MEDIA LEAD SHEET/DECEMBER 31, 2007-JANUARY 7, 2008 ISSUE (on newsstands Monday, December 24). To book correspondents, contact Brenda Velez at 212-445-4078—Brenda.Velez@Newsweek.com—or Grace Huh at 445-5831—Grace.Huh@Newsweek.com. Articles are posted on www.Newsweek.com. *This is a special double issue and will remain on newsstands for two weeks.
COVER: “What’s Next: China” (p. 38). Newsweek correspondents report on how China’s ascension to a global superpower is no longer a forecast but a reality. Three decades after its emergence from Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, China has grown from one of the world’s poorest countries to the second most important country on the planet. China’s new position as a superpower, however, is still fragile and it is up to them as well as the United States to handle this shift peacefully. A team of correspondents and guest columnists share their thoughts on China and its new place as a superpower.
http://newsweek.com/id/81588
PERSONAL ESSAY: “Mao to Now” (p. 40). Beijing Bureau Chief Melinda Liu, who opened the first American newsmagazine bureau in Beijing since the communists came into power, writes about the vast changes she has witnessed since 1979. Starting with the Gang of Four trial, she has seen China’s slow emergence from the wreckage of the Mao years, the horrific bloodletting at Tiananmen Square, the rise of nationalist sentiment and handover of Hong Kong, and Beijing’s gradual attempts to integrate itself into the world. Liu also shares the story of how her family became separated from her brother Guangyuan in 1949 and was reunited 30 years later.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81589
“Olympian Ambitions” (p. 56). Sports Editor Mark Starr writes that although China has been gearing up for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and has high hopes of knocking the United States off its Olympic perch, there is far more at stake in Beijing than athletic supremacy. The Games are its chance to “sell the world on a more benevolent vision of China.” Having seen its advances in track and field and swimming during the 1990s halted by drug scandals, Starr adds that China has repeatedly pledged to embrace Olympic ideals and international standards of fair play. “There’s good reason to take China’s commitment to reform seriously—at least for these particular Games. The whole world will be watching, and companies paid unprecedented sums to be associated with Beijing in 2008. Any scandal involving the Chinese would be a disaster, viewed at home as an unacceptable loss of face.”
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81590
CONVENTIONAL WISDOM WATCH: “Surges and Subprimes: 2007 Edition” (p 37). Newsweek reviews the year with an irreverent look at the major players of 2007. Among the winners of up arrows are Russian President Vladimir Putin, Robert Gates, Mike Huckabee, Tiger Woods, Boston teams and J.K. Rowling. Receiving down arrows are President George W. Bush, Scooter Libby, Britney Spears, the CIA, HBO and the U.S. dollar.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/41964
NEXT 2008: “Big Ideas, Bright Stars” (p. 64). Newsweek looks at the people and thinking that will shape our world in the year ahead.
- EDUCATION: Michelle Rhee, Washington, D.C.’s school chancellor who has the task of reforming the city’s public schools.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81617
· ISSUES: Stump Speeches. Secondary issues—often stump-speech afterthoughts—are likely to work their way into the political bloodstream and yield larger results than the seemingly major issues.
- VOTERS: In the “long tail” era, voters are making sure that once invisible, outsider politicians such as Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul get heard through the Web.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81597
- POLITICS: YouTube and its political director Steve Grove are shaping coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign in ways unimagined in 2006.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81595
- INTERNATIONAL: David Miliband. Great Britain’s secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and possible future prime minister.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81593
- BUSINESS: General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz has become the unlikely champion of the Chevy Volt, a 150mpg plug-in electric car that GM is fast-tracking for production in 2010.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81580
- IMMIGRATION: As the immigration debate heats up the campaign trail, we should be asking broader questions about assimilation and ensuring that people, once outsiders, don’t forever remain marginalized.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81598
- GLOBAL INVESTMENT: Sovereign Wealth Funds. Economists estimate that SWFs collectively held about $2.5 trillion in assets last summer, making them larger than the hedge-fund industry and U.S. mutual-fund giants. And some are starting to act like private-equity funds, amassing big stakes in blue chips and buying entire companies.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81371
- TECHNOLOGY: Cambridge, Mass.-based Harmonix invigorated the music-videogame category in the United States with Guitar Hero I and II, and reinvented the genre with Rock Band.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81373
- WORLD ECONOMICS: Mercantilism. As countries grow more interdependent, they’re also becoming more nationalistic. Many are adopting policies intended to advance their own economic and political interests at other countries’ expense.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81372
- SCIENCE: Sossina Haile, a Caltech scientist who created a new type of fuel cell that may convert chemical energy to electricity at dramatically lower cost.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81389
- ENVIRONMENT: Adaptation to climate change. Since it is too late to stop global warming, people will have to find ways to adapt to the rapid climate changes in order to survive.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81390
- RELIGION: Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, is a conduit to the fastest-growing subset of evangelicals and is being courted by presidential contenders from both parties.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81377
- BELIEFS: Religious belief. There is a mellowing on both sides of the debate over religious belief and many signs show both sides seek to elevate the thing they have in common: doubt.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81388
- TELEVISION: AMC, formerly American Movie Classics, has reinvented itself as the next powerhouse for cutting-edge programming.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81581
- FILM: Amy Adams. The star of Disney’s “Enchanted,” Adams first landed on Hollywood’s radar after 2005’s “Junebug,” which earned her an Oscar nomination, and has been compared to talented redheads such as Lucille Ball and Julia Roberts.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81582
- MUSIC: Gustavo Dudamel. At 26, Dudamel is a hugely talented conductor who has created a sensation in classical music. He will become the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81375
PERSPECTIVES 2007 (p. 101). Newsweek recaps 2007 with cartoons, quips and quotes.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81713
TRANSITION: “Famous in Life, Noted in Passing” (p. 106). Newsweek looks back at the significant figures who died this year, including novelist Norman Mailer, classical mime Marcel Marceau, former first lady Lady Bird Johnson, fashion icon Liz Claiborne, opera great Luciano Pavarotti, evangelical leader Jerry Falwell, entertainer and producer Merv Griffin and Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith.
http://newsweek.com/id/81584
# # #
Loading Menu