Backpost: Premiere vs. Us

Backpost: 8/10/07, 2:54 PM. Just the post title.

So it's been almost a year since Premiere went belly-up. The magazine subscription service I use decided to give us another magazine in its place: Us Weekly. This is, not to exaggerate too much, a travesty of irony.

Premiere was a entertainment magazine that actually had decent journalism and an independent mind towards film criticism. It was on the high end of the spectrum (not too high; that realm is for frou-frou academicishe journals).

Us Weekly, on the other hand, is a bottom-feeding paparazzi rag. Paparazzi are a blight - they are paid to stalk and harass people - and Us Magazine expanded the market for this despicable practice with their tagline: "celebrities, they're just like US." Meaning that US magazine pays for ANY picture of a celebrity doing something ordinary. Pumping gas, buying milk, wheeling a carriage. Thus Us Magazine have given paparazzi to be even more intrusive, invasive, and offensive.

Leafing through the magazine once gave me an intense urge to jump into a mikvah and then burn down the company HQ.

How they dared to replace Premiere with Us shows either corporate ignorance or willful malfeasance.