Categories: OLD Media Moves

Economist copies BusinessWeek cover headline

Jack Flack of Conde Nast Portfolio writes Sunday that the Sept. 1 cover headline “Who’s Afraid of Google?” on The Economist is exactly the same headline used on a BusinessWeek cover back in April.

Flack wrote, “When they decided to use the exact same cover headline as the one Business Week employed with its Google cover story back in April, did the Economist do it on purpose?

A: No. Because nobody at the Economist reads Business Week or any other business magazine.
B: Yes. Because the Economist wants to make it clear that nobody at the Economist reads Business Week or any other business magazine.
C: Yes. Because the Economist wanted to show off that it can execute the same idea with a lot more snap.
D: No. Because when it comes to covers, the only sin would be aping a Private Eye concept.

“Jack assumes the actual answer is a softer version of ‘A,’ because the Economist has never really viewed pure business magazines as direct competitors.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.