About That New Yorker Cover

Pew's just released weekly news interest index survey included some questions about the controversial New Yorker cover that filled up so much press time last week.

By creating such a stir, the cover certainly slipped into the public consciousness more than the typical New Yorker caricature. Fully 51 percent of those polled by Pew said they had seen the cover art, far far more than the just over a million people who subscribe to the magazine.

Among those who reported having seen the cover itself, 50 percent said it was OK for the New Yorker to publish it; 45 percent disagreed. More than half, 54 percent found it "offensive" and 37 percent "racist."

But perhaps a bigger indictment of the magazine's effort at satire: Just 36 percent found the cover "clever" and fewer, 27 percent said it was "funny."

On each of these questions, there was a big divide between Democrats and Republicans. For example, 40 percent of Republicans called the cover clever, about double the number of Democrats who thought so (22 percent); 48 percent of independents found it so.

The full report is here.