The Cover Story, Done Right

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"Is GoogleGOOG Too Powerful?"

The words jumped out at me from the cover of the current Business Week, and not because The Business Press Maven thinks Google definitely is.

I just think magazine cover stories have a weird way of being, well, too powerful. As in: Way.

The media -- and not just the business media -- has this well-documented (or totally coincidental -- take your pick, I soon will) knack for calling someone's high point, their peak in the public eye, if inadvertently.

It's called the Time or Newsweek jinx -- or the Time/Newsweek curse in the case of Howard Dean, whose presidential campaign tumbled into shouted oblivion not so long after he prematurely appeared simultaneously on both covers, a newly anointed presidential force. But one magazine cover's force is the next magazine cover's farce. Take the Chicago Cubs, for example, because perhaps the most famous curse around is the Sports Illustrated jinx. The moment a player or team appears on the cover declared as powerful or a potential champion -- well, faster than you can say Steve Bartman -- they're toast.

Why does this seem to happen? The Business Press Maven, who remembers a Carly Fiorina cover story in Business Week that started with a lead about her "silver tongue" and "iron will," and ran soon before Hewlett-Packard'sHPQ business started tanking, sees it as more than coincidence. As in: Way.