Guidelines? We Don't Need No Stinking Guidelines

So the magazine editors are considering throwing down the gauntlet and producing guidelines for magazine covers.

Now while some would say the Photoshopping has gotten out of hand....

***JUST-CAME-TO-ME INTERRUPTION: do you realize we use the term 'photoshopping' so much that come a few years, Adobe might be facing the same problem Xeroxx and Asprin have? I guess the term is 'photo correcting' but honestly***

anyway, where was I? Right. Guidelines. It's a dumb idea.

I have always been of the mindset the cover is an advertising tool for the magazine. It's what sells the issue on the newsstand and you have to present something there that convinces readers to pick it up. Will a Barbie-esque Drew Barrymore do that? Not necessarily for me, but perhaps it does for someone else. When it all comes down to it, the editors aren't using photoshopping as an advertising tool and the editorial/advertising balance is the main reason for ASME's existence.

Second, the magazines aren't using it as a way to 'fudge' a story's effectiveness (mostly). Now, if the magazine is using the photoshopping to say, enhance an editorial story about losing weight--that's a problem.


Also, is it just me, or did Marie Claire make Tina Fey look ancient? What is with magazines screwing with natural beauty? Now THAT'S a guideline that should be put in place...