My Baby's a Racist and I Should Kill Granny

....that's what Newsweek tells me, anyway. In consecutive weeks, the increasingly opinionated weekly magazine has gone to press with headlines reading: "Is Your Baby Racist?" and "The Case For Killing Granny." This from the same publication that informed me earlier in the summer that I'm a socialist.

The interesting thing is that the articles corresponding to these in-your-face headlines are fairly sober, straightforward stories -- not sourceless opinion pieces, as you might expect by the bold words out front. The 'racist baby' piece is a look at the roots of racism; the 'granny' piece about the need to rethink end-of-life care for the elderly.

What's clear is that Newsweek has made a calculation about headlines -- tabloid sells (not a new idea for newspapers with the initials NYP.) Or at the least it sets the tone for a new magazine strategy to be more bold, have more columnists and rely more on big names like Fareed Zakaria and editor Jon Meacham.

Newsweek has up front about its changes. "We'll aim to be provocative, but not partisan," a note introducing the new-look magazine stated, adding that there will be more opinionated pieces.

"If we succeed, these well-argued essays will make you feel vindicated—or maybe outraged. But they'll draw you in."

Draw me in those headlines did. But my household gets Newsweek in the mail each week, so we don't seem to be the intended audience. Newsweek said it was dropping its guaranteed circ from 2.6 million to 1.5 million.

What will be telling is how the new headline strategy plays out on the traditional newsstand and the new newsstand -- web news feeds that give readers even more choices from which to select. Bold headlines could equal more clicks. But is there a risk in selling a piece as opinion and delivering something different?