The Atlantic’s Megan Garber on how Newsweek’s #muslimrage hashtag was overtaken:
“While it may still be true that a good magazine — just as a good newspaper — is a nation talking to itself, the standards for that conversation have risen considerably since people have been able to talk to each other on their own. Conversation can no longer exist for conversation’s sake alone — which is also to say that people understand, almost intuitively, the difference between being inspired and being trolled. Newsweek didn’t give any indication that its incitement to discussion was motivated by a desire for anything beyond pageviews and newsstand sales. So its audience met it where it was, in that glib place of low expectations. But they turned the magazine’s own cynicism into something better — something funny and meaningful and insightful and real. They turned Newsweek‘s “scripted experience” into something they wrote on their own.”
Related: Newsweek’s ‘Muslim Rage’ cover coincides with critique of Tina Brown | Alarmist Newsweek covers through the years
