Magazine covers getting more outrageous - Chicago News and Weather | FOX 32 News

Magazine covers getting more outrageous

Have you seen the latest edition of "Newsweek?" The cover story is about President Obama's support of gay marriage.

The cutline proclaims him to be "the first gay president."

The article inside looks at why the president decided to support gay marriage - and why now.

The story is analytical, but not a detached scientific account. Its author is a longtime political writer who's also an outspoken member of the gay community. The article is written from his own personal perspective.

The provocative cover is as much about business as politics. Newsweek's chief editor, Tina Brown, is known for stirring debate.

Her competitive spirit seems to have been stirred when Time got attention for a cover shot of a young mom breastfeeding her nearly four-year-old son.

The New York post says when brown saw the Time cover -- she laughed, and said "let the games begin."

Susanna Negovan at Michigan Avenue Magazine says a strategy to "shock" is as old as publishing. But it's amped up because it's tougher than ever to get noticed.

"It's in part due to the Internet. There's just too much out there right now," Negovan said.

The "first gay president" line is a riff on the time when Bill Clinton was embraced by African Americans as the so-called first black president.

But a Northwestern journalism professor says the analogy is dishonest. Clinton got his nickname organically from within the African American community.

Charles Whitaker says the Newsweek cover line is just manufactured.

"This is Newsweek's declaration of president Obama as the first gay president and it's again it's such a stretch. That's being unnecessarily provocative," Whitaker said.