Editors scramble to get covers on Michael Jackson

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-30 09:01

"This was a case where the story broke on Thursday, so we had sufficient time to get decent coverage into the magazine. You want to be on the newsstand for those epic stories where people still want to run out (and buy it).

"But then for our subscribers, who don't get the magazine as quickly, there's the summer reading cover, which has been in the works for a while and which readers will be able to go back to over the next week or two or longer.

Many publications had already gone to press last week when news of Jackson's death hit, but they are making up for it this week or next.

Rolling Stone will have a special "bookazine" tribute, selling at $9.99, with 450,000 copies being put on newsstands July 10.

USA Today has two publications available — one, a large, glossy, 96-page tribute entitled "Michael Jackson: King of Pop," already on newsstands, and the another a 40-page tabloid-size edition called "Michael 1958-2009," available Tuesday.

Jackson shares the cover of the new issue of In Touch Weekly with Farrah Fawcett, who died the same day as the music icon. "It's an equal split," said Richard Spencer, editor-in-chief of the magazine, which will be out Tuesday.

Fawcett's death from cancer had been expected, and In Touch Weekly, like most other publications, was ready for it.

"Michael was a little bit different," Spencer said. "We ran an article six months ago saying he had medical problems and one of the sources in the article said his doctors gave him six months to live.

"Of course, we didn't know he was going to die that day, but we were prepared that he was sick and things were looking very sketchy for his comeback tour."

Choosing the cover photo of Jackson and Fawcett at In Touch Weekly touched off a debate," Spender said.

"The most recent photos have his nose looking so much like the product of plastic surgery and we didn't want a lot of that negativity when you looked at the cover," he said. "We chose something that went back when he was younger."

It echoes the sentiment of Time's Stengel whose magazine got its cover photo from the Ritt estate.

"I didn't want to have a photo from the later, freaky years," Stengel said. "I wanted a beautiful image that ... showed him (Jackson) at his height. ... I also thought there was something poetic about the gesture he was making (in the photo) because it's almost like he is waving goodbye."

Previous 1 2 Next Page