Newsweek Depicts Obama as Shiva — and Provokes Everyone

Newsweek's decision to depict President Barack Obama on its cover as the Hindu deity Shiva—arms multiplied, each hand holding a symbol of a different policy challenge—generated criticism from both political directions and was widely cited as an example of the provocative-for-its-own-sake cover strategy that had come to define the magazine in its declining years.

The image ran in conjunction with coverage of the Obama administration's first term challenges, with the multiple arms representing the simultaneous demands on the presidency: the economy, healthcare reform, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, financial regulation, and more. The visual metaphor was not without logic—Shiva's multiple arms do traditionally symbolize the capacity to manage multiple divine responsibilities simultaneously.

The criticism came quickly. Hindu groups objected to the use of a sacred figure in a political context that many found trivializing. Political conservatives interpreted the depiction as lionizing. Obama supporters found it condescending. The magazine's defense—that the comparison was intended to capture presidential complexity rather than to make any theological statement—was technically coherent but poorly calibrated to the sensitivities of its audiences.

The cover was part of a pattern. Newsweek under editor Tina Brown had adopted a strategy of maximally provocative covers designed to generate social media discussion and news coverage—the contemporary equivalent of newsstand attention. The strategy produced coverage but not necessarily subscription growth.

Newsweek would cease print publication in December 2012, ending a 79-year run as a print newsweekly. The Shiva cover was among its final provocations.