Time being one of the major weekly publications could be headed down a slow path of decline. For the second week in a row, Time Magazine managing editor Rick Stengel has managed to get people to not only notice the magazine but also have them buzzing around talking about it. 
Last week, it was the April 28 issue cover that featured a 1945 photo of marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima to portray the struggle to end global warning, a decision that infuriated some veterans.
This week's issue of Time magazine has brought another eyebrow raising cover that copied the split-screen concept (of competing players) and tag line of the three-week-old NBA playoffs campaign to illustrate the ongoing battle for the Democratic presidential nomination. The cover features a split-screen image of presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Stengel who is a huge basketball fan thought the playoffs campaign concept would inject some freshness into coverage of the political campaign season. Stengel basically wanted to release some stress from the political process that is prone to cause voter fatigue.
Stengel admitted the cover choice, which appears on the
May 5 issue, wasn't without controversy. "We talk about it internally,
and there were people for and against it. But the amount of smiles
around the room outweighed the frowns," he said.
Stengel describes this week's cover as "powerful and striking"
Stengel who is coming up on his two-year anniversary as managing editor in July, states that he sees compelling and striking covers as a way to hook new readers, but conceded that it's hard to know if his efforts have helped newsstand sales. "To me, the benefit is, you get people talking about it, writing about it," he said.
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