Not long ago, Newsweek editor Jon Meachum asked a class at Columbia Journalism School if any of the students read Timeor Newsweek. The answer, from all of the 100 students, was “no.”

By comparison, a student said that he reads The Economist magazine. Meachum was displeased, and lamented that his magazine did more original reporting, while he contended The Economist offered mostly analysis.

Let me preface this by saying that while I was in Turkey, I loved the Economist. It was the one English-language magazine that I could count on finding, every Monday at the Sheraton Hotel gift shop or D&R books, and that could tell me what was going on back home. (My National Reviews, Weekly Standards, New Republics and Atlantics kept arriving in bunches, usually months after publication.)

And when you’re hard up for fresh reading material while sitting at the Ankara Starbucks, you end up reading the Economist cover to cover, and you find yourself learning a lot that you not only didn’t know, but didn’t think to wonder about. Topics like the right-wing twins who ruled Poland, one as President, the other as Prime Minister. The dynamics of the tribes in Somalia, and which ones were jihadist and which ones weren’t. Zapatero’s foolish outreach to ETA in Spain. The latest power grab by Putin. The internal dynamics of the British Labour Party and the slow, steady rise of David Cameron’s Conservatives. Reviews of books that wouldn’t be hitting American bookshelves for another six months. The exchange rate of the dollar to every major world currency, every week. Mrs. CampaignSpot and I would periodically joke to each other how well-versed we were getting on minutia about far-flung corners of the world — “Honey, can you believe the exchange rate in Bostwana these days?”

The point being that because the Economist seemed to have a small bureau or a stringer in every country in the globe, they always spotlighted news that was completely uncovered by most other media. (Their coverage of Turkey was probably among the best in the English language.) Some folks might be saying that they don’t need to know the political dynamics of other countries, but the Economist writers seemed to know that their mission was to make it interesting, to explain why, for example, violence in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan was important (i.e., oil pipelines and proximity to Russia, Georgia, Turkey and Iran).

There’s probably a lot of readers of this blog who will say, “I don’t read Newsweek because it’s liberal!” But it’s not just liberal; it’s boring liberalism, very predictable Democratic talking points. (Time’s not much different.) In Newsweek’s pages, the Republican party is always on the verge of cracking up. Democrats are putting their old mistakes behind, and their fresh faces are always shaking up the system. President Bush is always under fire. Pick your Democratic leader - Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Pelosi, Harold Ford - they’ve all gotten their generally glowing profiles.

By comparison, I came across this essay in an Economist from a few weeks ago, about what the toys made in Europe (primarily Lego and Playmobil) say about European values.

On the other hand, Europeans are not as pacifist as they are sometimes portrayed, nor even as anti-gun. Playmobil policemen are armed to the teeth, and have big dogs for chasing Playmobil bank-robbers (who sport stubbly chins beneath their smiles). In the adult world, many Europeans are duly happy to send armed paramilitary police to be peacekeepers, but are fretful about sending their troops into combat.

Yet go farther back in history and violence triggers little concern. There are Playmobil knights and barbarians, pirates and Roman legionaries, all wielding lethal weapons. Europeans can even live with American military toys, if they are old enough: there are Playmobil cowboys from the Wild West, and soldiers from both sides in the American civil war.

The difference is philosophical, says Mrs Schauer. There are no more knights and pirates, so their combat is a “resolved story”. Modern war is “really horror”. That is echoed by Gabi Neubauer, a librarian buying toys in Nuremberg. She suggests that “it is more honourable to fight with a sword, somehow.” Not all explanations are as high-faluting. Asked why Playmobil makes any tiny toy guns at all, Mrs Schauer admits “otherwise, we probably wouldn’t be accepted by boys.”

Now, the article addresses European views on guns, crime, race, etc. But it never hits you over the head of what you’re supposed to think about the fact that European kids rarely play with toy soldiers. You can think it’s part of building a nonviolent society, or you could say it reflects that Europeans no longer pay their armed forces the respect they deserve.

One, you would never see an essay in Time or Newsweek examining what a society’s toys say about its values — that’s too out of the box, too esoteric and abstract when the public, in the eyes of liberal editors, needs to know why Eliot Spitzer’s fall is a tragedy, or how the Democrats will quickly come together behind their nominee. Second, if you did, a Time or Newsweek columnist would not be content to simply draw the ties between European toys and their social views; they would have to tell us whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, and whether or not your children should play with G.I. Joe and Transformers and war toys.

Meachum brags about his magazine’s correspondents in Iraq. Their coverage is fine and noble, but does it really stand out from any other organization’s reporting from Iraq? After a while, the coverage turns into endless versions of “another bomb went off today.” Contrast that to the long-form you-are-there style of Michael Yon.

By the way - I’ve found the Economist’s coverage of the U.S. presidential race hit and miss. (Yeah, they’re a competitor, and so I’ll always be a bit nitpicky about what they’re writing.) But I think the contrast is that Newsweek is offering a product similar to Time and U.S. News and World Report and most daily newspapers, and more than a few political blogs, while the Economist does a pretty good job of giving you something unique every week… Picking an example from the most recent issue, that other European countries, particularly Poland, are jealous of a deal worked out between the Czech Republic and the U.S., where Czech citizens seeking to visit America can now apply for a visa waiver online. Both countries are possible sites for a U.S. missile defense system, and the speculation is that we’re using the visa waivers system as a bargaining chip. Much craftier dealmaking and diplomacy than I’ve come to expect from the State Department in this administration.

Somehow I don’t suspect I’ll be reading that from Eleanor Clift next week.

Marshall: After only two weeks in Europe, I’ve already learned that with the Financial Times and the BBC, the Economist is among the two or three most important and influential publications in Europe. And like you, Jim, I’m already and addict. Why? Because it’s interesting and thoughtful and, even though the stories aren’t longer than what you see in Time or Newsweek, Economist stories have real depth.

That used to be the role that newsmags in the states tried to fill — adding depth to the big stories you were reading about in the papers, and taking the time to write enterprise stories for which few newspapers could find the resources or the space. Unfortunately, like so many other media outlets, the newsmags in the U.S. have gone the McPaper route: lots of flash, graphics and big photos, writing simplified to the eighth grade level, and a general aversion towards risk. Instead, they slap “sex” on their covers, fill the feature pages with big, scary stories about the latest overblown study on cancer or nutrition, and expect us to pay $3.95 a copy at the newsstand.

I can get the inch deep news from cable, or YouTube, or the first page of Yahoo. So when it comes to print media, I want more, not less. More depth. More thoughtfulness. More stories about a wider range of subjects from a broader range of locales. More quality journalism.

The Economist delivers. And it’s thriving. Why can’t other major print outlets get the joke.