In times of crisis, the magazine cover has the power to capture a complex moment in a way that is sometimes visual, sometimes verbal, oftentimes both. From LIFE's World War II covers to Newsweek's Watergate covers, the magazine cover has a history not only of reporting the news but distilling the national mood. This is especially true of the magazine covers that were published immediately after 9/11 and in the 10 years that followed.
Sponsored by the American Society of Magazine Editors, this compilation of a decade's worth of 9/11-related covers reminds us of how we responded then and of the changes those events led to. Immediately after the attacks, TV, radio, newspapers and the Internet covered the story. Instantly, thoroughly, emotionally. It was—and continues to be—the responsibility of magazines to tell the story of 9/11 with a deeply personal yet historically broader perspective.
How do you create a cover that would in some cases appear weeks or months after the attacks? How do you know what's appropriate? What matters? What's right? The covers collected here show how editors answered those questions.
What we saw in the time after 9/11 is that many magazines captured what the country felt—from terror and sorrow to hope and pride. And they did exactly what magazines can do best: Communicate emotion on its opening page.
—Ted Spiker
A former articles editor at Men's Health, Ted Spiker (@ProfSpiker [1]) is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Florida. His paper on 9/11 magazine covers for "Journal of Magazine and New Media Research" can be found here [2].
Links:
[1] http://twitter.com/#%21/profspiker
[2] http://aejmcmagazine.arizona.edu/Journal/Spring2003/Spiker.pdf
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[7] http://uat.magazine.org/sites/default/files/asme_911covers_010924_BusinessWeek.jpg
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[33] http://uat.magazine.org/sites/default/files/asme_911covers_011008_Fortune.jpg
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