Making Room for Another ‘Forward’

Gal Beckerman April 30, 2012

It’s not every day that the president chooses a new campaign slogan…and it happens to be the name of your news organization. But that is indeed what happened today, as the video below will attest.

We are tickled, of course, by the choice. As are, apparently, the folks in Twitter-land. There are those who think he is borrowing the slogan from MSNBC, and even a few, like Bill Kristol, who think it’s to Mao that the president is turning. We have no special insight on this. It’s just amusing to see our name writ so large.

On Twitter, though, some thought the choice was no coincidence:

Ben Smith tweeted: Turns out MSNBC stole its slogan from various tech companies, a venerable Jewish newspaper, and Mao

Traditional American went for the conspiratorial: Obama’s been losing the #Jewish vote; now his new slogan is #Forward? As in the Jewish Liberal magazine? https://forward.com/ #tcot #teaparty

And then there was Daniel Gross: Not sure about the Obama campaign’s new “Forward” slogan. He’s already got the yiddish-speaking left-wing Jewish vote wrapped up

And my personal favorite, from Ron Kampeas, of our friendly competitors over at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: @MittRomney counters @BarackObama’s #Forward with new slogan, #Telegraphic

Gal Beckerman was a staff writer and then the Forward’s opinion editor until 2014. He was previously an assistant editor at the Columbia Journalism Review where he wrote essays and media criticism. His book reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review and Bookforum. His first book, “When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry,” won the 2010 National Jewish Book Award and the 2012 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, as well as being named a best book of the year by The New Yorker and The Washington Post. Follow Gal on Twitter at @galbeckerman

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email [email protected].

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