Washington Post Magazine. Included with the Sunday Washington Post,
1150 15th Street NW, Washington DC 20071, Tel: 202-334-6000.
"The Washington Post Magazine," the slick insert that now comes with
the Sunday "Post," got off to a bad start. Its first issue featured a
piece by Richard Cohen, contemporary suburban liberal, defending upscale
D.C. shopkeepers who lock their doors against young African-American men.
In and of itself, there was nothing unusual about this. Cohen is always
writing thumbsuckers addressed to his African-American readers -- he has
"no close black friends," he fessed up in one column -- and what he says
is invariably defensible, whether one happens to agree with it or not.
(What's infuriating isn't Cohen's arguments per se, but the casual remarks
that remind us that he's Never Been There, and has no conception of what
everyday life is like for millions of his fellow citizens.) Still, every
single model in every single advertisement in this premier issue was
white, and readers noticed. Hundreds of them mailed their copies back -- a
wake-up call that reminded "Post" editors, briefly, what planet they're
on. The nostra culpa editorials that followed were overdue for the "Post."
Since then, the "Post Magazine" has grown up into a stylish yuppie "city"
magazine, only more political than most.
-- Steve Badrich
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