US Magazine is setting records for losing subscribers after the magazine published a Sarah Palin attack in its most recent issue. Read about it below and see photos and a video.
US Magazine Palin Attack
US Magazine got a ton of publicity for their biased cover and report on Sarah Palin and the Palin family. Unfortunately, it seems that the old adage of any publicity being good publicity is proving not to be true in this case.
In a short 24 hours from the time the magazine was printed they have lost about 10,000 subscribers. That has to be a record. Not just that, they have had recently former subscribers calling advertisers and complaining about the magazine and threatening to boycott their products.
It seems that US Weekly editors figured that the McCain campaign would dump Palin from the ticket when the media went on the attack as soon as her name was announced as his running mate. Seeing a chance to scoop the story, they published a highly inflammatory and unfaltering cover and story on Palin. They apparently hoped the ’scandals’ would be her undoing.
Other celebrity magazines, People and OK!, had Palin on the cover, but they were apparently just a tad more careful and hedged their bets that she might still be around for another news cycle.
There were quite a few embarrassingly amateur mistakes made by the publishers, editors and whoever else was involved in the decision making process to vilify Sarah Palin in that issue of the celebrity rag magazine.
One mistake was that they grossly underestimated John McCain. I’m aware that many people make their decisions without any information and/or will abandon their principles the second they get one ounce of grief about it. John McCain isn’t one of those types. It would have been completely counter to his personality to have dumped Palin from his campaign because of some rumors. It would have also been completely counter to his career of careful decision making to have picked a vice presidential candidate without completely vetting her. Just because he didn’t tip his hand to the press, doesn’t mean he didn’t check her out. It might be a good idea, in the future, to take the character of the person you are assessing into account when you are making those kinds of assumptions.
Another one of their mistakes is that they assumed they could take rumors and innuendo, blow it way out of proportion, print it, publish it and have a record breaking sale for the week. That is, after all, what they do. The problem is that this is real life, not celebrity. These are leaders of our country, not pop singers. There’s a world of difference in the subject matter they usually write about and this venture into actual serious issues of the day. They got burned. Hopefully, they’ll stay in the realm of hollywood and celebrity from now own.
They really don’t need to try to make the decision about the leader of the free world into fodder for hollywood rags. Yes, I know they printed complimentary pieces on Barack Obama before. But like I said, they need to stick to celebrities and let the serious people be discussed in other forums. They should have stayed away from the adults that actually run the country.
Another mistake they made …. and this is a big one …. is they don’t know their readership. They made the mistake progressives inevitably make. They only associate with people who think like them and therefore assume everyone thinks like them. It appears that they thought a hit piece on Sarah Palin would be a winner. By doing that, they bit the hands that feed them.
The hard left just doesn’t get it. By insulting Sarah Palin, they insulted probably 90% of their readership. Sarah Palin is an American woman. She’s cut from the same cloth as most American women. American women buy their magazine. The magazine just walked on the wild side of the very people that keeps the magazine’s owner wealthy enough to make it possible for him to be a major contributor to the Obama campaign.
US Magazine Palin Attack - Photos
US Magazine Palin Attack - Video
Photos provided by WENN
September 6th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Us magazine is just an advertising template that caters to its particular mass demographic. What it did to Palin is par for the course and nothing new. A lot of the American media does one version or another of this. People should vote with their feet. This election promises to shake up the media for a change and its about time. People know this too.
September 6th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
I was at our local Kroger this morning. There at the check-out counter was a rack of US magazines. I couldn’t stand to look at it that repugnant cover. So I turned the front copy over. It was the least I could do.
September 6th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
10,000 is about 0.6% of Us Weekly’s circulation of 1,751,709. Who cares. Palin and McCain are probably reveling in the exposure anyway.
September 6th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Fight the power, Carol!
W
September 6th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Warms my cold libertarian heart to see grass-roots populist capitalism at work. Usually Jessie Jackson leads these things. Now it’s the hockey moms in small town USA.
September 6th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Saw the magazine at Walmart this evening while standing in line. I have to admit, those photographs of Palin pregant and then suppposedly pregnant with Trig were pretty compelling. Also the one of Bristol with a little pot belly when she was NOT supposed to be pregnant. Unless they were photoshopped, I think there is something fishy going on about who the mother of Trig really is. There were other elements of the article that also raised concerns. In fact I bought my first copy of US weekly ever because of that cover story.
September 6th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
I just subscribed to help out US. Memo to Palin: don’t like the heat then stay out of the kitchen!
For a supposed pitbull, she’s acting like a pansy.
September 6th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
McCain lost this election when he rolled over to the Neo-Cons in the 2000 South Carolina primary. What we have here is a “Polished Turd”. End of day…it may be shiny…..But, Hey!
September 6th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Palin, a mother of five with a 17 year pregnant daughter, a baby with questionable mother? boy..we are americans, and this is the america the rest of the world hates. No family values..greed..immorality..lust for power and rampant corruption…
September 6th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Sarah Palin is completely out-of-touch with most of American women. Noone is asking the hard question - when little Trigg is 35, Sarah will be 80 - who’s going to take care of him? Obviously not our great health care system, or the government, since she wants to cut all those programs. We’ve know for years that women over 40 have a very high risk of having children with Down’s Syndrome, yet, despite this information, Ms Palin went ahead and condemmed this child to a life limited by disability, and saddled all of us with yet one more person who possibly will need to be taken care of their entire life. That is a serious lapse of judgement and resposibility.
September 6th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Ed, by age 21 most Downs babies are in a care home that can attend to their special needs. You don’t really expect an 80 year old lady to take care of people, do you?
Kay, name the countries who hate us and why it matters to you. France? England? Who?
A Real Feminist, kudos to another feminist subscribing to an entertainment magazine which glorifies Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. We’ve come a long way, baby.
Lisa, those rumors have already been put to bed, and is one of the reason for the Palin bounce in the polls. Women love her, at least the ones who matter which is why she has a higher favorable rating than Barack Obama.
September 6th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
And women are half the vote.
Just saying ….
September 6th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Pete - 10,000 subscribers in 24 hours is a more significant than you make it sound. Also, boycotting the advertisers is hurting them - seeing as its mostly ads. They are asking subscribers to give them another chance.
They should have had a better sense of who feeds them.
September 6th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Speaking of factual errors, the 10,000 figure is inaccurate. Sources more informed than your website have reported that it was more like 1000, and was countered by new subscriptions of about 1000.
Re: McCain’s “careful decision making.” Give me a break!
September 6th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
We will breathlessly await your link to that source, DH. Go get ‘em, boy.
I love it when the good old boy network feels impotent.
September 6th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
well a good rumor to start about Palin is she makea one mean moose meatloaf.
September 6th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
I almost wish I had a subscription to that trashy magazine, just so I could cancel it.
September 6th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
there are people who subscribe to both People and Us magazine.
September 6th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
let them say what they want. She’ll put them all in their place when she is the Vice President of the great United States of America!
September 6th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
I never buy Us, but bought it to read this article. This woman is a joke. And it is a nice counterbalance to the hypocritical wholesome image she wants to project. How on earth do the Republicans get to symbolize “family values” when the frontrunner is a man who cheated on his wife with a younger woman (Cindy McCain), and the vp pick believes so strongly in abstinence only that her teenage daughter couldn’t figure out how to get contraception? Sorry, that’s not parenting. It’s idiocy. She wants it both ways– to be loved for her maternal qualities, but to keep her family off limits.
The spectacle of the “f**in’ redneck” fiance at the convention was too painful. This is not family values, it’s exploiting your family to get ahead.
Her accomplishments are fairly described in the press– she fires people she doesn’t agree with (she’s involved in a lawsuit right now for wrongful dismissal)– which makes her more of a fascist than a Republican, and she flips on the issues to whatever’s expedient (she supported Bridge to Nowhere before she turned it down, and never returned the money).
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the rumors that Trig is Bristol’s are true, because one thing is clear: Ms. Palin lies.
Bravo to Us magazine for piercing the image of a Redbook, Ladies Home Journal heroine Palin’s so eager to project– she’s not wholesome, she’s a ruthless killer.
September 6th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Um, MCCAIN, the Downs babies of WEALTHY parents are in care homes! And the care homes are definitely NOT run and financed by the anti-abortionists.
OK, Mick, she’s the VP, and McCain kicks it. You are Putin. What would you do? Test her out a little, maybe? Take her for a test drive. Those people, they GOT WMDs.
I forgot what I was going to say. Oh! I remember. I’m on a roll. The Dems KNOW that if McCain has to dump Palin, that’s the end for him, and they would consider it fair payback for Eagleton. So, you know, I am not so sure that the Dems are not behind a lot of this stuff. The National Enquirer is coming out with an article about Palin soon, I have heard. Something about an affair. I just heard something about her son having a felony for dealing cocaine? I don’t know. There’s a ton of this stuff out there.
But you know, getting back to Putin (and I cannot escape the SIMILARITY of the two names–Putin, and Palin), if McCain would die–God forbid–and she’s put in a position where she has to meet with Putin and other world leaders, why, all this stuff, this treatment she’s getting, this search for skeletons in the closet, or whatever, would sort of pale in comparison. I mean, that’s SERIOUS business, and not silly BS like all of this. Well, it’s mostly silly, but serious if it gets her dumped from the ticket, like I said. That would definitely be the Holy Grail for the Dems. I know you will say, McCain wouldn’t do that, but he would, he would, if it were something bad enough. But it would have to be really, really bad. It wouldn’t be his doing. He’s just a puppet, in a lot of ways. Obama is too, so don’t get your hackles up.
[Ed - this commenter is banned for repeatedly spreading false information.]
September 7th, 2008 at 12:02 am
Ed, show me your source for a cocaine story by Sunday please.
September 7th, 2008 at 12:28 am
Edward - your attempts to spread rumors is pathetic and exposes your lack of understanding of our Armed Services.
Any felony conviction would have precluded his ability to be enlisted in the Armed Services. That’s too bad though. Mandatory military service for the punks in our country would do a world of good for the punks AND our society. We’d have a vastly improved society with a little discipline imposed on the little gangsters hanging out and causing trouble.
You are right about there being a ton of stuff out there. The imagination of the far left knows no limits. Nor does their willingness to drag the families of candidates through the mud with false accusations, rumors and lies.
By all means, open up those doors. When you do, you will find that there are more families than the Palins that will be scrutinized and for some reason, I think the Palins and the McCains will come out smelling like roses.
Your Dear Leader himself has said that he has experimented with drugs. He says all young men do. Shall we go down that road, Edward?
Please, do, tell us about the Gore, Biden, Clinton, Kennedy, Pelosi etc. kids? Any ’scandals’ related to any of them?
I’m sure there are more and I’m sure ‘there’s a ton of stuff out there’ on all of them and their children.
By all means, open that door.
September 7th, 2008 at 12:30 am
For eight years the right has preached the virtues of free trade while our markets have been flooded with cheap imports, our industries have been driven out of business and we all sit around trying to convince ourselves everything is going to be ok. McCain will be the final nail in the coffin of the middle class.
September 7th, 2008 at 12:31 am
Edward, I heard Obama’s people are in serious discussions about dumping Biden. Is what’s good for the goose, good for the gander? Just curious.