically
just
two or three words and rarely more than half a dozen, the headline adds
punch to the image and hopefully lures the reader into the
magazine. Editors must balance the marketing imperative and need
to
represent the substance
and
tone of the featured article. For example, for their Jan. 2010
issue
editors at The American Interest
considered using the headline "Listen Up Mr. President" before settling
on the more
provocative "Flirting with Failure." Questions are also common.
For
example, The Week (9/18) asked "Strong enough?" and National
Journal (10/17) asked "Is He Tough Enough?"
Conclusion
In the past year-plus, the typical American will have seen many
thousands of photos, videos, illustrations and other depictions of
President Obama—on television, on the Internet and in newspapers and
magazines. This survey considers a small, unique subset of that
imagery. Magazine covers provide snapshots of the news of the
day. This gathering of Obama covers highlights the
creative works of myriad photographers and illustrators culled,
coordinated and tweaked by art
directors, and
editors at magazines big and small, right, left
and neutral, serious and celebrity, weekly, monthly and
bi-monthly. Some of the portrayals are favorable, others
unfavorable. Some are well-executed from a technical or creative
point of view and others less so. Some come close to the truth
and others may be at variance with the facts.
President Obama entered the White House with very high expectations and
has faced tough, difficult issues from the worst economy in a
generation to
war to attempting to reform the health care system. Hopefully
this presentation of covers from publications across the political
spectrum will provoke thought on whether his leadership is meeting the
daunting array of challenges facing the country. The
exhibit also aims to offer insights into magazine publishing and media
coverage of Obama. Finally, these covers should serve to
introduce you to photographers and artists whose work you may not be
familiar with.
1. One difficult point in assembling this exhibit was
the question of
where to draw lines in terms of what to include and what to leave
out. This is a technical note which outlines my
considerations. I've used a fairly narrow
definition which
may omit some potentially relevant covers and have
made a few
exceptions which one could argue are slightly inconsistent.
If
one
were coding for a rigorous analysis, the definitions would have to be
tightened.
First, there are covers which do
not show images of Obama but are certainly about him or his
actions. At the most basic level are text-only
covers; a couple of these are noted. From the transition period,
the New York Times Magazine's
(1/18) had "Obama’s
People"in large white type on a black
background to highlight an extensive
photo feature. Over a year later The Nation (2/1/2010) used a
typographic treatment for "Obama at One."
Another subset includes such covers as Newsweek's
(2/9)
"Obama's
Vietnam"
which
has
a
black and white photo of
Afghans/troops inset in the text, The Economist's (10/ 17) "Obama's
war" issue which has a photo
of a soldier amid swirling dust and a helicopter in the background, and
National Journal's
(12/5) "Obama as
Poker Player" which has an extreme close up photo of a
hand holding five playing
cards. Another particularly striking cover in this
category
was The Weekly Standard's (3/9) "Obama's
America"
which
has
a
photo
of
sheep.
These
are
not included in the core of this
survey. Visual metaphors are also difficult. The New
Republic's (5/6)
"Liberalism's
Moment" cover did not name or show Obama but the harvest illustration
broadly references liberal hopes for Obama.
I
have not included instances where the cover focus is on one
topic and Obama is a secondary image, shown in a
teaser up in the corner
or along the top, bottom or side.
A number of
covers featured montages comprised of many different photos;
year-end
reviews
sometimes
use
this
approach.
I
considered these
covers on a case by case basis. Similar to
teaser photos which play a secondary role, in some of the montages the
image of Obama is lost in a crowd of other images. For example,
Obama
is shown in one of over eighty photos lined up on Time's (05/11) "The Time 100: The
World's Most Influential People" issue and appears not too clearly in
one of at least a dozen photos on Time's 12/21 "The
Year in Pictures"
issue. Likewise Newsmax's
(Aug.
2009)
"All
the
Presidents'
Secrets"
focuses
on
the Secret Service but
also
includes thumbnail-size photos of the past ten presidents. By
contrast,
although Foreign Policy's
(Dec. 2009) "100 Top Global Thinkers of 2009" has photos of about
twenty people, the images are different sizes; the image of
Obama is second biggest and is prominently placed. This cover is
considered. Similar concerns extend to
illustrations. The Week's
(12/25)
"The
faces
of
2009"cover
has
many different figures, but Obama
occupies a prominent position.
There are a few
covers where
imagery of
Obama is a detail of larger cover art.
As discussed above, the artist Thomas Fluharty worked images of Obama
into The Weekly Standard's
"'Here
the People Rule" (9/14) and also as a picture on the wall detail in
"The New Labor Aristocracy"
(10/12). Another example would be a crowd of
supporters wearing Obama shirts or waving Obama signs.
The Obama campaign logo and/or
presidential seal are so associated with Obama
that I have opted to include several of these covers.
2. The British newspaper The Economist is
included as American
circulation accounts for over half of its total circulation.
A sampling of magazine covers from other countries is included.
(While there were a multitude from around the time of the Inauguration
these are not included. To mention a couple of examples, India Today (2/2) asked "Will He
Smile for Us?" and Outlook
[India] (2/2) asked "Should India Fear Him?")
Oftentimes
covers on magazines overseas coincide with visits by President Obama to
the
respective countries. A typical image is a two
shot of the leaders of the two countries.
Magazine covers from a particular country also tend to focus on local
and
regional concerns. Maclean's
(6/29)
ran a provocative cover "Why
He's Bad for Canada," Proceso
in Mexico (4/12) tackled the war against drugs "Al ataque contra el
narco," and America Economia
of Brazil (9/2009) looked at difficulties in relations with Latin
America in "No We Can't."
While American covers typically address the President's policies,
activities and capabilities, on some of the overseas magazines he is
presented as a symbol of the
United States in much the same way as the
flag
or the
bald eagle. Al-Hawadeth
(1/15/2010) showed a
picture of Obama on "Failures of CIA strengthen the teeth of Al
Qaeda." Even more broadly, because American presidents are so
well known they can be used as stand-ins for prominent people
generally. New Statesman
(9/28) featured a
mostly obstructed image of Obama's face on "the 50 people who matter
most." Newsweek Polska
(8/17) included Obama on a cover which appeared to be about
relationships.
3. Peggy Noonan. "He Can't Take Another Bow." The
Wall
Street
Journal, Nov. 28-29, 2009, page A15.
See also a less comprehensive list of
covers from the first year of the George W. Bush administration.
4. For the argument that Obama's presidency began on
Nov. 4, 2008 see
for example: Jonathan Alter. "The PDQ Presidency." Newsweek.
Nov.
2,
2009.
6. For example, People
(1/25/2010) had an exclusive interview with President and Mrs. Obama,
but the cover feature was "Addicted to Plastic Surgery" with a big
photo of Heidi Montag; a small photo of the Obamas was relegated to the
upper right corner.
DEMOCRACY IN ACTION greatly
appreciates the assistance provided by
people at many of the magazines included in this exhibit. Without
their help this exhibit would not have been possible. Subscribe
today!
