The New Yorker Missed Something in the Planning

The New Yorker had to engage in some major damage control after the cover of its latest issue, a caricature of Barack Obama wearing a turban, fist-bumping his wife, Michelle, in military garb with a semi-automatic weapon slung over her shoulder, as they stood in the Oval Office. To the right of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee: an American flag ablaze in a fireplace, under a portrait of Osama bin Laden.

Satirical? In the minds of the magazine's editors who planned the issue, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say, yes, it was meant to be satirical, a representation of the worst of the virulent slime that oozes out of the minds and mouths of some of the most partisan among us every four years.

Obama cried foul. To his credit, John McCain did as well.

The editors of The New Yorker certainly exercised creativity. But they're guilty of bad judgment. When editors plan an upcoming issue - be it a magazine or a newspaper - they need to keep the readers' interests and sensitivities in mind. And in the middle of what is potentially one of the most pivotal presidential elections in U.S. history, The New Yorker debacle holds a lesson for all media from now until November: Be fair, be balanced, think, rethink, and think yet again before you publish something that could be seen as even the least bit controversial or biased.